You Know You Want This (2019)
Kristen Roupenian (1981)
225 pages
The title of Kristen Roupenian’s collection of short stories, You Know You Want This, serves readers as both a lascivious intimation of what to expect when we venture inside the book, as well as a mischievous provocation that we won’t be able to look away once we do. But those who want it --- whether characters or readers --- should be careful what they wish for, as Roupenian gives no quarter, shows no mercy, to her characters or her readers. This collection, in fact, satisfies a quality I look for in a book or a movie: that it grab one by the throat, and not let go until the end --- that it be impossible to look away.
Roupenian gets right down to business in the first story, Bad Boy, which opens with a couple commiserating in their kitchen with a friend who has broken up --- yet again --- with his girlfriend. The couple oscillates between sympathy for their friend and exasperation at his having “so little insight into the causes of his own problems” (1), and ultimately these disparate reactions prove toxic when combined with their friend’s desperate need for acceptance. Out of an initial desire to be supportive the couple gradually adopts the friend into their home and their lives, but their contempt for him soon comes to the fore. They begin to treat him more and more like a pet or a toy, one that they find spices up their lives in ways they hadn’t realized they were lacking, and the friendship devolves into a disturbing dominance that spirals out of control, with shocking consequences. For those familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment, this story has a bit of the same feel, except taken to a very personal level, and an even more extreme conclusion.This structure, of opening with apparently innocent and common place settings and characters before veering inexorably into dark and dangerous corners, runs throughout the collection. The most disquieting aspect of these tales is, in fact, that the characters initially seem non-threatening; they may admittedly have some salacious or perhaps even slightly depraved thoughts, but these are not so very different than what may dance around in the back of many people’s minds as idle, internal voyeurism, never meant for the light of day.
In Roupenian hands, however, these idle thoughts become unleashed, her characters acting on them, taking them to their logical conclusions; and so, in the twelve stories of this collection, the familiar story tropes of romance and dating spin horrifically out of control. Each opens a bit like the Non Sequitur cartoon below --- a bit lewd but hardly aggressive; for Roupenian, however, there would come a second frame, containing a dark and perverse twist, in which the customer proceeds to turn his thoughts into actions, and then a third, in which extreme consequence become realized.
Thus, the story Cat Person certainly starts out innocently enough: Margot, a co-ed working at a movie theater concession stand, flirts with a customer, a bit drawn to him perhaps, but mostly to pass the time behind the counter. Then, on his next visit to the theater when he asks for her number she gives it to him, and their relationship slowly develops around a seemingly light-hearted exchange of text messages. Margot notices, however, that “if she took more than a few hours to respond his next message would always be short and wouldn’t include a question, so it was up to her to reinitiate the conversation, which she always did.” (78) She ignores this early warning sign, however, and discovers too late that it comes to characterize their relationship: he reacts to the slightest hesitation on her part by pulling back, and each time he does she takes a step toward him, more in the hopes of placating him than out of attraction to him. We watch her begin a running, internal dialogue that makes clear she recognizes the ridiculousness of the situation she’s gotten herself into even as she feels powerless to extract herself from the degrading relationship. Through Margot, Roupenian presents an unforgiving portrait of the destructive power of insecurity and rationalization.
Though these themes of self-deluding and self-destructive desire run through all of the stories in the collection, Roupenian uses a variety of genres to explore them. The Mirror, the Bucket, and the Old Thigh Bone, for example, takes the form of a legend, telling a tale of a long ago king who becomes increasingly frustrated with his daughter’s refusal to settle on a suitor --- though each has his charms, she finds none quite good enough. When the Royal Advisor decides to intervene with a plan of his own to trick her into making a choice, his gambit fails spectacularly, as the true source of the princess’ hesitation is revealed.
Roupenian turns to fantasy in Scarred, in which the main character discovers a book of spells half-hidden among the stacks at a library. She sneaks it out of the building and, once home, gives the first entry in the book a try; though she has little expectation that anything will happen, a desperate desire drives her on. When she discovers that the spells actually do work, and that she can have whatever she might want, she gradually finds her humanity overwhelmed by an intoxicating greed.
All of the stories in this collection reveal, and revel in, the dark and dirty underside of human desire. The characters inexorably debase themselves through a series of little steps, each taken with a seemingly inconsequential bit of rationalization, until at some point they find themselves beyond recovery. And we, Roupenian’s readers --- at least those not so shocked by the degenerate cruelty of the first story that they don’t continue --- will also need to plead guilty to being unable to turn away. We become voyeurs, virtual participants in a feast of perversity, and in that sense we come to realize that Roupenian is correct in saying to us, you know you want this.
Other reviews / information:
Details about the Stanford Prison Experiment at wiki.
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
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