*Disclaimer – this has nothing to do with my “girls in the hood are always hard” posts as this has nothing to do with nuns and the theme of those nuns posts comes from a line in an old NWA song

I feel obligated to start this off by saying this isn’t some sort of book about porn or sex or some omnibus compilation of 80s skin mags like Oui – I mean I wouldn’t know because I never looked at those things out in the clubhouse when I was a kid – and we never smuggled magazines like that from the 7-11 or tore pictures out of grandpa’s stash and hid them inside of our KISS or Floyd record sleeves (or even that horrible Rod Stewart album someone’s mom gave them to listen to) because I was and am good and chaste and pure and butterflies land on my shoulder and the sun always shines and I’ve never pooped and all of those other traits or things we cherubs tend to put out but put out oh that’s an old term from when I was younger and by god no one puts out around here and like Nathan Arizona once said “no one sleeps naked in this house” so there we are all sanitary and cleaned and wiped and I smell good too.

Hard Girls is the most recent book from J Robert Lennon – an author who I read a lot of even if some of the things lately haven’t been quite up my alley like a couple of things he did before but like everything that came before this paragraph I’m very loyal and will keep on reading because Broken River was a fucking great book and, if you ever really wanted to know what my favorite thing I’ve ever read was it’s Mailman by Lennon here:

Aaah Mailman. Poor old Albert. A mailman that likes to read your mail. And take notes. And make copies. But he probably really cares for you in a way you don’t understand. I feel like this book really influenced some of the way I write and I really understand Albert even if he’s more neurotic than me but we’re not here for that.

A few years ago Lennon did another book – I don’t know if it was a creative writing exercise or something but he wrote first person from a female perspective – what was it called?? Think think thinkity. “Re-zoning”? That doesn’t sound right. Thinkity thinkity tap tap tap. Uhhhhmmm. Well it wasn’t my favorite and it wasn’t the whole change of perspective thing I think I just don’t like first person that much and I remember it being very vague. Shit! Subdivision is the name! But we’re also not here to talk about that one either, I guess.

Hard Girls is basically about two sisters trying to find their mom who left them in their teens who may or may not have been a communist fighting CIA agent back in the heyday of anti communism college campus programs. Or maybe she was a cheap slut who ran off and put out all over town and ran off to somewhere tropical to be with her lovers. Or maybe she’s developing a new sort of weed. For the CIA. Maybe? Either way, one of the sisters heard from her in the present and the other is going along for the adventure to find her lame ass and figure out just what the fuck’s been going on their whole angsty and occasionally mopey, sometimes drug fueled and often sad lives. Whee!

I feel like I should also add that I didn’t grow up with a close sibling. Technically I was an only child and my real dad split when I was a baby and my dad dad adopted me when I was around 8 and then they divorced a few years after and he got remarried and they had a kid so I have a brother and I was 11 when he came around so I never really had too much to do with him aside from cleaning his dirty shit diapers but now we’re close i guess when we see each other and all that but the point is I never grew up really close with anyone which I think is why I only have a couple of friends. But my real fucking point is that these two sisters in this book – these hard ass girls – act like nothing I’m familiar with. They have secret codes and play spy games and do things I would have loved to do but you can’t really have a secret spy network by yourself so I just listened to records and watched Star Trek and old Doctor Who.

Instead of watching Tom Baker and Peter Davison and Nyssa and Tegan, these girls tried to figure out what their mom was up to, how to do acting in plays and also a murder. Later, they head off to far away lands to find their momma leaving theft and liars behind. See? I say I never did any of that but I guess that’s what I did in college. Ha ha just kidding haha lol right ha ha hahahahaha shit. But not as a kid! Constant spankings made me who I am today.

In summary – finally you son of a bitch you say. sure the book is good and a fun read I reckon but it’s not on the same level – to me – as Mailman or even Broken River but probably better than Subdivision but if we keep things in perspective, anything is better than listeria or cdiff so let’s keep that in mind.

FILED UNDER: IT READS AND SPERM IN THE BATHWATER