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DIVA
Joseph Kinnebrew
Bookside Press 8/1/2023)
DIVA
Joseph Kinnebrew
link: read additional reviews:
Reviewed by: David Allen, Pacific Book Review
Wow. A rose by any other name. The Gift Beyond Giving (in this case, a burned-out ex-soubrette) goes by many names: ‘Diva,’ ‘Coquette,’ ‘Princess.’ Some would call her ‘Barbie.’
She/It/They are many things. Diva is a crafty manipulatrix, getting long of tooth, 75 years old at last look, haggard of mien, counting more on her reputation and shrinking dowry now than on her drastically superannuated looks. Diva is someone’s … personal trip to hell and back. The book – a tasty mélange of fictional episodes and mixed voice narratives – is a very jaundiced look at a very crippled person who, Kinnebrew freely acknowledges elsewhere in the book, is based in good part on reality.
Other people are hell, according to Jean-Paul Sartre. Kinnebrew is likely to agree. His Diva avatar – mordantly sliced and diced, hashed and refried from multiple points of view – embodies all that is wrong with modern times. Diva is a diagnosed ‘ASP’ – Antisocial Personality. She cares little for the feelings of others. ASPs are concerned with one thing only – taking advantage of people and acting out endless scenarios of hapless anger. Compassion is not one of her strong points.
Other literary lights come to mind, parallel to Diva. Philip Roth’s borderline personality-disordered harridan in When She Was Good is a memorable antecedent, as is Angela Carter’s Honeybuzz, an earlier incarnation of the cruel fatuous bully. There are discernible whiffs of Hunter Thompson, Rolling Stone magazine, and yes, mustard gas in here.
The writing is impressive. The writer clearly commands a vast storehouse of curios, of knowledge of rarified tidbits that language lovers like himself will surely treasure. Kinnebrew exercises a cinematic command of point of view with alternating voices, including dialogue from a psychiatrist’s office; raunchy near-dystopian scenes involving whips, chains, and mega-sleazy human interactions, all in the service of mindless worship of pleasure and of the moment.
These scenes – many of the scenes in this disturbing window on our time and our culture – are cautionary, sobering, even dystopian. Some trifle passing comment or artifact arrests our attention, on each and every page of this book, reminding us that we are living and playing in a house of cards; with a stiff wind coming through! If that weren’t chilling enough, consider the apocalyptic ending in this super brisk super intelligent novel: victims and victimizers get to reconsider their respective roles, as does the canny reader, who throughout all this is wondering, And how do I fit in? Problem is, dear readers, you do, I do, we all do.
Source: https://www.pacificbookreview.com/diva/
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ABOUT
Diva is a cautionary tale. A woman living on the surface, a taker wandering in the moment. Like many of her friends, Diva is a wannabe diva among wannabe divas. Not enough of them to swarm but enough to harm if you get too close, and yes, there are male versions, but this is a digression. Diva and her friend’s reality is most likely not like yours, not like presumed normal people.
Sociopaths are, by degree, malevolent parasites sucking life blood from us all. Diva is a sociopath!
Lives lost to extremism and damnation.
This is a story with precedent. Reflections of real people whose prejudices, wealth, influence, and regardless of social status corruptions of the soul that damage us all.
A genuine deviant this diva is not alone, you read about them every day. The beautiful people are out there pleasuring themselves behind façades of prominence and deception. Diva destroys people. “Her” world is focused on excessive materialism, duplicity, sex and finally, violence in the extreme. Wicked, indulgent, and self-centered, she is cunning and amoral.
For some there is final retribution, for others there is redemption.
more:
Fiction: Truth often lies in stories based on facts that for reasons of protection remain unverified or may be disavowed.
Diva: A self-important person who is temperamental and difficult to please.
This book: The torment of a sociopath. They walk among us, camouflaged until destruction hits.
Psychopaths and sociopaths share similar causes and effect. Some believe they are one in the same.
Sociopath: Describing a person who has antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). A form of psychopathy. A dangerous mental state regarded, by some, as incurable.
Murder. a noun: The unlawful premeditated killing of one or more human being by another.
Murder, a verb: To kill someone unlawfully with premeditation.
Use these links to view individual books
Fiction
little boys, big dreams & the hobo wars
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Nonfiction
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Art Books
Kinnebrew Retrospective Catalogue
EXERPT:
“I have many questions, Doctor. Ones I did not have before and realize now, most likely there will be no answers to them. That has been unnerving for me. Diva is the thief who stole the answers that proved perishable, changing with the weather, circumstance, and our gestalt.
I feel like a man standing in winter with no shoes. Perhaps answers would never have been of value anyway. Odd that maybe her theft was a gift, don’t you find that ironic?”
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Who?
This is the story of Diva, a person whose story in the telling may help others better understand themselves and people in society who, by degree, pose a threat to them. It is a cautionary tale. Diva, herein does not wonder. She lives on the surface, wandering in the moment, just like many of her friends whom you soon will meet in these pages. She, Diva, is a wannabe diva among wannabe divas. Not enough of them to swarm but enough to harm if you get too close, and yes, there are male versions, perhaps referred to as “divors.” Collectively their reality is most likely not like yours, not like most normal people. Among people, sociopaths are, by degree, malevolent parasites sucking life blood from us all. Clinically defined, this diva is a sociopath!
Wonder is for everyone, even angels if you believe in them along with poets, firefighters, mothers, children, generals, all people except ones like Diva. A sociopath’s wonder and creativity are mostly limited only to expressions related to their personal physical and social benefit, not to be confused with “well-being.”
La gratification personelle. For a sociopath, experiences that do not promote or enhance feelings of self-gratification are discarded. Trashed with disagreeable and sometimes fatal consequences. With a distorted sense of entitlement, capital “D” diva is amoral, exclusively in pursuit of personal pleasures.
A very interesting aspect of “our” Diva is what she is not. This is sometimes referred to as the reversed mirror image. You might wonder how the image got there and does it have integrity in the reverse? A mirror image, is it really what appears to stand before it? After all, one image is three-dimensional and the other only two. Each a metaphor of, and for the other reversed left to right but not top to bottom. Diva’s image is more like that of a vampire who has no reflected image at all.
Of the two, and poetically in the case of Diva, probably the two-dimensional image is more correct. Diva is no poet, does not wonder about such things and therefore accepts the one in the mirror for that is how she chooses to see herself. For a stranger, the absence of an image in the mirror speaks volumes. For her, life is more fun with redactions of the complex. When you cannot imagine, “things” are nothing more than the reductionist’s empty two-dimensional reflection.
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