Review by New York Times Review
THERE are a few sentences early on in "How Should a Person Be?," Sheila Heti's fifth book and second novel, that are bound to be quoted over and over. "We live in an age of some really great" fellatio artists, the narrator says. "Every era has its art form. The 19th century, I know, was tops for the novel." It's a good line, but one that makes the book sound like a satire - like some scathing and funny look at our sadly declining times by, say, Gary Shteyngart or Sam Lipsyte. Heti, though, is not a satirist. The cover of "How Should a Person Be?" proclaims it to be "A Novel From Life." As opposed to a novel from what, you might ask. "As opposed to a novel made from other novels," I suspect Heti would answer. What the phrase means to acknowledge is that the novel's (occasional) action and (incessant) dialogue are largely, though not entirely, factual. The narrator is named Sheila, and the narrator's friends share first names and occupations with Heti's real-life friends and collaborators, among them the critic and artist Sholem Krishtalka, the writer and teacher Misha Glouberman (with whom Heti wrote a book of pop philosophy, "The Chairs Are Where the People Go," published last year), and the painter and filmmaker Margaux Williamson - all of whom, like Heti, live in Toronto, where the book mostly takes place. Sheila measures herself against these friends as she tries earnestly to answer the question of her title. "Responsibility looks so good on Misha," she thinks, "and irresponsibility looks so good on Margaux. How could I know which would took best on me?" She speaks with that questing and ingenuous tone throughout the book, but neither the novel nor its heroine is precious or naïve. Sheila has an intense, sporadic and submissive sexual affair with an artist named Israel; she struggles to write a play "about women" commissioned by a feminist theater company; she travels with Margaux to Miami and without her to New York; she works at a salon, briefly sustained by the hands-on aesthetic duties of hairdressing. That's about it as far as plot is concerned. There's also an "ugly painting competition" between Margaux and Sholem, in which each tries to create the most hideous painting possible; this prompts much discussion about the nature of beauty and ugliness in art, and the way the artist's personality always creeps in. Sheila herself can be fairly ridiculous, but not in the manner typical of a comic novel's bumbling protagonist. Her occasional delusions of grandeur are familiar, perhaps. ("If with this play the oil crisis is merely averted and our standard of living maintains itself at its current level," she says of her unfinished writing project, "I will weep into my oatmeal.") But her far more egregious and unusual failing is her utter susceptibility to the ideas and desires of others. She wants to be like Margaux. She wants to be like Misha. She submits to Israel. She has been deeply shaken by a former boyfriend's vision of her future: after overhearing her admit to a crush on a New York photographer, this boyfriend stayed up all night outlining a play about their lives, in which he "rose in prestige and power" while she descended to the most degrading possible denouement, performing oral sex on a Nazi in a Dumpster and asking him, Are you mine? "What power a girl can have over a boy, to make him write such things!" Sheila says. "And what power a boy can have over a girl, to make her believe he has seen her fate." While subsequently struggling with her own play, Sheila begins to record her conversations with Margaux, and these appear in the novel as dramatic dialogue. (E-mails to Sheila from Margaux, Israel and Sheila's mother also take up a good portion of the book.) Later in Miami, where Margaux's paintings will be shown at one of the smaller art fairs orbiting the periphery of Art Basel, Sheila decides to purchase the same yellow dress as her friend. This nearly destroys their friendship. "I'm doing a lot, what with letting you tape me," Margaux says, "but - boundaries, Sheila. Barriers. We need them. They let you love someone." Heti has cited "The Hills," the bygone MTV show about young people in Los Angeles, as one of the primary influences on "How Should a Person Be?" She tried to make Margaux and Sheila more like the girls on that show "than characters in a book," she told one interviewer, and, indeed, the yellow-dress incident might have fit right into the series. More broadly, though, the novel shares with much reality television a kind of episodic aimlessness, and a focus on young, self-involved characters who spend a lot of time thinking about how they look to other people. IN the hands of another novelist, this debt to reality television might lead to a biting indictment of the shallowness of the culture. But that is not what happens here. Heti sees the silliness in the desire for fame that drives such fare, but she also knows that same desire is involved in the impulse to make art. (Andy Warhol is mentioned on Page 2.) At one point, Sheila and Margaux watch Paris Hilton's sex tape, and Sheila feels "a kinship" with the notorious heiress: "She was just another white girl going through life with her clothes off." A short note about "How Should a Person Be?" in Marie Claire declared, in classic glossy-magazine speak: "Think HBO's 'Girls' in book form." That looks at first like the sort of glib analogy inevitable in a 75-word squib about an odd, original and nearly unclassifiable book like this, but it's not far off the mark. Lena Dunham, the creator of "Girls," has called Heti one of her favorite writers, and Heti in turn has expressed her fondness for Dunham's work; what's more, the novel and the series, which are both highly autobiographical - confessional, even - share their two central subjects: becoming an artist (especially, perhaps, an artist who also happens to be a woman) and sustaining friendships (especially, perhaps, friendships between women). They also both have quite a bit of graphic sex. And they're funny. Heti, who edits and conducts interviews for The Believer, once asked the art critic Dave Hickey in that magazine whether he thought humor was "a very important element of art." "I love Serra," she added, "but he's not funny." Sheila makes the same remark, nearly verbatim, in "How Should a Person Be?" She and Margaux have just come to a shared conclusion "about what you need to know in writing and what you need to know in art," namely, that "you have to know where the funny is, and if you know where the funny is, you know everything." I do not think this novel knows everything, but Sheila Heti does know something about how many of us, right now, experience the world, and she has gotten that knowledge down on paper, in a form unlike any other novel I can think of." Heti's central themes are becoming a (female) artist and sustaining (female) friendships.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 8, 2012]
