| Title | : | After Delores |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0452262283 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780452262287 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 158 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1988 |
| Awards | : | Stonewall Book Award (1989), Lambda Literary Award Lesbian Fiction (1989) |
After Delores Reviews
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Honestly, I think that every thinking reading person should own this book. It is just about one of the most vivid executions of heartache and style I have ever read, and I've read it a few times now--actually, it improves with re-readings (always a good sign).
I still remember being drawn in at first by the rather intriguing cover, and then being absolutely blown away by the poignancy, the detail, and the sheer audacity of the prose, disguised as a "murder mystery." Yes, and Othello is a play about interracial marriage.
Find it, get it, read it. -
I whipped through this, a pleasure. And you can see Schulman thinking through the issues at play in Conflict Is Not Abuse -- the problem of lack of accountability, the overstatement of harm, the abuser becoming victim... all these ideas possibly more enthralling here, I think, because we're not told what to think. The premise is a narrator contemplating the desire to turn the emotional violence of being left for another woman into real violence...It's a lesbian breakup revenge novel with a murder mystery in the middle of it. A queer intervention into noir.
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Probably the best breakup novel I've ever read. Schulman maps the depression and anger and sadness of a breakup onto a surrealistic murder mystery set in a 1980s East Village. This is a lesbian quasi-street kids story littered with quirky characters and situations, but always, always rooted in truth. Schulman's worldview is unlike any other (maybe Delany): her primacy of working class narratives and anti-capitalist perspectives informs every page. This is an early novel for her but the control of her gifts, even as a young writer, is astounding.
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This was another book-gift, presented as "a cult classic or something". It's a lesbian noir/mystery from the POV of a drunk with a broken heart. Unpredictable, funny, with some damn fine sentences along the way.
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As far as breakup anthems go, this is the book equivalent of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.” Rage, venom, and despair on automatic repeat. The main character is a hilarious, heartbreaking train wreck. The novel kind of is too. That’s mostly a compliment.
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More important than the plain fact that I enjoyed reading the book, which I did, is that in reading it, I figured out why I read so much about Ed Koch era New York. It's recent past enough for me to feel a sense of continuity with my own generation, yet distant enough to glamorize. And like: sure. But the urgency of my interest is that I've been reading what is manifestly history as latent prophecy.
The unnamed narrator of After Delores has this misguided sense of justice that is really a coping mechanism for her heartbreak. Her need for distraction sets her off on a murder mystery that creates a lesbian pulp novel within the framework of an emotionally complex story about lesbians failing at being accountable to one another. There are no consequences, no reasons to be emotionally responsible, and positive examples are few and far between. You move to New York from wherever so you can be Out, but you have to do it in a festering hole of poverty, drug addiction, and cool art. Maybe fewer people try to kill you for being gay or a woman or both, but they still don't care if you live or die. So you're an asshole to the ones who do.
The narrator has a violent obsession with her eponymous ex girlfriend who was, you know, an asshole. She continues to imagine a future with Delores based on their past together, while living in denial of the present reality of Delores changing her mind and dumping her for a yuppie.
New York is dumping everyone for yuppies, yet people continue to cling to this supposedly lost ideal New York that was, you know, a dump. Times have changed and so have the dumps. Now it's not unlike those dumps in Staten Island or off the New Jersey Turnpike: covered in turf panels, mounds of rotting trash obfuscated by the illusion of rolling hills. Manhattan's the same way, it's just got stores instead of sod.
