Review - "As I Descended"

As I Descended
by Robin Talley
rating:☆☆
published: 6th September 2016
spoilers? yes

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it's actually a good book, and well-written, and I liked most of the characters. On the other hand, I might describe it as an exercise in how not to write an LGBT Shakespeare adaptation (if I'm being particularly harsh).

It took me a while to get properly into this book. I read the first chapter, then had the sudden (late) revelation that everyone in Macbeth dies, and for a book full of LGBT main characters, that isn't what I want to be reading about. At which point, I took a two week hiatus from reading it.

When I finally picked it back up, it was less because I wanted to read it and more that I couldn't bear knowing it still needed finishing. And it was all going well up until the 60% mark, when Brandon died and so did my motivation. Because I did know that someone was going to have to die, and the likelihood was that it would be an LGBT character, but I hadn't quite clocked that this one was the Banquo of the cast. And he was my favourite of the main characters.

This time there wasn't a two week pause, but I was pretty reluctant to pick it back up again. I think I skim read some of the scenes near the end in a desperate attempt to finish the book.

I'm not against characters dying, and I know that going into this that was to be wholly expected. And the characters didn't just die for shock value - they died because that was what Shakespeare wrote and the adaptation had to be mostly true to the play. What I didn't like was that 3 of the 4 LGBT characters in this book died. And one of them was the disabled character. Which seems pretty bad thinking from the author, in my opinion. I know their deaths aren't quite the same as authors who bury their gays, but it would have been so easy for, say the Banquo character, to go into a coma instead of dying. Or make them not gay. Or have the disabled character be the one who survives. I understand that's kind of hard if you're aiming to write a lesbian version of Macbeth, but I would so much rather have some bullshit deus ex machina reason for them living than read a book where three quarters of the LGBT characters die. And to top it off (aka the reason this pisses me off as much as it does), the straight character goes into a coma and wakes up. Thanks for that.

There were a couple of other bits I was leery about. When we first meet Mateo, and he's musing on Maria and Lily's relationship, he comments that both those girls seemed way too uptight to like pussy. Thanks mate. Then there's also the part where Maria, hearing Mateo has won a prize ahead of her, thinks something about him winning it because he's gay or whatever, conveniently seeming to forget that she has a girlfriend. But I suppose that's part of her deterioration towards the end.

Before both she and said girlfriend die.

At least Mateo got a happy ending, right?