Weekend Guide: 01.15.2021
In conversation with Elle Nash
It’s been a bit since I’ve been gut punched by a novel. More often than not, the sadness creeps. Slowly. Giving readers the luxury of bracing for the crash. A shot to wrestle off the hands holding you down by the neck. I am a nerd. I like to prepare. I schedule things out. I am scared of surprises. But sometimes its good to throw caution to the wind - close your eyes and lay your boot on the gas pedal. Radar love style.
Animals Eat Each Other by Elle Nash, put simply, fucked me up. I’ll let the publishers description do the explaining:
A girl with no name embarks on a fraught three-way relationship with Matt, a Satanist and a tattoo artist, and his girlfriend Frances, a new mom. The liaison is caged by strict rules and rigid emotional distance. Nonetheless, it’s all too easy to surrender to an attraction so powerful she finds herself erased, abandoning even her own name in favor of a new one: Lilith. As Lilith grows closer to Matt, she begins to recognize the dark undertow of obsession and jealousy that her presence has created between Matt and Frances, and finds herself balancing on a knife’s edge between pain and pleasure, the promise of the future and the crushing isolation of the present.
For me, It’s razorblades. It’s Down In It by Nine Inch Nails blasting from a F150 parked outside your house in the dark. It’s robo-tripping. It’s teenage love that makes you punch a hole in the wall. It’s freezing cold. It’s Phil Collins watching a man die, then writing In The Air Tonight. It’s really fucking good.
I read Animals straight through on a Sunday morning. Elle writes like a dream. The kind you don’t want to wake up from. But when you do, it’s sweating and breathless.
This week I had the pleasure of asking Elle some questions about reading and writing. Elle’s upcoming story collection Nudes is out this year on SF/LD Books. Be sure to pick it up when it’s released. In the meantime, grab a copy of Animals Eat Each Other, and check out more work by Elle on her website.
DS: Your 2020 reading list is great. I have very recently started to get more into poetry. I noticed back to back Mary Oliver titles on your list. I picked up Devotions a bit ago, but have yet to crack it. should I?
EN: yes, i found her poetry to be a breath of fresh air from all of the constant doomscrolling i did this year.
DS: I spent pretty much all of my 20s making and releasing music on small labels. I still have a working knowledge of what's what in the music world - but as a newcomer to small presses and indie lit where should I start?
EN: i definitely recommend starting with entropy's where to submit list. not only good for knowing who is open for submissions, but who to read, as well. my favorite small presses lately are amphetamine sulphate, expat, and clash books.
DS: Thoughts on Steven King. Love/Hate/Indifferent?
EN: i tried real hard to get into carrie once and it couldn't hold my attention. i enjoy the film adaptations of some of his movies, and love horror as a genre, but i think i just find king to be so cringe online and cringe in some his metaphors, it doesn't do much for me. the puritanism in his thinking really comes out in his prose, to me. and not in a religious way. american culture, even when secular, just has this puritanical tinge to it that i totally resent.
DS: What are you reading now?
EN: i am currently reading body high by jon lindsey. out from house of vlad press this year.
DS: Your new books NUDES is on Lit Hub’s most anticipated in 2021. Awesome! What should we know about it? What is the ideal setting for reading?
EN: the best setting for reading it is aloud, to strangers on the internet, half dressed in front of your webcam.
Big thank you to Elle for taking the time to connect with the Weekend Guide readership. If you are itching for more things Elle Nash, you can read her recently published story “Cat World” in Guernica. Peace and love to all. See you next week.