instant love

My obsession right now is Jami Attenberg, which is troubling because she is eminently googlable, and therefore can take up much of one's time. My, ahem, editor gave me her book Instant Love, and I'm finding it difficult to put down. (Yes, yes, I'll get back to Henry James. He's too hard right now! Stop yelling at me!)

I like the way Attenberg dissects gestures. The way she breaks down why people do the things they do, the way we're excruciatingly aware of each gesture we make (especially, as in these stories, when around people we desperately want to think well of us) and what it means and how it looks and what it reveals about our inner selves, or something. She makes it look so easy.

Please, to read:

"Then she raised her eyes up, opened and closed them slowly, then brushed her cheek against her bare shoulder, like a cat cleaning itself. It was a move that had brought down many a man, a move that said nothing at all, yet had the portent of sexuality. She didn't know where she had learned it, only that she had been doing it forever. It had started out maybe as a way to hide, eyes downcast. But then she realized people didn't want her to hide, so she added the upturned eye. I'm still here. I'm in my space, but I'm looking at yours.

"Okay, that was exhausting, she thought."