Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich
February 2011 (pb) by Harper Perennial
Paperback, 288 Pages
Review Copy
When Irene America discovers that her artist husband, Gil, has been reading her diary, she begins a secret Blue Notebook, stashed securely in a safe-deposit box. There she records the truth about her life and marriage, while turning her Red Diary—hidden where Gil will find it—into a manipulative charade. As Irene and Gil fight to keep up appearances for their three children, their home becomes a place of increasing violence and secrecy. And Irene drifts into alcoholism, moving ever closer to the ultimate destruction of a relationship filled with shadowy need and strange ironies.
Alternating between Irene’s twin journals and an unflinching third-person narrative, Louise Erdrich’s Shadow Tag fearlessly explores the complex nature of love, the fluid boundaries of identity, and the anatomy of one family’s struggle for survival and redemption.
Review
Gil and Irene once madly in love have been slowly growing apart. Companionship has been replaced with contempt and more troubling an out of control obsession. A love once wrapped in each other has wrapped itself around darkness and shadows as the story leads readers into the breakdown of this once lovely marriage. Gil who is a renowned artist paints pictures of his wife Irene, famous pictures that bare her in various states of the relationship. The fighting and loneliness make for darker or more degrading depictions, the sadder Gil is the sharper his talent becomes. But in the background each exposure pulls Irene into isolation and a place so desolate that she escapes to alcohol to numb herself and when she suspects Gil has been reading her journal, she decides to play her own game.
In one journal she writes her deepest thoughts and shares the relationship in all its honesty, in the other, the one Gil reads she writes to manipulate him, with fake fantasies, lies and things to string him along. What starts off as a trick, becomes a weapon to use against Gil and slowly her words poison his already disturbed mind. The man is no saint, first off his unhealthy infatuation with Irene is not normal and why is he reading her private journals in the first place? He manipulates Irene in other ways by threatening her, enabling her drinking and playing the very deeply concerned husband who cooks and cleans to make everything perfect. But ugly lies and fake emotions will only take these characters so far until everything comes rushing to a head.
This book was like a twisted train wreck with all the emotions flying everywhere. Both Gil and Irene represented so many different things throughout the duration of this diseased filled marriage the reader sees rotting from the inside out. Irene was weak, pitiful and a character I was unable to connect to, as a woman I saw nothing in her that made me feel sorry for her life or for her self-induced prison of loneliness, alcoholism and the constant approval of her husbands absolute degrading of her. No matter how twisted a relationship, there comes a point when obsession becomes just pure evil and these two needed and should have parted ways years before their senseless, meaningless ending came about. It was sickening to me what Gil did to Irene on so many emotional and sexual levels, the more I saw come out of him the more of a complete sleaze-ball he became. Gil could easily be the poster child for “Whiny Artsy Wuss Boys” who get jealous of babies, use manipulative tactics to use people and could resemble Sybil on any given day.
Needless to say the man was sick- he degraded Irene in his paintings and in the bedroom, he degraded himself, he degraded his children and he played games with his family’s emotions and their love for him. Obviously Gil is everything you don’t want in a future husband, any man who is a dangerous fire bomb wrapped in wussy paper, who would hurt your children to hurt you and draws pictures of American flags up your rear-end is bad news. You wouldn’t be wrong if you guessed I didn’t like this novel, while it was written to entice and stimulate the readers dark side of curiosity, I found nothing in this couples sick story to walk away with except perhaps thanking the Heavens that my marriage is healthy, that I can openly say I love my country and that the things Irene and Gil said about soldiers and America were offensive to the point that it angered me. There are so many things I can say, nothing really positive though, besides Shadow Tag having a clever title and cover. I wouldn’t recommend this as it wasn’t my cup of tea, for those of you who are fans of this author or enjoy very dark contemporary pieces you may find a different perspective than I did.
Gil and Irene once madly in love have been slowly growing apart. Companionship has been replaced with contempt and more troubling an out of control obsession. A love once wrapped in each other has wrapped itself around darkness and shadows as the story leads readers into the breakdown of this once lovely marriage. Gil who is a renowned artist paints pictures of his wife Irene, famous pictures that bare her in various states of the relationship. The fighting and loneliness make for darker or more degrading depictions, the sadder Gil is the sharper his talent becomes. But in the background each exposure pulls Irene into isolation and a place so desolate that she escapes to alcohol to numb herself and when she suspects Gil has been reading her journal, she decides to play her own game.