The narrator's inability to Deal with the reality of her and Deloris's relationship tempers her darker impulses to destroy the life of someone she used to love. Fear is the most powerful emotion she wields, and in the end she admits she "feels close to people when [she's] afraid of them." So I leverage the only weapon I have, the unsavory history of 1980s New York, by inscribing it as dystopian fiction about its future. I guess I miss Delores too. -
grimy & violent & sorta mean but also contained some moments that made me laugh out loud, some exceptionally lovely prose, and some perennially relatable dyke behavior/sentiment
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AFTER DELORES what? More Sarah Schulman. In this novel, that begins and ends with a gun, she captures the NYC of the mid-late ‘80s as I saw it. It made me nostalgic for the place and the people. I knew them. They were me. But this was more than a pop song from childhood that you hated when young but now resonates with memories so tied to the era that forever will its power surge beyond mere chords. Though there is that. More so, Schulman writes about people who haven't lived in the pages of books. The emotions are universal, even if coming from a mostly lesbian cast of characters: lost, longing, love. All those L words. But the color of their hair, the cut of their drugs, the drudgery of their work is unique. Maybe I need to read more, but the time between post-punk and grunge is a wasteland of disinterest and change, seminal as transition to where we are now, and woefully underexposed in literature. It can't return. Not in New York. Perhaps elsewhere. But who would want it? Why am I so drawn to them and their stories, beyond Schulman's deft touch as a writer, I cannot say. It's in that inarticulate expression that I find meaningful.
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i mean to start the book version i read was really wide and kind of felt like an i formation pamphlet book… so not a good start. secondly, in the front it says “a rare insightful look into the lesbian mind”.. bullshit… its an insight into the mind of someone who is mentally unwell. i give it a 2.6. was not wowed or amazing. but i suppose some interesting characterisation, Christopher nolan should turn this i to a queer film
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lesbian love triangle violence ! women who are always lying !
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This book had gay people and lesbians in NYC in the 80’s and scenes in New Jersey, so really what else do you need? It made me think and was engaging and I’m happy with that.
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After reading a couple of Sarah Schulman’s non-fiction works, I came across perhaps her most revered novel, “After Delores”, unexpectedly on my library’s shelf. I grabbed it, eager to see how her prose was in fiction, and I was impressed. Given her staunch politics, I wrongly suspected that this novel would be all head, no heart, but I was mistaken. I’ve never been dumped before (somehow), but I have been rejected, and I can relate to the narrator’s abruptly fluctuating love and hate for Delores. (This novel proves that apathy, not hate, is the opposite of love.) I read this book much faster than I had expected. It was short, granted, but it was also very readable, with a good pace and fast action with enough emotionality to reel me in completely. The protagonist was, in my eyes, something of a prototype for the Otessa Moshfegh protagonists of late: angry, sexual, shameful, and deeply craving love. Beautifully broken protagonists have their place, but so do the bitterly broken. There’s a scene toward the end where the narrator gets a solid slice of revenge and even though you consciously know that she is being selfish and irrational, it feels so, so good. I imagine this novel was a major breath of fresh air when it came out, given its honesty as well as its frank lesbian representation, but it still feels like a breath of fresh air now (dated references aside, but that can be forgiven).
My only issues were that (vague spoiler), one character seems to assault another and it’s not really explained or confronted, which felt off, and the core mystery of the novel, while compelling, was a bit too sidelined. Yes, our narrator thinks about the mystery throughout the novel, but it often plays second-fiddle to her other troubles. I guess that’s okay, but it wasn’t as taut as I’d expected.
An aside, I read the 2009 reprint and it was rife with typos. They weren’t on every page, but they came up frequently enough to be very distracting. “Delores” was even misspelled once. The typos made this intelligent, respected novel feel like it had been self-published (Not to knock self publishers, but you know what I mean).
I would read this again, and I look forward to Schulman’s other books, fiction and not. -
I kept trying to figure out what this reminded me of and I finally did on like the last page. This book completely evokes Holden Caulfield if he were a lonely, alcoholic lesbian woman trying to avenge a murder in a lower east side noir written in 1988. It’s as entertaining as that sounds. It’s really a character study. Very enjoyable. Sarah Schulman can clearly do anything.
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I have a strong feeling that the specifics of this book will not stay with me for a long time; it is very brief and some of the vignettes felt a bit half-baked. However, the emotional ride of this little book was very enthralling, and that is something that will linger in my memory.
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This book blew me away.
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I wish this was made into a film so i could add it to my favourite neo-noirs
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Anytime I get to enter the Sarah Schulman cinematic universe is a pleasure, but this book wasn’t my favorite. Also there were a bunch of spelling mistakes in the version I read which was weird ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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so good. so. good.
