Bryce Rogers Rogers itibaren Magurakhod, West Bengal, India
** spoiler alert ** Kasischke effectively develops the voices of the three young women off on spring break. What happens to one of the world is frightening and all to real. When one of the girl disappears she really vanishes from the story itself in that the reader has no idea if she is alive or dead. The author managed to keep me guessing till the end.
I adored the writing when it is a merger between the symbolist/beat style of Patti Smith lyrics and a description of a glamorous, dirty, lost new york of the past. I loved the happenstance encounter with Jimi Hendrix, and the one with Salvidor Dali. She is loitering in the lobbey of the Chelsea hotel holding a stuffed crow when in walks Salvidor Dali, who pats her on the head and says, "You are a crow, a gothic crow." Patti Smith gets across the beauty, sweetness, and love in her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. I also loved the insight about Robert that she offers. A favorite quote: "He liked being an alter boy, but enjoyed it more for his entrance into secret places, forbidden chambers, the robes and the rituals. He didn't have a religious or pious relationship with the church, it was aesthetic. The thrill of the battle between good and evil attracted him, perhaps because it mirrored his interior conflict, and revealed a line that he might yet need to cross."