Charles Jensen | Writer

I love this book because it does not let go–of its concerns, of the reader.

I love this book because it tells the same story any number of times and each iteration is unique, horrifying, ruining.

I love this book because it tries to be sexy sometimes when it thinks you’re looking at it.

I love this book because, ultimately, it chides itself for its sexiness, for wanting to think it is seen by you when it thinks you are looking.

I love this book for its multitude of striking lines and juxtapositions, for its liberal use of the page and for its concern with a physical kind of unraveling, for its attempt to be structured but then more loose in association and narrative.

I love this book for the dream about the Safeway when the speaker is sure there will be a hold up, when the lover teases him for it, when someone suddenly shouts “Nobody move!” and the speaker whispers “I told you so” because it is precisely the thing I would do in such a situation. Because the book knows that even though we like to think ourselves valiant, at heart we succumb to our most basic needs and instincts.

I love this book because it runs on instinct.

Because it is a giant sequence and not at all a sequence.

Because its title means both “to smash” and “to love.”