Welcome to another installment of If My Book, the Monkeybicycle feature in which authors compare their recently released books to weird things. This week Michelle Herman writes about If You Say So, her new essay collection out from Galileo Press.
If If You Say So were a cross-country trip, it would avoid highways as much as possible, stop often to look around and see what’s what, talk to strangers, pick up souvenirs and snacks at every stop. It would get lost, but not for long, again and again. And then it would be on the road again. (It would listen to “On the Road Again” and other road trip songs: “Drive My Car,” “King of the Road,” “Freeway of Love,” “Route 66,” “Pink Cadillac,” “Hit the Road, Jack.”)
If If You Say So were a recipe, it would call for more of everything (quarts, not cups; pounds, not ounces) than you have on hand. It would include some things you probably never have on hand. You might wonder how exactly all these ingredients will work together. But the instructions are easy to follow. You give it a shot.
If If You Say So were a dance performance, it would be everything at once: ballet and modern and contemporary dance, and also hiphop, jazz, and ballroom. A little bit of belly dance. A lot of wild-armed dancing barefoot to the Grateful Dead at the back of the Fillmore East in 1971. A flash of the pony, the jerk, the swim. The twist.
If If You Say So were a record album, it would be “The Köln Concert” by Keith Jarrett.
If it were a color, it would be ballet pink. And red. It would change colors, sometimes so rapidly it would have the effect of a strobe light—but sometimes so gradually you’d be surprised to notice that it had changed, from the palest pink through every shade of pink and rose and cranberry until finally it blazed red.
If it were a flower, it would be a peony.
If it were a scent, it would be rose oil and patchouli.
Michelle Herman’s newest book is If You Say So. Her nine previous books include the novels Close-Up, Devotion, Dog, and Missing, the essay collections/memoirs Like A Song, Stories We Tell Ourselves, and The Middle of Everything, the novella collection A New and Glorious Life, and an advice book for children.
Order If You Say So here.