I kind of wish I liked this more than I do. There are some really lovely moments here and there, but I found it didn't hang together quite as well as it could've. ( )

Really quite lovely. ( )

I picked this up after reading "Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory." One of the stories in that book is a pastiche of the rhyming couplets Rakoff employs in this slim novel. And it is very slight (read it in one sitting at the library). It hit me hard. There are many narratives running through the book, and some of them lightly intersect with others. Supporting characters in one chapter become protagonists in another. Decades pass. History, personal and political, takes its toll. I have to say I'm a sucker for the whole non-linear interweaving narratives thing. The twist here is in the couplets. There's an amazing review of the book by Alexandra Schwartz (linked below) which points out the key advantage of the couplet: there are beginnings and endings in every line. The hard part is not allowing the reader to anticipate what that ending might be, or how it will sound, even if they know the first line in the couplet. Then, at key moments, make the obvious rhyme. It's a great technique. It creates sense of gravity and inevitability in the prose that keeps the narratives from spiraling out of control.

When I caught the reference to this book in the earlier story collection, I remembered hearing an NPR story about David Rakoff's death. I think it probably mentioned this novel. I remember thinking that I would never read something so squishy and boring and twee as a public radio-endorsed novel-in-couplets about love and death (I was 18). Well I sure showed me.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/david-rakoffs-heroic-couplets

I savored Love...Perish over the course of a month or so, rationing just a few stanzas every night before bed, afraid for it to end, knowing the cold truth that, once it was finished, there would be no more. David Rakoff has left us mortals here to sweat and stagger, taking his place in the pantheon.

But it must be finished, and this muggy August morning, I blew my diet, taking the book with me on the subway. The end was near, and I just couldn't stop reading. I read among the crush of rush-hour commuters and up the stairs into the sunny morning haze. I read while walking along the streets of Dumbo, under the rumble of Manhattan Bridge traffic, and came to the last couplet just as I reached my office door. Tears in my eyes, I steadied myself against the limestone building, took a deep breath, and read it again. Manhattan in the distance, I said goodbye. ( )

I read it for the poetry gimmick, but the story didn't add up to much. I think Rakoff must have struggled with the format. It is very fragmentary puzzle, and we seem to be missing half the pieces. My favorite novel in verse is still Vikram Seth's "The Golden Gate." ( )