Review by Booklist Review
With an ambitious and quirky style, Heti ponders one question in her fourth book of fiction How should a person be? which, of course, results in a mess of doubt, consternation, and confusion. As Heti, the book's author and narrator, labors doggedly to finish her commissioned play, she struggles with how to live as a free woman, lover, friend, and genius. Surrounded by other twentysomething artists, Heti's paint-drenched environment in part encourages a meaningful self-examination, thanks to best friend Margaux's inspiring brush strokes, while simultaneously her courage is inhibited by her lover Israel's prurient demands. Like the Jews, the Chosen People referenced throughout the book, Heti embarks on her own wanderings after forsaking her best friend but eventually discovers that her own promised land is close at hand and accessible. Like Kevin Wilson's The Family Fang (2011) in its inventive and comedic questioning of where life and art intersect, Heti's unrestrained novel will resonate with receptive readers confronting their own authenticity, wrestling with a life crisis, or merely curious about how others cope.--Fronk, Katharine Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
With a quirky mixture of e-mails, transcribed conversations, and prose, frequent Believer contributor Heti (2004's The Middle Stories) examines her titular question by emphasizing that, like life itself, the story of protagonist Sheila; her degenerate artist boyfriend, Israel; and her best friend, Margaux, doesn't always make perfect sense. After she leaves her husband, Sheila-an aspiring Toronto playwright by night and hair salon employee by day-looks to her friends and the world at large to determine how to be. Acts divided into chapters interspersed with conversations transcribed to read like plays follow Sheila from home to New York to Atlantic City in her search for clarity. Autobiographical elements abound: like Heti's metafictional protagonist, the author studied playwriting and lives in Toronto. Heti has an artist friend named Margaux with whom she has collaborated and to whom she dedicates this novel. Original, contemplative, and often tangential, this is an unorthodox compilation of colorful characters, friendship, and sex that provides an unusual answer to Heti's question. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In this innovative novel, Canadian author Heti (Ticknor) invites her readers to share one woman's intensive pursuit of meaning and purpose in life. Through Sheila, who's obsessed with self-reflection, we witness the raw and sometimes painful experience of searching for the truth of one's soul. Sheila is recently divorced, and her friendships, particularly that with painter Margaux, are central to this quest for self-realization; she relies on the desires and expectations of others to determine her own worth. Interestingly, for a somewhat confused character working through the process of self-discovery, Sheila is capable of relaying sharp insights into human nature and complex emotion. The quick dialog and narrative flow make for a deceptively easy read, but to appreciate Heti's intent, readers must be willing to take their time and consider the weight of the questions at the heart of this nonconventional narrative. VERDICT Heti's book will appeal to readers who appreciate an alternative to traditional narrative style and a searing yet playful examination of self.-Catherine Tingelstad, Pitt Community Coll., Greenville, NC (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Toronto-based Heti (Ticknor, 2006, etc.) and her real-life friends, including Misha Glouberman with whom she wrote a previous book (Where the Chairs Are Where the People Go, 2011), are central characters in this meandering novel that attempts to erase the line between fact and fiction. Sheila is a recently divorced playwright--the marriage ended at her request for no clearly spelled out reason--attempting to finish a commissioned play while working part time in a beauty salon where her boss Uri is a kind of guru preaching beauty in balance. She claims what she desires is a simple life of fame without having to change her life. She also talks quite a bit about her search for a sense of self. She spends time with her friend Margaux, an artist who lives with Misha and has entered an ugly painting contest with another painter friend of Heti's named Sholem. Heti buys a digital tape recorder and the novel includes actual taped conversations with Margaux, to whom the novel is dedicated, as well as emails between the two. Margaux and Heti have a falling-out because Margaux feels Heti has invaded her private boundaries, both by taping her and, more egregiously, by buying the same yellow dress while they are at an art festival in Miami. Meanwhile, Sheila has met Israel, who works in a bakery. He considers himself a painter, but Sheila recognizes his real art lies in the sex department. She describes their sadomasochistic antics in explicit, though untitillating detail. For a while, Sheila and Margaux fall into a pattern of heavy partying and druggy debauchery until Margaux pulls away. Sheila worries she's a narcissist, not without good reason perhaps. Claiming imperfect wanderer Moses rather than sinless Jesus as spiritual guide, she leaves Toronto for New York, but she's no happier there. After a gambling jaunt to Atlantic City, she returns to Toronto in time for the conclusion of the ugly painting contest. Pretentious navel-gazing without the humor of HBO's Girls, which covers similar terrain.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
