Bukowski in a Sundress by Kim Addonizio
A Review of Kim Addonizio’s Bukowski in a Sundress
“It is crucial not to win the major award, because then you might feel too great a sense of achievement. Be a finalist, but not a winner. This will keep you forever unsure of the scope of your talent, and you will be able to continue the habits of excruciating self-doubt and misery that stood you in such good stead during the many years you received no recognition at all. ”
Bukowski in a Sundress by Kim Addonizio (2016). Published by Penguin.
This is so shameful considering I love Kim Addonizio conceptually as a person, but I had never actually read her work until now, when I picked up this memoir of sorts. I’m not counting her writing poetry guide I had to read for my hybrid class a couple years back, because that was more of a writing guide book and there was nothing that screamed that this is Kim Addonizio’s work in that, besides it being a manual of sorts.
I’d always admired the covers of Addonizio’s books, because it seemed to emulate this cool girl vibe that I had always wanted to have in myself and my work. This cover also does not disappoint in that regard, because we get Addonizio in black and white wearing a sundress, red scribble, and her name crossed out in the same red scribble. Does that scream cool girl to you? It does to me!
I liked the concept of writing confessions, but I was also curious about comparing herself to Bukowski because of the connotation of that. Bukowski, regardless of many may think, was dubbed a loser by society. Was Addonizio considering herself to be a drunkard who had terrible relationships?
And so that dichotomy led me to pick up the book and write this fateful review. Let’s get straight into this.
Book Blurb
A dazzling, edgy, laugh-out-loud memoir from the award-winning poet and novelist that reflects on writing, drinking, dating, and more
Kim Addonizio is used to being exposed. As a writer of provocative poems and stories, she has encountered success along with snark: one critic dismissed her as "Charles Bukowski in a sundress." ("Why not Walt Whitman in a sparkly tutu?" she muses.) Now, in this utterly original memoir in essays, she opens up to chronicle the joys and indignities in the life of a writer wandering through middle age.
Addonizio vividly captures moments of inspiration at the writing desk (or bed) and adventures on the road--from a champagne-and-vodka-fueled one-night stand at a writing conference to sparsely attended readings at remote Midwestern colleges. Her crackling, unfiltered wit brings colorful life to pieces like "What Writers Do All Day," "How to Fall for a Younger Man," and "Necrophilia" (that is, sexual attraction to men who are dead inside). And she turns a tender yet still comic eye to her family: her father, who sparked her love of poetry; her mother, a former tennis champion who struggled through Parkinson's at the end of her life; and her daughter, who at a young age chanced upon some erotica she had written for Penthouse.
At once intimate and outrageous, Addonizio's memoir radiates all the wit and heartbreak and ever-sexy grittiness that her fans have come to love--and that new readers will not soon forget.
Content / Writing
As someone who knew nothing about Kim Addonizio, from the very first essay we get an intimate glimpse: literally. The first essay is about how at writing conferences, she would sleep with a different man each night, never to see them again. I genuinely wonder about how these men might feel knowing that the woman they slept with has now risen out of the masses to become a well-known writer—I imagine that must feel so good for Addonizio, in a way. I remember my ex used to imply that I’d get nowhere in life with this lifestyle, so reading this and knowing Addonizio is successful hit a good chord within me, but also added to the aspect of loneliness in the essay.
This was a really honest memoir about being a writer, about being a human being, and specifically about being a sad writer human. We see a lot about her creative process throughout, about how she watches a lot of movies, drinks a lot, smoking, quite a bit of sex, and how she feels guilty for how much she diverges into the truth in her own work. She confesses that a bit of her poetry is indeed within the genre of confessional poetry.
It was a savage beauty of sorts, full of brutal honesty. There’s a mix of writing about writing and her creative process, about her dying mother, and then the mix of her sexual conquests. She also talks about how ridiculous publishing and academia is at times (like in the second essay on how to essentially become a writer), which as a writer myself I really appreciated that. Publishing can be an interesting spectacle to observe as a writer, if not just as frustrating because of the way it works as a form of gatekeeping.
In regards to the writing, Addonizio clearly knows what she’s doing in that department. A lot of these essays are shorter, and so when I see writers publishing such short personal essays, I have mad respect for them because short nonfiction (and prose too, honestly) is really difficult to pull off. Because you have such shorter lengths to actually go in detail, you have to be extremely precise and careful about what you put in it.
There also quite a bit of humor in it, which I also appreciated. It’s also hard to write humor, so I applaud her for mastering that art. Perhaps she’s removing herself from the story quite a bit by transitioning into second person, which is interesting stylistically for a memoir.
Overall Thoughts
It’s an okay memoir. I’m a picky person, so this wasn’t my cup of tea. I appreciate her honesty and writing style, and it was an interesting insight to her life generally and as a writer, but I wouldn’t buy a copy or reread it again. I wish I had more to say about this one, but it’s a good quick-read.
Something I did really like about this, however, was the fact we got to hear a woman’s voice in a memoir, especially in the writing and publishing world. She admits how at conferences there are just men who want to fuck the graduate students, about how men aren’t exactly the best at times in the writing world. I found much to admire in that brave stance, and so I really recommend reading it if you are a woman pursuing this career.
