Friday, April 17, 2020 — 6
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Peter 
Kispert’s 
debut 
collection 

of short stories is linked together by 

characters who, in one way or another, 

lie to their loved ones. These lies are 

sometimes 
huge 
and 
elaborately 

maintained for months. The title story, 

for instance, is about a narrator who 

makes up a friend so that his boyfriend 

doesn’t think he’s lonely. When the 

narrator’s boyfriend gets suspicious, 

the narrator hires an actor to pretend 

to be the friend and meet both of them 

for coffee. Kispert’s book travels the 

continuum between harmless white lies 

and the complete fabrication of one’s 

own identity, prompting questions such 

as what it means to be truthful, what lies 

do to relationships and how lies shape 

our own perceptions of ourselves. 

The first thing that struck me about 

this book was how hard it was to hate the 

main characters, despite knowing the 

often deep and serious lies they’ve told. 

Though very few of them draw a strong 

sense of sympathy from the reader, none 

can be thought of as bad people. I imagine 

this is due to Kisper’s shying away from 

turning his characters into unreliable 

narrators. Though many of the stories 

are told in the first person from the 

point of view of habitual liars, there is no 

indication that the characters are being 

dishonest to the reader. They’re usually 

open about their flaws, so the reader feels 

hyperaware of the characters’ thought 

processes. 

This method of keeping characters 

relatable does, however, come at a 

cost. A character type that is explored 

frequently in this book is the compulsive 

liar. Kispert attempts to introduce 

complexity to the reader’s perception 

of such characters by portraying them 

not as someone who simply lies a lot, 

but as someone whose state of mind is 

comparable to that of an addict. Essential 

to this goal is maintaining the reader’s 

trust by avoiding the unreliable narrator. 

This strategy is successful insofar as it 

creates characters that, if not worthy of 

praise, are at least worthy of sympathy. It 

falls short when Kispert tries to express 

the cognitive dissonance that allows 

these characters to simultaneously 

value their relationships while also 

jeopardizing those relationships with 

their habitual lying. Kispert intends to 

portray them such that their lies aren’t 

malicious. They’re just trying to salvage 

their relationships, but fail to realize 

that their dishonesty causes more harm 

than whatever is avoided in telling the 

lie. When told from the first person, they 

seem to recognize this, but they can only 

be sympathized with insofar as they fail 

to recognize it.

The best example of this is in 

“Rorschach.” The narrator is attending a 

pseudo-therapy session with Noah, a guy 

he’s interested in. Noah asks the narrator, 

“How does that make you feel? That you 

don’t feel sick?” The narrator then thinks 

to himself and the reader, “I gave him 

an odd look — what a stupid question. A 

little mean, but I excused it. I hoped my 

intelligence hurt him.” The narrator in 

this case is too deliberate in his thinking 

to be sympathetic. There’s no inner 

conflict; he isn’t fighting his character 

flaws, he’s leaning into them. The 

narrator can only be as honest with the 

reader as the narrator is with themself, 

but for the reader to sympathize with 

the narrator, the narrator needs to be 

somewhat dishonest with themself and 

therefore the reader. This puts Kispert in 

a catch-22 where he can’t fully make his 

point without breaking the reader’s trust, 

so the characters come off as too self-

aware, too clear in their thinking. This 

paradox is, of course, a huge part of what 

makes the subject matter so interesting. 

I think Kispert strikes a good balance 

between these two poles, but ideally 

there would be a way to circumvent the 

problem altogether.

Another major theme Kispert works 

with is how truth and lies are related to 

homosexuality. The main character of 

nearly every story in the collection is a 

gay man, and their lived experiences as 

gay men color how honesty manifests 

itself in each of them. The book deals 

with characters who have had to hide a 

fundamental part of their identity, using 

them as thought-provoking test cases 

for the question of when, if ever, is it 

acceptable to lie. This is exemplified in 

“River is to Ocean as ____ is to Heart,” in 

which the main character, Ty, negotiates 

with himself his desire to be seen as 

masculine as he cautiously comes to 

terms with his homosexuality. This 

creates an inner conflict that complicates 

questions about honesty. 

“I Know You Know Who I Am” 

grapples with interesting philosophical 

problems by grounding them in real 

experiences and presenting the nuance 

that emerges. Kispert is careful not to 

spoon-feed the reader answers, and 

instead remains agnostic on difficult 

questions he doesn’t have the answers to. 

