Give Sorrow Words: Maryse Holder's Letters From Mexico

by Maryse Holder, Kate Millett, Edith Jones, et al.

Book Overview

One woman's shocking descent into a provocative world of lust and danger. As Maryse Holder's letters explore the last, eventful months in her life, they speak directly to the reader--forcing us to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0692292349
• ISBN13: 9780692292341
• Release Date: October 2014
• Publisher: Holder & Jones Publishers
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Mindblowing searing honesty

Holder, a Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature, goes on personal odessey to Mexico, seeks sexual freedom, which she feels is denied to her in ultramacho heterosexual America, gets revelations, sends back letters in prearranged agreement with one friend to get letters published as book, and is murdered by lover whom she hoped to bring back to her home in New York City. Brilliant side essays on various topics, as well as investigation into true self (or selves).

Investigation of mystery--one's true self

Mindblowing, searingly honest search for self by woman whose true identity (beautiful, vibrant) had been masked by deformity (some facial paralysis on one side caused by childhood surgery). Maryse, a brillint academic (enrolled in Ph. D. comparative literature program in New York City , CCNY) set out on personal and sexual odyssey in Mexico.Graphic and hauntingly beautiful descriptions of Mexican culture, including machismo and violence.

Riveting and disturbing

I have to disagree with the reviewer below. Throughout this book, Maryse Holder was obsessed with her looks: "I had taken the last step--had killed my beauty." "I'm quite fat." "...my anxiety about my creepy nine-years-older flesh..." And on and on. In the epilog, after her death, the writer goes on at some length about her looks: "Her enormous chic made it difficult to regard her as squat, but she was...She had grape-trampling flat feet, which she ignored, except when she wanted sympathy." It's one of the central themes of the book and you can't help but wonder what she did look like.There's shining beauty in the writing, but there's also ugly self absorption and vanity, the kind that's exacerbated by alcholism and days of taking drugs. To be fair, these are a series of letters home, published after her death. As such, they're raw and perhaps not how someone would choose to portray herself. The net effect of the book is to make you think Maryse Holder went to Mexico and remained drunk and stoned, picked up young Mexican men to try and shore up her disintegratingsense of self. This book is the rstory one woman's alcoholic descent, and it's heartbreaking. Because despite all that, she was an astonishing writer.

"I need a friend, respectability, beauty, to be desired."

Usually I mind my own business, but I'm goaded into writing this by the single review now posted here, which misses the point so very completely. I wish I could articulately express in 1000 words or less why this book is important, and how painfully ironic it is that the lone male reviewer is concerned about racism and what Maryse Holder looks like! Maryse was tormented by her perceived lack of beauty, and she was killed for being an uppity woman. But never mind, it is the language and the honesty of this book that are so mindblowing. This is a powerful, uncensored, authentic voice. This is a great book. Its contents prove Maryse Holder was an artist, and its very existance proves she was loved. Read it, if you can find it.

"I need a friend, respectability, beauty, to be desired."

Usually I mind my own business, but I'm goaded into writing this by the single review now posted here, which misses the point so very completely. I wish I could articulately express in 1000 words or less why this book is important, and how painfully ironic it is that the lone male reviewer is concerned about racism and what Maryse Holder looks like! Maryse was tormented by her perceived lack of beauty, and she was killed for being an uppity woman. But never mind, it is the language and the honesty of this book that is so mindblowing. This is a powerful, uncensored, authentic voice. This is a great book. Its contents prove Maryse Holder was an artist, and its very existance proves she was loved. Read it, if you can find it.