I had a horrible time reading Hugh Taylor’s novel Mandala. I hated all the characters because they reminded me too much of myself.
Did you see the movie Greenberg? It made me uncomfortable. But this novel made me want to retch and then claw my eyes out because of its painful portrait of my generation reminiscing about their elite education at an East Coast college in the 1980s.
There’s this great line on page 287: “Then, it was pots and pans being hurled around the room and finally just a series of long, primal screeches as Dede tried to express what it felt like to have just found out that her best friend was screwing her husband. ”
Bret Easton Ellis kept going through my mind as I read this novel, even though I don’t think I’ve read any of his books, but I did see this depressing movie Less Than Zero based on his book. “A college freshman returns to L.A. for the holidays at his ex-girlfriend’s request, but discovers that his former best friend has an out-of-control drug habit.”
