Anya Achtenberg

Achtenberg's primary calling is poetry and that is obvious in every page of her debut novella. Her prose is lyrical, ebbing and flowing like an epic poem. Sometimes the lyricism distracts from the story, but given how brutal the story is, it may be a necessary distraction. Devil-Girl is about a young woman who goes from a grim, abusive childhood to to an even bleaker adulthood. Homelessness, rape, and pornography are all part and parcel of Devil-Girl's life as she tries to find a home or at least a place to be safe. Achtenberg is short on the details of how her protagonist pulls herself out of the muck, but somehow she does and moves to the relatively safe environs of academia in Minnesotta before returning to face her demons in NYC. Achtenberg makes no promises of happily ever after but she does assure her readers that at least the worst is behind Devil Girl.

This work is steeped with suppressed emotion and offers a very bleak view of the world. Achtenberg seemed to be intentionally vague on the basics of the story (who, what, where, when and why) but highlighted snatches of the horrible experiences that her protagonist endured. I frequently felt like I was supposed to guess what the character was doing or thinking. The whole book seems to be enveloped in fog and I was constantly casting about trying to figure out what was going on.

Overall, Achetenberg seems to have taken the idea of "less is more" a little too far. She needs to flesh out her writing to make it true prose. Devil-Girl is somewhere between poetry and prose and that is a tough place for both reader and writer.… (mehr)