“i am just flower and cleavage”
The Italy Letters, by Vi Khi Nao, is 4.7 x 6.8 x 0.4 inches & 192 pages.
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The lemon under the arm is a perfect image for Vi Khi Nao’s The Italy Letters: odd, sharp, appealing.
Published in August this year, The Italy Letters is an epistolary project. One lover, in Las Vegas, writes to another, in Italy. It’s got that verve of wanting to impress, which means that skulking under its wit is a subtle desperation. It’s gorgeous. It’s stylish! It’s queer and horny and yearning. It’s a book in a state of suspension, well-described by this line from the narrator:
The book also captures the yawn of space between the two subjects: the absent lover in Italy and the unnamed letter-writer, in Las Vegas, described thusly:
UGH I hate the word thusly, and yet I wrote it and I can’t go changing it because of my current mood. So I’ll use it again, about this passage in which someone self-deprecates and makes themselves memorable by describing the way how they aren’t memorable, thusly:
These and more perfect little verbal flips abound in The Italy Letters, a quick and punchy and sneaky heart-breaking little novel.
And, fantastic news, Vi Khi Nao recommends a Purse Book for us:
Daisuke Shen’s Vague Predictions & Prophecies, which Vi describes as: “Sharp in pungency and volatile like soy nuts in their composition, Shen’s recklessly unforgettable characters are wasabi-like in their delivery and psyche-stimulating in their inventions. Shen’s stories capture their suffering, distress, oddity, madness, futility, dejection, love, and misery with depths of empathy, sharp honesty, and clear foreshadowing.”