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The author took all the feelings of a breakup and amplified them in the mind of the protagonist. No wonder she lost her sanity. It’s a short read but very powerful and you’re left feeling just as hopeless and lost as the protagonist. I particularly enjoyed the look into the lesbian culture of the ‘80’s. Coco’s stories and thoughts were a nice interlude too.
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this was a great example of a sarah schulman book. it's fast-paced, about people whose stories are usually denied and erased, kinda confusing but with the occasional great one-liner thrown in. demented and hilarious.
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I really loved this, but there was something creepy af about reading it right after Conflict is Not Abuse. Like I kind of identify with Delores and feel like Schulman/narrator wants to righteously murder me. But I like the feeling? idk
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sexy & delirious & lush with heartbreak. (apparently lesbian breakups have been ruining girls' lives & turning them murderous since at least '88).
love the details - how, still haunted by delores, our narrator falls in love with every weird woman -- priscilla and her pearl-handle gun, coco and her fire-fangled feathers that dangle down, charlotte and beatriz's twisted-through love, punkette's tiny tits ("She's more the independent type, clear eyes, kind of naive, but sharp as a fresh razor blade, real hopeful, someone that you'd want to be around.' 'Flat-chested?' 'Yeah, that's her'" (26))
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fave lines, spoilers, etc. -
"When I caught her watching me, she came in like a close-up and said in the sweetest Texarkana voice, 'Honey, take me for a ride in your Chevrolet.'
'You look good in that dress,' I said...
'How good?'
'Real good.'" (10)
"Being out on the street felt better for a minute because everything was interesting there and I saw different levels of pain and possibility in a combination that was somehow palatable, or at least diverting" (83)
"That's when I was the smartest, age sixteen. I knew everything I know now, but I didn't believe myself" (86).
"When the time came to make love, I was sitting on my bed saying, 'Come here,' and Charlotte walked towards me in a moment filled with wanting and compliance. She took those steps across the dark room. She didn't look at me, but there was volition and desire and her body coming closer with no affectation. It was raw honesty that showed me then how much the rest of my life was lies" (92)
"There was something so brutal in her smile...She could really hurt me. And I realized I wanted her fingers inside me right then. They were long and rough. If I was honest, I would have put my arms around that thick neck of hers and climbed right on top her fingers" (106).
"The lights were as cool as they could be...Charlotte was in character now, looking dangerous and interested. I was respectful, quiet, waiting for her to happen." (108)
(TW for a sex scene where consent is messy/unclear) - "Charlotte knew I couldn't have sec with her, I was too crazy. Besides, she had a girlfriend. I would never take love away from another person....Where was my gun? Charlotte didn't kiss me. She pulled down my pants...I didn't fight her. I wanted her. Tears and snot were everywhere and her breath was dripping wet all over my chest. Her fingers were huge and pried open the muscle. mM body was the only thing left to me and now she was breaking that too. I heard myself whimpering in a way that makes people despise you. Charlotte pushed and pushed until eventually she pushed me into a feverish clarity. I could see everything. I was burning. I could see that there was so much more pain than I had ever imagined and I didn't have to look for it. Those closest to me would bring it with them. Charlotte was sweating all over me. When she stood, the couch was wet and sticky and smelled foul. I couldn't sit up. I could feel her scratches, the impression of her grip inside me. 'Charlotte,' I said. 'You're just what I deserve.' But she was already bored" (115-116).
"Spring can be the best time in the city because it's so emotional, but some years it only lasts a day. This year it rained cool and gray for two weeks, which gave everyone enough time to think something over." (122)
"'You're too weird. It's not eccentric anymore. I'm going home.' 'I'm going to cut Sunshine's face open with a can opener.'" (142)
"Every person I've met, I've used as a measure to see what relating to people is like, how much I want it and how often it disappoints me." (187)
"There was only one thing I missed. I missed Delores." (187) -
In this third novel by Sarah Schulman, originally published in 1988, the unnamed narrator finds herself adrift in the grittiness of the Lower East Side in the mid-80s. Recently dumped by her girlfriend for a Yuppie fashion photographer with a Tribeca apartment, the narrator wanders the streets of downtown New York drunk, unkempt, unbathed, covered in coffee and vomit stains, shuffling between her grueling job at a cheap diner and her dirty apartment where she hasn't slept in the bed since her girlfriend left.
