My Dead Pets Are Interesting by Lenore Zion (A Review By Thomas Michael Duncan)

TNB Books, 2011.

228 pgs/$14.99

In the title essay of her collection, My Dead Pets Are Interesting, Lenore Zion recounts how she told a man on their first date about her dog being hit by a car. He didn’t want to hear it. He asked about her childhood pets, but he wanted to hear about their lives, not their deaths. Zion uses this scene to draw attention to her problem:

“I remember only the disgusting details of events in my life, and nothing else. I don’t usually find these things disgusting, but I’ve determined by the reactions of others whom I’ve spoken with that the details are disgusting, and that people would really rather I not share these details.”

“The issue here is this: When I weed out all the things that I would naturally include in a conversation, I am left with virtually nothing. No contributions. No pleasantries. All I have is the voice in my head screaming and screaming. Tell her about that time you fell and broke your tooth and blood was seeping from your mouth and you were laughing and laughing and laughing!  Or tell her about that guy you saw the first year you lived in Los Angeles. You know, the guy who leaned over and vomited on the head of a little Mexican woman at a bus stop!”

 

The content of Zion’s personal essays is not always disgusting, but it is the kind of content that would be excluded from polite conversation. In “Cognitive Dissonance,” for example, she writes about an obese woman she sat beside on a long flight. Zion wishes that the woman was thinner, because her “side-fat” invades Zion’s personal space. This thought might be considered offensive for everyday conversation, and if not, it is certainly as far as the conversation would go. But the essay goes much further. Zion shares a strange habit: “When I am touched by a man I don’t know, or even just a man I don’t know well, I instantly think of sex. I imagine what he might be like it bed…” And this strange habit doesn’t pertain only to men. Zion continues, “Now I was fighting the urge to picture this beast naked and trying to breastfeed from my tits.” Before the story ends, Zion depicts this woman as a sexual deviant, even saying, “this sticky fat woman next to me is party to some pretty bawdy aspects of sexuality, that’s for certain.” When the woman moves, finally retreating from Zion’s side of the armrest to reach into her carry-on bag, the author has a brief moment of panic, wondering what cruel, disgusting apparatus the woman could be producing. The lady retrieves a bag of strawberries and offers to share them with Zion, which leads the author to conclude, “Then I realized: She’s a nice woman. She’s not the problem. I am. I’m the sick freak.” This is a welcome epiphany, but “sick freak” is too harsh. Everyone has perverted or gruesome thoughts at times. Zion is generous enough to share hers.

The essays in this collection are written in a comfortable, conversational tone. They are refreshingly honest, insightful, and funny. Zion tells the truth about everything, especially lying.

“You probably get hungry twice a day,” she writes. “Maybe three times.” This is from the essay “In the Name of Watermelon,” in which she discusses her obsession with food. She continues, “you get hungry, and then you eat. Then you stop eating and that’s that. You wait for the next meal. I don’t do that.” Zion describes how she obsesses over certain foods long periods of time, how this embarrasses her, and the lies she tells to disguise her obsessions. When a grocery store employee notices her affinity for watermelon—in what Zion understands to be a condescending way—the author instinctively lies about why she is buying the fruit:

 “Well, my kids really love it,” I said.

Again, I was twenty-two. I didn’t have kids. Still don’t.

“You have kids?” she asked.

“Yes, three of them,” I said. Shit, I thought. Why did I say three? One, maybe, but three, definitely not.

“Wow, three kids. You look so young,” she said, trying to back me into a corner.

“I’m thirty-five,” I said. Thirty-five!

Zion opens herself to the reader without shame. She admits to using a complex set of lies—including how she prefers to leave her handicapped child at home—all to prevent a stranger from realizing that she eats a lot of watermelon. Though she may deceive grocery store employees, in her writing Zion is straightforward about her insecurities. What’s more, she’s capable of this feat without sacrificing entertainment; she never forgets her wonderful sense of humor.

In the title essay, after she conveys that voice in her head “screaming and screaming,” Zion writes, “And then my brain adjusts itself. I remember that most people don’t want to hear those stories.”

That’s where she is wrong. Most people, even if they won’t admit it, do want to hear those disgusting, peculiar, gritty stories. The people that don’t want to hear those stories are boring, and those people shouldn’t bother with My Dead Pets Are Interesting.

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~Thomas Michael Duncan lives, writes, and works in central New York. Visit him at tmdwrites.tumblr.com.~