A Little Bit of Evil Cassandra Neyenesch – brilliant, disturbing | Fiction

The plot of A Little Bit Bad it sounds like the setup for a joke: “Like, this white lady admires a Chicano roofer?” Perdita Jungfrau, the author of the story, explains what is happening. “Yuck.”

It is 2009 and Perdita is 39 years old when she meets 25-year-old Nando, who is working on the roof of a neighboring building. She is “tired” after ten years as a medical worker in a hospital, is a stay-at-home mom to a young child, and is pregnant (though she doesn’t know it yet). He is not happy. Her husband criticizes her for quitting her job, and she doesn’t look after the children: “Babies scare me!” Perdita is in her backyard in San Diego the day Nando fell from a ladder he was standing on at a neighbor’s house. When he saw what was happening, he called an ambulance and sat beside him on the grass to wait.

“You know if someone is handsome or good-looking, and you don’t know what it is?” Nando’s face is scarred, with two small spots where his nose was broken twice. He describes himself as an “anarcho-Marxist” and “lives a quiet, dead mind”. He reads The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon during his lunch break, but “missed out somehow” in college and is struggling to make ends meet after the accident.

Perdita and Nando should make an odd couple, but they don’t. They are both raw and fragile, and share a joy in the abyss. (When Perdita’s son bites the face of another child in the small group, Nando hears: “He just loves the taste of human flesh”.) Their attraction is real – there is something difficult and hidden between them when they are alone. When their differences are between them, it feels more real.

A Little Bit Bad is a debut novel from New Yorker Neyenesch. It is released after the highly successful Miranda July All Fouranother story of a middle-aged woman in California who finds a boy’s greatest desire, and runs away. Where July’s book focuses on the “liberated life” of the perimenopausal woman, Neyenesch’s takes a different approach. The second plot, which was established a year ago in 2010, is similar to the subject of this article. Nando is killed, and Perdita tries to solve the case (disappointed, and a true crime enthusiast).

Like All Four, A Little Bit Bad has a functional plot, flying between the daily struggles of a woman’s life, and an elevated, surreal or imaginative approach. My favorite character is the owl with the face of a woman who often appears to Perdita and speaks to her in the voice of a man who works at a pawn shop. Beyond or beyond their fictional journeys, All Fours is concerned with the politics of biology and the “real owner” of the middle-aged woman, while A Little Bit Bad is more interested in social injustice. The military and industry, the “good Obamaverse” and the carceral system all appear. Most powerfully, the book questions the cultural violence that privileges the nuclear family. To some extent, it goes back to looking at the pregnant woman to ask who really feels the violence.

It’s also very funny. I was reminded of the heroines of Halle Butler’s books – Perdita could be their older sister, another evil dork with a knack for doing inappropriate things. (Where (His son bites his face.) Neyenesch’s great performance and sharp insight sometimes comes from subtle things, like emotion. When Nando falls down the stairs and lies on the ground between life and death, Perdita, kneeling beside him, sees blood coming out of him like a “red mark”. There is something here that the reader may feel is difficult, but the story opts for smart humor, and that feeling is not too close.

There were points where I wondered if Neyenesch was purposely mocking All Four, or more broadly the way fantasy festivals about older women are going. Of course, they’re laughing at the sweet Californian notions of self-expression. One chapter is strangely titled “The Roofer Holds Space for My Feelings”.

At heart, this story is sad. A touch of satire pulls you back from the abyss, and perhaps for the best. I really enjoyed every page. The plot is made for compelling reading: the two stories are told in overlapping chapters, and when the story goes cold, the murder mystery unfolds. The middle class is bright and beautiful. At the open mic night on their first day they take the stage. Perdita sings, while Nando, by her side, does an “Irish clog dance”. The audience cheers.