Levé’s ambivalence to the memoir as a construct prevails throughout Autoportrait, its own kind of deformation, wherein the act of explaining a life becomes interchangeable with describing an image.
The book is bound by a singular act of violence, but there’s a sense that it’s part of a continuum—an acute variation on the slow, spectral decomposition that inhabits the novel’s every facet.
This is a formidable collection of songs even among superior predecessors.
Timely though it seems, Occupy! as a published document is premature, where much commentary is made but little is actually said.