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    Indelicacy: A Novel
    Indelicacy: A Novel
    Indelicacy: A Novel
    Audiobook3 hours

    Indelicacy: A Novel

    Written by Amina Cain

    Narrated by Lauren Ezzo

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Amina Cain's extraordinary fiction has been said to take place in "a strangely ageless world somewhere between Emily Dickinson and David Lynch" (Blake Butler), and this, her debut novel, is no exception. Indelicacy introduces us to a cleaning woman at an art museum who nurtures aspirations to do more than simply dust the paintings around her. She dreams of having the liberty to explore them in writing, and so must find a way to win herself the time and security to use her mind. She escapes her lot by marrying a rich man, but having gained a husband, a house, high society, and a maid, she finds that her new life of privilege is no less constrained. Not only has she taken up different forms of time-consuming labor-social and erotic-she is now, however passively, forcing other women to clean up after her. Perhaps another, more drastic solution is necessary.

    Reminiscent of a lost Victorian classic in miniature, yet taking equal inspiration from such modern authors as Jean Rhys, Octavia Butler, Clarice Lispector, and Jean Genet, Amina Cain's Indelicacy is at once a ghost story without a ghost, a fable without a moral, and a down-to-earth investigation of the barriers faced by women in both life and literature. It is a novel about seeing, class, desire, anxiety, pleasure, friendship, and the battle to find one's true calling.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateFeb 11, 2020
    ISBN9781541418523
    Author

    Amina Cain

    Amina Cain is the author of two collections of short fiction, Creature and I Go to Some Hollow. Her essays and short stories have appeared in n+1, The Paris Review Daily, Vice, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles and is a contributing editor at BOMB.

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    Reviews for Indelicacy

    3.5/5

    70 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This was so awful. Totally awful. Felt like it was from a creative writing seminar.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I devoured this book in two days! This story touched my soul in a way no other story has. An introspective look at the life of a female writer and the expectations from society and others. A quest for freedom and a search for honesty. A tale destined to be part of the classic feminist literary canon.
    • 2/5
      Described by Amazon as a "feminist fable," this is the tale of Vittoria, a cleaning woman at a museum who wants to write about art, her reactions and thoughts on art. She marries a rich man, and has everything she wants, including time to explore and write about art, yet she is still unhappy.This was not the book for me. There is no sense of place (and I'm coming to realize a sense of place in a novel is a very important element for me). There's a lake, she walks everywhere, there are museums and theaters, but it's not a city. I thought maybe it was set in Europe or South America, but the author is American. Nothing happens that makes any difference to anyone. We know Vittoria is dissatisfied with the marriage, but we have no sense of her character, how or why she married this rich man, what their relationship was, or is. She leaves the marriage to "find herself," but in the end the whole novel seemed pointless to me.Not recommended.2 stars
    • 5/5
      amazing, unique, weird, delicious to read
    • 3/5
      Weird” would be the way I would describe this short book, weird and introspective. The narrator is a cleaner at a museum. Although the city is never given nor whether the book is historical or contemporary, I pictured the city as being New York City. While cleaning, the narrator meets her wealthy husband and lives in a home where she spends her time as she wishes. As her love for her husband dims, she continues with her love of writing and in short pieces she describes paintings that have a relevance to her life. Amina Cain’s writing is flat and that mirrors the life of the narrator. She has two good friends, but even the friendships seem flat. But the introspection of the narrator brings to light emotions and thoughts many women might have.