Reading: Devastating & Delightful

To read Chelsea Hodson’s essay collection, Tonight I’m Somone Else is to take up residence inside the author’s head. She doesn’t so much invite you in, instead, she pushes. And as you go careening forward you can’t help but enjoy the fall. If you’re a woman, you need to read this book. If you’re a writer, you need to read this book. If you’re currently breathing, you need to read this book. You need. To read. This book.

Hodson posits we are not the mere sum of our experiences; we are not where we’ve been or what we’ve seen. Our selves are best summarized through our thoughts. The ones that keep us up at night. The ones that appear on a grey Sunday afternoon. You might’ve guessed by now that this is not your average essay collection. The author takes a non-linear, sneak-peek approach to her life story, told mostly in short paragraphs. It’s personal, like a memoir, but can be jarring as she jerks the reader back and forth through time between and within chapters.

Writing this concise requires a level of skill well beyond the norm.

For me, this is entirely forgivable—even desirable—due to the beauty of her language. I would gladly allow Hodson to pull me to the point of dislocation if it means I can follow her into paragraphs like these:

“I’m trying to think of the hole in my bathroom ceiling as a something besides a metaphor, but I can’t—when I feel hopeless, I turn things into other things. How could the hole not be a wound, bleeding with clues to the past? How could the hole not be a woman, leaking a little every time my upstairs neighbor takes a shower? I know, it’s an old building, it’s a bad pipe, it’s a slumlord’s fault. I know, and yet.” Page 125

“My best friend started doing meth, lost weight, bounced her leg all through algebra class. I watched her move as if her body was math, and it was—reducing each day. I felt like her remainder, left over from childhood. I spoke to her, but she couldn’t hear me. I was on our old frequency.” Page 140

“I long to be hung out to dry, to wave in the wind, to be made good. If religion was like that, I’d sit my flag body in the pews every Sunday. I’d confess, I’d make up for lost time, lost faith, lost wind, lost keys to the new world. Born bad but grew up to be a flag, marking all good ships.” Page 140

This is precision story-telling. Hodson traps the reader in an image so well-crafted it’s impossible to miss its purpose. Her word choices are impeccable, creating a groundbreaking pointillism where the dots are few yet the image is clear. The algebra class paragraph is masterful micro-fiction; the narrative is complete, engaging, and original. It’s further elevated with the use of words such as “reducing” and “remainder.” Writing this concise requires a level of skill well beyond the norm.

Instead, pithy unironic wisdom, particularly as it relates to being an artist, is what’s most memorable about Hodson’s collection.

Hodson’s command of language and imagery acts as the perfect foil for her myriad observations, internal and external. She examines the world residing within, drawing poignant and heartbreaking conclusions.

“I ached for so many things then, I thought I could feel my bones still growing some nights, the way I did when I was a child. I longed for the future as if it would arrive in a clearly labeled box just for me, as if I could open it in mid-air as it hurled itself toward my shoulder. I failed to value its obscurity then, and I’m still failing, even now.” Page 39

“Strangers are the only perfect people—that’s why I keep collecting them, that’s why I see myself as a stranger and I love her better. I barely know her.” Page 159

A mundane beginning “I ached for so many things” leaves the reader completely unguarded for the wallop produced by a vivid image and devastating realization. Many of the author’s assertions and discoveries might seem depressing on the surface, case in point “I see myself as a stranger.” Her unwavering voice, experimental syntax, and quick pacing ensure that while the reader is busy digesting one bleak thought, three others have already found their way onto the tongue. But the flavor left behind is not bitter.

Instead, pithy unironic wisdom, particularly as it relates to being an artist, is what’s most memorable about Hodson’s collection.

“When you’re young, everyone’s an artist. But it’s a game of endurance, a fight against addiction, children, comfort, stasis, health insurance, home ownership. People drop off one by one. No one ever tells you that.” Page 61

“I’m trying to write something so good, so pure, so perfect that I’ll never have to have children; I’ll have created something that can stand in for me, that can live on after me.” Page 131

In writing “Tonight I’m Someone Else”, the author has likely fulfilled the wish to live on. She will do exactly that, as a muse of sorts, in the creation of every artist who reads this collection. The quotes you see here represent only a fraction of the pages I took notes on. I know I’ll be referring to her words for years to come.