In one journal she writes her deepest thoughts and shares the relationship in all its honesty, in the other, the one Gil reads she writes to manipulate him, with fake fantasies, lies and things to string him along. What starts off as a trick, becomes a weapon to use against Gil and slowly her words poison his already disturbed mind. The man is no saint, first off his unhealthy infatuation with Irene is not normal and why is he reading her private journals in the first place? He manipulates Irene in other ways by threatening her, enabling her drinking and playing the very deeply concerned husband who cooks and cleans to make everything perfect. But ugly lies and fake emotions will only take these characters so far until everything comes rushing to a head.
This book was like a twisted train wreck with all the emotions flying everywhere. Both Gil and Irene represented so many different things throughout the duration of this diseased filled marriage the reader sees rotting from the inside out. Irene was weak, pitiful and a character I was unable to connect to, as a woman I saw nothing in her that made me feel sorry for her life or for her self-induced prison of loneliness, alcoholism and the constant approval of her husbands absolute degrading of her. No matter how twisted a relationship, there comes a point when obsession becomes just pure evil and these two needed and should have parted ways years before their senseless, meaningless ending came about. It was sickening to me what Gil did to Irene on so many emotional and sexual levels, the more I saw come out of him the more of a complete sleaze-ball he became. Gil could easily be the poster child for “Whiny Artsy Wuss Boys” who get jealous of babies, use manipulative tactics to use people and could resemble Sybil on any given day.
Needless to say the man was sick- he degraded Irene in his paintings and in the bedroom, he degraded himself, he degraded his children and he played games with his family’s emotions and their love for him. Obviously Gil is everything you don’t want in a future husband, any man who is a dangerous fire bomb wrapped in wussy paper, who would hurt your children to hurt you and draws pictures of American flags up your rear-end is bad news. You wouldn’t be wrong if you guessed I didn’t like this novel, while it was written to entice and stimulate the readers dark side of curiosity, I found nothing in this couples sick story to walk away with except perhaps thanking the Heavens that my marriage is healthy, that I can openly say I love my country and that the things Irene and Gil said about soldiers and America were offensive to the point that it angered me. There are so many things I can say, nothing really positive though, besides Shadow Tag having a clever title and cover. I wouldn’t recommend this as it wasn’t my cup of tea, for those of you who are fans of this author or enjoy very dark contemporary pieces you may find a different perspective than I did.
Rating
Shadow Tag is recommended to adult readers and contains: Violence, abuse- mental and physical, disturbing thoughts and images, sexuality-mild to disturbing, language, manipulative behaviors, alcoholism, parenting and the exploration of Native American culture.
2/5- Contemporary Fiction
Thanks to Harper and TLC Book Tours for review
I think you just blew me away with your honesty here, T.
ReplyDeleteA fire bomb in a wussy paper. Doesn't sound appealing at the least, nor does the story. Why the effort to write a fake journal when you should maybe putting those efforts into improving your own well being?
Yeah, doesn't sound like my cup of tea. Just reading about that painting is your review is disturbing.
Reading your review and seeing the 2/5 review makes me feel better... I bailed on this book last fall after trying to stick it out to the half point.
ReplyDeleteIt was recommended to me by a good source so I thought the issue was mine.
THanks for an honest review.
Doesn't sound like the book for me. Thanks for the honest review. I am a new follower :)
ReplyDeleteYou are so good! When I read your reviews all I can think is, "That right!"
ReplyDeleteYou know, this book looked so good to me at first because I thought the premise was very intriguing. But then I saw a lot of mixed reviews, some great and some saying not so much. I was afraid of some of the things you mentioned that it would be emotionally a wreck and your description is really good. And I think I know for sure now to stay away from this one. =/
ReplyDeleteWould you think that I didn't know that it was a game. I am glad that Heather responded that they didn't know as well.
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"twisted train wreck" definitely seems to fit Gil and Irene's marriage. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, but thanks for being on the tour.
ReplyDeleteYou've already read my review so you know that I agree with you here, for the most part! The only thing redeeming I can say about the novel is that the writing really is excellent and that alone would make me consider picking up another novel by Erdrich. The book was just too depressing for my tastes and the ending really angered me. I really appreciate honesty in reviews so I definitely enjoyed reading your take on this one!
ReplyDelete