Grab the Lapels

Adult Braces by Lindy West

It behooves you to have read Lindy West’s previous works, especially her most famous, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman. The memoir was turned into a TV show on Hulu that ran for three seasons, West got married, and life seemed like a big success, even as West continued to fight against those who are prejudiced when presented with a fat body like hers. However, in her new memoir, Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane, West admits she fudged a little. Not outright lied, but definitely filtered her life for readers. That’s how we begin.

The biggest omission is that her husband, Aham, is polyamorous, which West knew when she married him, but figured that if she were “enough,” he wouldn’t want to love anyone else. Then, a fan of West’s work DM’d her, claiming they saw Aham kissing another woman. West called her husband and confirmed it was true. What followed was a book so familiar regarding anxiety, self-hood, independence, and fat bodies as to almost be a mirror for me in many ways. Of course I want all of you to read it.

Due to her untreated anxiety, West clung to her spouse like a life raft, demanding he praise her to reassure her she’s a worthy human. At her worst times, West ate and ate and ate as a method of self-soothing, one that made her gain weight and feel worse about her body. Later, when she sought therapy, she began self-soothing in other ways, causing her weight to drop, which is when her fans noticed her smaller body and criticized her. The main arc of Adult Braces is West deciding she would rent a camper van in Seattle, Washington, and drive it to Kokomo, the fabled place in the Beach Boys song. Reality sets in: “Kokomo isn’t a real place????? Kokomo isn’t a real place. Of course it’s not. Why would it be? I learned about it from a singing frog.” Instead, West decides on the Florida Keys, about 3,500 miles away from home, a trip that will take her one month in total.

As she departs, West knows her spouse will spend his time with his girlfriend, Roya, and West needs to either be okay with that or make some hard decisions. She hits the road, travelling the U.S. alone. Though her plan was to journal daily, that didn’t work, so West did a verbal journal as she drove. Clearly, she could edit these recordings later, but I took it on faith that she didn’t overly edit because West proclaimed that her previous memoir neglected the marital issues and severe depression and anxiety. The verbal journal demonstrates West’s “on the one hand/on the other hand” thinking, which indicates the point of the trip is reflection. When she gets home in one month, she needs to decide what to do about her marriage. Here is an example:

… That I’m ugly and disgusting and hideous and gross, and, like, um, a hell to gaze upon? And it planted this little question in my mind, like, am I like holding on to that as a weird point of pride almost? A part of my identity? Because some part of me knows that it’s not true, but believing it makes me interesting and tragic?”

Reading West abuse her body on the page is hard, especially since I’ve done a lot of work to rephrase any language that disparages myself and improve my confidence. West is a fat activist who can’t release her headspace from the trappings of the fat haters, despite knowing those people are wrong. In a similar fashion, West is pro-LGBTQIA, including vocal support of polyamorous people….unless it’s her husband. Acknowledging that she feels two ways isn’t hypocrisy, it’s honest because she’s speaking the truth from her perspective. Her anxiety prevents her from wanting to share Aham’s love; her morals know you can’t shape another person into what you want them to be.

One reason West is so challenging to review is that she is wickedly funny, but you cannot capture the humor as a one-liner joke. Instead, the humor builds through stories, situational stuff that concludes in a punch line that isn’t funny without everything before, and believe it or not, publishers frown on reviewers quoting a page or two from their books. So, you’ll just have to read Adult Braces yourself and trust that West is hilarious. In between those crazy-antics passages is true, deep pain, a desire to be seen — until West realizes she has to see herself first. I remember my life coach saying she suspected my spouse and I were co-dependent, so to prove her wrong, I filled up a dozen nights and weekends with interpreting jobs. I think I only hurt myself on that one because there are a lot of driving-while-eating “car dinners” in my near future.

Sometimes, life is funny because it’s weird. While West drives toward Kalamazoo, Michigan, which is only an hour from me, to hang out with her dear friend Samatha Irby (gaaaaah!), she was in Indiana, land of corn and Christ. And then, that’s when West saw a sign from the universe:

I’d just passed a road sign so cosmically unbelievable, so on the nose, that it could only have been my wandering mind playing a trick. I’d simply misread the sign, and that had to be that, because to accept anything else would necessitate belief in a living god — and I was NOT going to let Indiana win that easily. But indeed, after a few moments, there it came again — rushing up to meet me out of the brown midsummer haze, a shiny green ghost, its impossibility belied by cold aluminum sheeting and steel.