One night, she meets a woman impersonating Priscilla Presley who gives her a gun. She begins carrying it everywhere, intoxicated by the power and security it bestows and entertaining violent revenge fantasies. From there, the plot twists and turns, playing with and subverting tropes found in hard-boiled mysteries. Yet despite the genre, the story never feels cliché or predictable. The characters and scenes are so compelling I finished the book - feverishly - in one sitting.
I wish more contemporary queer novelists would take a cue from this under-appreciated classic and portray characters whose lives are similarly messy and complex, characters who are motivated by something other than assimilation into the heterosexist mainstream. (Refreshingly, the protagonist rejects a life of marriage, children, and upward mobility.)
For me, the novel powerfully depicts themes found in Schulman's later works of nonfiction, most notably "Ties that Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences." The protagonist here is obsessed with ideas of justice and accountability, however elusive and insanity-inducing they may be. She is an outcast who lacks any substantial support or care from the world she lives in. The violence she faces, as both victim and perpetrator, are symptomatic of a structural abandonment whose effects are as tragic as they are profound.
By the end, Schulman manages to pull off the rare feat of creating a character who is both sympathetic and unapologetically an anti-heroine, a character who - despite the overwhelming pain of rejection by her family, society, and lover - yearns for love and connection and will fight for her desires no matter the cost. -
This was bitter and bleak, but most importantly, I enjoyed it. It’s a crummy world out there for our alcoholic narrator - I kept thinking to myself, “is this it?” There isn’t any glam, glitz, or 80s nostalgia to sprinkle onto her adrift middle class life. There are no consequences for her or any of the pals she associates with - it’s like she’s living in the shadows just beyond society’s spotlight. The characters are all so vivid and nicely flawed, and thus I saw them come to life off the page.
This New York landscape of the 80s is profoundly lonely. The romance is dry spittle on the floor, and any juicy flashback scenes that I usually hope for just made me forlorn. When you choose to live openly gay and forfeit your familial and hometown support systems, I suppose losing your girlfriend would be like standing on the edge of a precipice, head curled down towards the darkness, and spying your own lonesome, deranged face looking back. Her family (her father specifically) was only referred to once and it was like getting a glimpse of the killer’s face in a horror movie. You’re like, “wow, I want to see more of that ugly monster.” But upon rewinding and pausing the movie, you think “this 3D render is so ugly and painful, it wasn’t meant to be paused here, this girl can barely process Delores’ ugly mug, let’s pretend we never saw that.” I like the use of the unsaid, and I believe the book’s preface prepares the context well.
A very good breakup novel. I think many people can relate to the question of whether two people are meant to be together forever and the fallout that that comes from differing opinions.
The prose was a smooth, stylish ride. Lots of clever comments shine in the narrator’s out-of-hat deliveries. Revenge plot and murder aside, a lesbian narrator is a rare score, and I found her perspective and commentary comforting. The pining alone was just like… we’ve been there, bestie. -
the experience of reading AFTER DELORES shines with complexity and i can’t help but be in awe of it. it’s tragic, full of maniacal anguish. packed with characters that both seem like they would be fun friends to have, but are also the worst people to be around. nothing about this narrative is idealistic. i understand then, the author’s foreword.
but the moment that sticks out the most to me is the manner of discussing mary renault’s work,
The Friendly Young Ladies. i read it before, when i was younger, and so i am sure the whole exercise flew past my head, about things being left unsaid. so when Beatriz says, “we don’t have to stop where the writer does. That is only the first step,” i found that this does not just mean in the fanfiction perspective, but in everything else. reminds me of when i discuss anime with siblings. the mark of a good story is the way you build it afterwards.
