Review: Pink Steam
Published by Suspect Thoughts Press
Reviewed by Paul Kane
Pink Steam
The best essay is perhaps “The Debbies I Have Known”. Bellamy’s Debbies are tragicomic figures, rather like Karen Black’s character in Five Easy Pieces [1970]
“Hallucinations” is an essay forged from myriad everyday episodes. Out of one, a street encounter with an unconvincing transvestite, Bellamy gives us this:
Bad drag is always more stimulating than good drag – it forces you to look through the illusion to the tender details: smeared lipstick, one breast higher than the other, a powerful jaw, heavy-handed eye shadow, runs in nylons. (p.126)
A friend who shoplifts is the subject of “Complicity”, and this piece is organised around a list of things that Bellamy’s friend has stolen for her. There is wisdom to be found here, of an equivalent order as can be found in the thoughts of the Maggid of Mezeritch. Her final conclusion: “When I pay full price for something I feel defeated.”
Dodie Bellamy is a smart, interesting woman. Pink Steam
Paul Kane lives and works in Manchester, England. He welcomes responses to his reviews and can be contacted at pkane853@yahoo.co.uk
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