Kispert’s book is worth a read and, given 

that it’s his first, I’m optimistic about 

anything he might write in the future.

Truth and lies in ‘I Know Who I Am’

SEJJAD ALKHALBY

Daily Arts Writer

BOOK REVIEW

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
A few not so famous last words

ELI RALLO

Daily Arts Writer

Sometimes, writing pours from 

me— hours fall from my grip and the 

practice renders me tranquil by way of 

its leisurely, meditative nature. Poems 

fill pages and characters in lengthy 

plays and short stories begin to write 

themselves— I can see the whites of 

their eyes between the lines of a bright 

document by the time I reach their final 

words. Other times, writing reminds 

me of an unending uphill sprint. Lately, 

I’ve felt winded.

I digress. 

J.K. Rowling wrote her way out of 

extreme poverty. Sylvia Plath wrote 

through seven years of crippling 

manic-depressive 
disorder. 
Emily 

Dickinson managed lively poems from 

the bouts of self-seclusion. Hemingway 

wrote through a first-hand experience 

with both World Wars and diagnosed 

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. 

I remind myself of all of these 

literary heroes when I hit a brick wall 

of writer’s block, armed with nothing 

but my weak arms to knock it down. 

It isn’t a helpful practice, but one I 

fall into nonetheless. When all of this 

happened, I told myself: I should write. 

But I sit down with the greatest of 

intentions and it’s not that easy. These 

days, unless met by a deadline, I lack 

the desire to graze my fingers over 26 

letters on a keyboard and tell stories. 

When I’m not putting pressure on 

myself to be productive, I wade in 

hot guilt. I’ve known for a while now 

what I wanted to write my last piece 

for The Michigan Daily about. With 

circumstances, our writing changes. 

Words are malleable. As it turns out, I 

am too. 

***

I joined The Michigan Daily when 

my first serious boyfriend and I broke 

up. On a December night, the brink 

of a predicted snowstorm awaited 

us as I walked away from a person 

whom I thought I loved following a 

hasty conversation in an Ann Arbor 

church parking lot. I retreated to my 

dorm room and tearfully submitted an 

application to The Daily’s arts section. 

I had put off joining any clubs for my 

first semester of college, hoping to 

get settled first. I craved distraction 

and figured joining communities on 

campus would be the remedy. 

Someone recently told me you 

have to let yourself feel everything, 

especially the tough things. At the 

time of the breakup, I hadn’t heard 

this advice. I didn’t want to face the 

tough things. So instead of facing any 

strong emotion at all, I quelled my 

bitter sadness by filling my life with 

clubs and groups and obligations that 

exhausted my days so I hardly had time 

to dwell on love lost. The opportunities 

I sought out to stave off my sadness and 

self-doubt taught me, pushed me and 

enthralled me. I stuck with them — 

theater groups, three minors and every 

writing opportunity I could grasp — 

for all four years of my undergraduate 

education. They entered my life 

at a time when I thought I needed 

distraction, when in fact I needed to 

find myself. I wanted my ex-boyfriend 

to envy my productivity and stacked 

resume though my prospects were 

no longer about him. The choices 

I made both frustrate and ground 

me. I am thankful for choosing to 

join The Michigan Daily and other 

organizations on campus — these were 

good choices. But I needed to do it for 

me and not for the approval of someone 

else. Perhaps this crippling awareness 

is proof of four years of growth. 

I can’t pinpoint the moment I 

decided I was going to dedicate my 

life to writing. I do know that my first 

article for The Michigan Daily was 

published Dec. 12, 2016. It was about 

my passionate distaste for censorship, 

specifically regarding books — my first 

byline. I remember holding the paper 

in my hands in the lobby of East Quad. 

I remember leaving my first meeting 

in the newsroom and calling my 

mom to tell her I felt like I was finally 

“somewhere I was supposed to be.”

In the shadow of global 

trauma, I am drawn to the 

apogee of Midwest Emo — the 
twenty-year-old heartbreaking 
masterwork that is American 

Football’s self-titled album

Sad world? Unleash 

your inner emo

MIDWEST COLUMN

MAXWELL SCHWARZ

Daily Midwest Columnist

Sadness can’t belong to anyone. 

