Amina Cain's Indelicacy Reviewed by Alissa Hattman

At The Rumpus, Hattman writes that Cain's debut novel, "follows the maturity and growth of an artist, and like Proust’s In Search of Lost Time or Atwood’s Cat’s Eye, it is a novel interested in consciousness, identity, the passage of time, art, and freedom." More: 

Indelicacy tells the story of a woman who desires a life beyond her janitorial duties, a life where she can nurture her writing aspirations and the friendships she holds dear; however, to focus on plot alone would deny the narrative its inner depth. Like Cain’s short story collections, I Go to Some Hollow (Les Figues Press, 2009) and Creature (Dorothy, 2013), the space the novel inhabits is largely interior, yet the longer form opens the narrative up to a grander investigation of self and society. Cain has said that “inner life can propel a narrative forward as much as plot,” and indeed what animates Indelicacy is the thrill of experiencing the narrator’s mind attuning to both her inner and outer worlds with equal parts agency and wonder.

Learn more at The Rumpus.