Reckless Youth
The narrator of Matt Bernstein Sycamore’s semi-autobiographical Pulling Taffy (Suspect Thoughts Press, $16.95) is a nail-polish-wearing, Valium-popping vegan who has a disfigured sense of sexual normalcy. He also has, we learn in the first paragraph, crabs. He is a hustler, and he lets his tricks fuck him without condoms. AIDS is mentioned once, early in the book, to illustrate (in contrast to what is to come) youthful innocence:
“I grew up worrying that I’d get AIDS from tasting my own come. Whenever I finished masturbating, I’d play with the puddle in front of me, studying its texture and warmth. The smell of my come would get me high, but when I finally dared to lick some off my fingers, it tasted like plastic. Afterwards, I washed my mouth out with Listerine–my father’s Listerine–even though I hated Listerine and I hated my father.”
There is more conveyed in that passage, of course, than innocence. It is the kind of early paragraph that discloses, almost underhandedly, the themes and preoccupations of the entire book–in this case, the narrator’s curiosity (he eats his own come), his vanity (he eats his own come!), and his relationship to his father (who, we learn, repeatedly “slid his dick” into the narrator’s ass).
The father psychologically overwhelms the novel. His presence is ghostly and seems to explain, or at least contextualize, the narrator’s emptiness–not to mention his occupation as a hustler, through which he submits himself to sex with men more than twice his age. More than just a way to make money, getting fucked by older men seems to be, disgustingly enough, a way for the narrator to re-experience the only kind of paternity he knows.
Most of the book is spent describing sexual situation after sexual situation–it’s a blow-by-blow, as it were. There are funny moments in the book–“We talk about San Francisco and how we used to do crystal and dead friends and clubs and fashion victims. It’s kind of romantic”–but, on the whole, like certain holes, the writing is stretched out and sloppy, especially when describing sex (“My ass feels chafed, which means this is extra-unsafe, my ass is burning but wow I’m getting fucked while I’m fucking, I know I’m fucked but fuck!”).
According to the back cover text, Pulling Taffy is about “struggling to survive this ravaging world without losing a sense of integrity and charm.” It is a choppy, jittery debut, obnoxiously voicey and terribly structured, but unlike so many debuts, it doesn’t ruin itself on too much plot or too little insight. Its flaws are products of honesty and emptiness–of integrity and, sure, charm.
Matt Bernstein Sycamore reads with How I Learned to Snap author Kirk Read at Bailey/Coy Books, Aug 14, 7 pm.