EXIT 156
KOKOMO
1 MILE

Kokomo, Indiana, she learns, is famous for the Ku Klux Klan and expelling Ryan White from high school because he contracted AIDs in the 1980s from a blood transfusion. Sometimes, paradise isn’t what you want it to be, and you have to decide on what makes you happy and is good for you.

I highly recommend you get your hands on Adult Braces for its humor, sadness, rawness, feminism — and who doesn’t love a road story?

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Published by Grab the Lapels

I'm a graduate of the MFA fiction writing program at the University of Notre Dame, which inspired me to follow along with trends in teaching, publishing, and reviewing. I also have an MA and BS from Central Michigan University. I used to teach composition, creative writing, and literature in higher education, then did a brief stint at a civic theater, followed by two years at a references desk at a public library. I'm now working toward my ASL Interpreter license.

18 comments

  1. I always love Lindy West when I read her. I read about this one a while ago, the bit about her husband, and it didn’t sound great. Also I’m very tired of trauma memoirs. But her humor…that I’m always in for.

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    • It feels more like, to wheel out that tired cliche, a search for identity, a journey to oneself. I don’t know that I would say trauma is a big part of it, though there is a section where she talks about Wegovy and goes over her criticisms of it, only to find out that her insurance doesn’t cover it anyway, and it’s $1,000 per month. Her husband is never mean to her in the book, nor is his girlfriend. There is something in there that implies he wasn’t doing polyamory ethically at one point during the relationship, but it’s just mentioned as opposed to discussed in depth.

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  2. Loved your post Melanie, including, as always, your honesty about yourself. It is a truly special thing about you. I would read this if I could fit it in, but I just don’t think I can. However, I particularly responded to this point, “Acknowledging that she feels two ways isn’t hypocrisy, it’s honest because she’s speaking the truth from her perspective.” I agree. I believe you can be open-minded and tolerant in the way you behave and treat people, because this is in you thinking self, but you can’t so easily change how you feel. For example, I am not intolerant of polyamory – each to their own, and what makes them happy – but I’m pretty sure I couldn’t live with it myself.

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    • If you ever listen to audiobooks, this would be a good one. Typically, West reads her own works, and she has a great reading voice. Not sure if you walk for exercise and listen to books or not. It’s nice because each chapter is an essay, so you can listen to one and pause.

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      • Oh that’s a good idea. I haven’t listened to any for a while but I’ll see if my library has this. I wonder? I do walk a bit but mostly with Mr Gums. Even when I walk alone, my preference is to enjoy the quiet and the environment. I never listen to things when I’m walking. However, we do sometimes on road trips of which we make several back-and-forth to Melbourne.

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  3. If the library has it, I’ll listen. I think you’ve given us enough background for me not to have to read her others. My thoughts about polyamorous-ism is that if he’s into and she isn’t then the relationship isn’t going to work. I hesitated after writing that, because I’ve read so many African books recently where the father has multiple wives.

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    • Girl, now I’m curious what makes it not for you. She’s a fat lady on a journey, though I know books with marriage issues can be touchy for some people. Books with miserable marriages make me itchy.

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      • I do like journey/trip books generally, but the marriage strife/polyamory in this one just doesn’t appeal to me. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll pick it up. Just doesn’t grab me at the moment. And I am currently (always?) drowning in books!

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  5. I’m also disappointed to learn that Kokomo is not a real place. My first reaction when you said she was going to drive to Kokomo was, “Isn’t that an island?” I do like humour that builds up more than witty one-liners. Do you think you’d have to read Shrill before reading this?

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    • I don’t think you have to read Shrill first at all. Anything you need to know, she’ll give you a little tidbit so it all makes sense. I didn’t finish one of her books, The Witches Are Coming, because it was so obviously in reaction to Donald Trump that I couldn’t even. So, go ahead! Give it a read, or a listen, as she’s a great audiobook narrator. I know you don’t watch many movies, but her book Shit, Actually is so funny. If you haven’t seen any of the movies she reviews in it, it’s not gonna be nearly as humorous.

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  6. If she is friends with Samantha Irby I have no doubt she is hilarious! I know what kind of humour you’re referring to as well – the kind that builds. Like a Seinfeld episode.

    I hadn’t heard of Shrill, so I watched the trailer for the first season. Seems funny. I think I’d enjoy reading these books, just for the LOL potential.

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