To drown in the swell of sadness is 

as human as breathing, even if the 

thought scares us. At the same time, 

our identifications with others, 

with ideas, with collective identities 

can trap us into shared traumas, 

cornering us into communal misery. 

The 
agonizing 
performances 

through which we disgorge this 

misery become communal, too. The 

screaming, the hollow poetry. In 

the shadow of a global trauma, I am 

drawn back to these expressions — 

to the apogee of Midwest Emo, to 

the twenty-year old heartbreaking 

masterwork 
that 
is 
American 

Football’s self-titled album.

In the mid-90s, something was 

going on in Illinois. Whatever it was, 

it made the youth there feel restless, 

alienated and reflective. Bands like 

Sunny Day Real Estate from Seattle 

were emerging, drawing from sounds 

like Nirvana, U2, Talking Heads and 

Deep Purple to create an iconic, deep 

emotional experience. They released 

“Diary” in 1994 to critical acclaim. 

At the same time, Mark Kinsella 

and his brother Tim were bouncing 

around Champaign, Illinois. They 

put together Cap’n Jazz and released 

“Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork 

Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, 

Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung 

Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We’ve 

Slipped On and Egg Shells We’ve 

Tippy Toed Over” in 1995. It’s been 

out of print for a long time, but the 

raw energy it produced carried on. 

Mike Kinsella initially harnessed 

that energy in creating Joan of Arc, 

a band whose sound featured dark, 

multi-layered acoustics and soft 

electronics. But then came Kinsella’s 

American Football in 1999.

American Football has haunted 

me for a long while now. The hectic 

and thick guitar riffs layered over 

distant, hopeless vocals create a 

sense of nostalgia for something that 

has never existed. The anti-rhythm 

that most of American Football’s 

songs drum along to is both 

affecting and disorienting. Their 

music recalls ideas and memories 

that are aesthetically afflicted. 

The near absence of vocals forces 

listeners to make sense of the layered 

instruments, to paint pictures out of 

the sound. What emerges reaches 

deep into the soul and tears your 

heart out. 

The band’s sound, with its 

irregular time signatures, draws 

on math rock. The songs American 

Football produces are meant to draw 

attention to itself, to break free from 

convention and pattern. Sometimes, 

songs will change time signatures 

mid-song, like in “Honestly,” which 

returns to standard time for its 

extensive riff-driven ending, each 

beat enunciated because listeners 

easily cling to the pattern. Likewise, 

American Football’s sound is heavily 

influenced by indie-rock. Catchy, 

almost-dreamy riffs are layered over 

distant vocals. The lyrics are sparse 

on most of the songs on the LP. It 

isn’t so much what Kinsella is saying, 

but rather the feeling created by the 

sounds collectively, as the album 

moves through a story of nostalgia 

and the loss of innocence. 

There are plenty of choices when 

it comes to picking one’s emotional 

poison. Why not have your heart 

ripped out by Brand New’s “The 

Devil and God Are Raging Inside 

Me” 
(or 
even 
their 
woefully 

neglected “Science Fiction”)? Or 

maybe “Diary” by Sunny Day Real 

Estate. 
Weezer’s 
“Pinkerton,” 

“Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” 

by My Chemical Romance. All of 

these are good options. 

However, I recommend giving 

Midwest Emo a try. The sound 

is milder, the lyrics hit harder. 

American Football’s careful work 

in creating a gentle detonation has 

led others to reach for the sound. 

Modern Baseball, of Philadelphia, 

was founded with a focus on the 

sound of the ’90s. Empire! Empire! 

(I Was a Lonely Estate) and Hot 

Mulligan, both from Michigan, have 

repurposed Midwest Emo and its 

distinctive sound. Charmer, a band 

based in the U.P., just released their 

album “Ivy” as a quintessentially 

Midwest Emo album. 

The Midwest is so often thought 

of as homogenous, as conservative 

and contained. The Heartland, 

surrounded by country and away 

from the world of the coast. But 

Midwest Emo is about breaking 

free of those conventions, about 

mashing things together until you 

arrive at what feels most authentic 

and honest. While quarantined, we 

might all become suffocated by the 

walls, contained by stay-at-home 

orders. With nowhere to run, where 

do you scream? American Football 

feels that pain. They put it to music.
Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