so too with this novel. what happens with coco flores, with charlotte and beatriz? the protagonist? hell, even delores.
this is classified as a mystery, and sure it has the hard boiled aspects a la raymond chandler. but what it has, beyond philip marlowe-esque awareness of the elements of the murder as they arrive, is the sense of not just unraveling the mystery of the murdered person, but also how the protagonist finds out about herself along the way. the true mystery of life: the self. -
SUCH an interesting exploration of justice, loneliness, and violence - makes me want to read conflict is not abuse to get insight into schulman's theorizing around these topics, and the differences in how she approaches them in fiction vs nonfiction. what struck me the most was the moment when delores spitefully tells the narrator (is she named??!) that she has friends now. the core of the narrator's anger is her loneliness, caused by her breakup with delores, who was her best friend and lover and everything to her. it strikes me that all the new relationships the narrator strikes up throughout the book are transitory or shallow (with coco being the exception) - the narrator has no real community and it is seemingly this void that draws her to violence against delores for leaving her community-less. i also can't help thinking of chekhov's gun bc pris's pearly gun is absolutely at the center of this book and i kept waiting for it to go off - seems like a larger commentary on the inevitability of violence or the inevitability of justice, depending on how you look at it.
ALSO my favorite part of the book was coco's stories of the women she's loved, they were so beautiful and hilarious in their ordinariness. i love that her idea of experiencing life vs. living it lies in having a "narrative eye" -
I cannot count how many times I've stopped while reading Schulman's work and thought to myself, "Jesus Christ, I wish I could write like this." After Delores was my first experience with Schulman's fiction and to this day, I'm still in awe of it and cherish the experience of reading it for the first time. Schulman writes with a characteristic frankness and pragmatic phrasing that still manages to convey genuine deep and raw emotion, which feels like it shouldn't be possible, but she does it.
Schulman is honest, sharp, insightful in her telling of the story of a waitress trying to survive a breakup with an ex, Dolores. In her journey, the reader is treated to a beautiful portrait of late 80s New York City and gay and lesbian subculture. After Delores is a great place to start with Schulman and the story is a gorgeous and heart wrenching artifact of Gen X lesbian and queer life.
Everyone claiming to enjoy literary fiction should read Schulman and After Delores is a perfect place to start. -
oh god this book was wonderful. i relate to her so bad.
favorite quotes:
“Old flesh smells like soap you use in the morning until it’s really old then it starts to rot.”
“Murder doesn’t have to be a lonely tragedy.”
“There is a limit to what you can do for yourself. When the mess you’re in is too scary and overwhelming to possibly unravel, you have the choice to call in outside help.”
“Cause handcuffs mean you’re going somewhere and somewhere is better than here. It’s like a dog jumping around happy when he sees the leash.”
‘“Stop,” she said. Then she screamed it. “Stop.” She screamed “stop” the way you yell at someone when they’re about to hurt you, so that when they do, your scream is imbedded in their memory.’
‘“Charlotte,” I said. “You’re just what I deserve.” But she was already bored.’
“I feel close to people when I’m afraid of them.”
“It was like the last moment of a dream when the telephone rings and you desperately want to keep sleeping because you know there’s nothing at all for you out there.” -
I don't really know how to describe this book other than brilliant and tiring. Brilliant in that every sentence of prose is immaculate, electric, and never not surprising -- tiring in that the story honestly becomes pretty uninteresting after the novelty of how aggressively weird absolutely every character is and how almost every line of dialogue is a quirky non-sequitur wears off. Just count how many pages in you get before you begin to pray that a normal person who reacts to situations with any degree of realism whatsoever shows up and you'll see what I mean.
And honestly that's fine, because that was obviously the author's intention in crafting the tone and the world of the story. But to be totally honest, if like me you're looking for a rich view into the scale of the 1980s lesbian subculture of New York, you probably won't find it in this book unless you're interested in Schulman's account of it being perhaps the most populous mental institution of all time.
