Enter your email Address

ENTROPY
  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Animal Form

      January 22, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      On Fantasy and Artifice

      January 19, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Aging Ungraciously

      January 18, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Salt and Sleep

      January 15, 2021

      Introspection

      The Birds: A Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow

      January 2, 2020

      Introspection

      Returning Home with Ross McElwee

      December 13, 2019

      Introspection

      The Birds: In Our Piety

      November 14, 2019

      Introspection

      Variations: Landslide

      June 12, 2019

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      The Birds: Little Birds

      December 11, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Perdix and a Pear Tree

      December 9, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: A Glimmer of Blue

      November 23, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Circling for Home

      November 13, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: The Guest

      November 9, 2020

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: Dear Marshall, Language is Our Only Wilderness by Heather Sweeney

      January 21, 2021

      Review

      Review: Shrapnel Maps by Philip Metres

      January 18, 2021

      Review

      Perceived Realities: A Review of M-Theory by Tiffany Cates

      January 14, 2021

      Review

      Review: Danger Days by Catherine Pierce

      January 11, 2021

      Collaborative Review

      Attention to the Real: A Conversation

      September 3, 2020

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Gordon Hill Press

      December 8, 2020

      Small Press

      Evidence House

      November 24, 2020

      Small Press

      death of workers whilst building skyscrapers

      November 10, 2020

      Small Press

      Slate Roof Press

      September 15, 2020

      Small Press

      Ellipsis Press

      September 1, 2020

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Creative Nonfiction / Essay

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Games

        Hunt A Killer, Earthbreak, and Empty Faces: Escapism for the Post-Truth Era

        September 21, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: Lady of the West

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Paperback and Anomia

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Video Games

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Video Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch

ENTROPY

  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Animal Form

      January 22, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      On Fantasy and Artifice

      January 19, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Aging Ungraciously

      January 18, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Salt and Sleep

      January 15, 2021

      Introspection

      The Birds: A Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow

      January 2, 2020

      Introspection

      Returning Home with Ross McElwee

      December 13, 2019

      Introspection

      The Birds: In Our Piety

      November 14, 2019

      Introspection

      Variations: Landslide

      June 12, 2019

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      The Birds: Little Birds

      December 11, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Perdix and a Pear Tree

      December 9, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: A Glimmer of Blue

      November 23, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Circling for Home

      November 13, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: The Guest

      November 9, 2020

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: Dear Marshall, Language is Our Only Wilderness by Heather Sweeney

      January 21, 2021

      Review

      Review: Shrapnel Maps by Philip Metres

      January 18, 2021

      Review

      Perceived Realities: A Review of M-Theory by Tiffany Cates

      January 14, 2021

      Review

      Review: Danger Days by Catherine Pierce

      January 11, 2021

      Collaborative Review

      Attention to the Real: A Conversation

      September 3, 2020

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Gordon Hill Press

      December 8, 2020

      Small Press

      Evidence House

      November 24, 2020

      Small Press

      death of workers whilst building skyscrapers

      November 10, 2020

      Small Press

      Slate Roof Press

      September 15, 2020

      Small Press

      Ellipsis Press

      September 1, 2020

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Creative Nonfiction / Essay

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Games

        Hunt A Killer, Earthbreak, and Empty Faces: Escapism for the Post-Truth Era

        September 21, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: Lady of the West

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Paperback and Anomia

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Video Games

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Video Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch
FeaturedLiteratureReview

The Hurt Is Coming From Within: A Review of Chelsea Martin’s Mickey

written by Jordan Castro June 28, 2016

Mickey by Chelsea Martin
Curbside Splendor, 2016 – (Forthcoming: July 12th)
200 pages – Curbside / Amazon

 

For years, Chelsea Martin existed vaguely in my peripheral as someone who either had a face that looked waxy and unreal – like some sort of sweaty plastic – or an author photo that was somehow edited to make her face look fake and insane. This was the result, I think, of seeing this picture three or four times over the course of a number of years, usually as a small thumbnail, looking at it very briefly each time.

I’ve since read nearly all of Martin’s books, and spent time with her IRL. And although her protagonists – self-conscious, self-aware, self-centered – seem consistently like characters created by a person who could possibly have a permanently very sweaty face, Martin, regardless of how things may or may not have seemed in the past, does not. For years, that fixed image of her mannequin-esque face betrayed the multitude of selves which manifest in her art, and also it seemed really funny to me. I feel like many other people have probably thought about this, but as far as I know, no one has written about it.

In Mickey, Martin’s forthcoming novella from Curbside Splendor, the protagonist, a recently single/jobless artist, navigates relationships – vague sexual partners, friends, an alcoholic mother who won’t speak to her, the *art world* – all in the context of her constantly critical inner dialogue and worldview. Mickey is a book that happens in spite of external circumstance – a book that takes place internally, because that is where Martin’s protagonist lives.

Here are two more reviewer-style sentences I thought of while reading Mickey…

“If Martin’s previous novel Even Though I Don’t Miss You chronicles the absurdity of being in a long-term monogamous relationship, Mickey chronicles the absurdity of being a something in the vague relationship(s) that follow.”

“Mickey is about loss. More specifically, the loss of a relationship, a job, and oneself within failed attempts to deal with those.”

Here’s some other stuff about the book…

Sometimes when I know that someone is coming to my house and is about to be there, I adjust what I’m doing to make myself seem cooler or harder working than I think I’d appear to [person coming over] if I simply continued doing whatever I was doing. I open more word documents, I click on different websites. In Mickey, Martin writes, “I have preemptively left tabs open in my browser showing web results for ‘Henry Darger’ and ‘are octopuses smart’ in case I die today and someone wants to know how interesting I was.” Seems funny/relatable.

One notable thing about my experience with Mickey was that I didn’t really like it at first. I don’t know why I didn’t like it at first, or what happened when that made me start to like it, and it’s rare that I end up liking books I don’t like right away, but with Mickey that happened. It’s also generally hard for me to talk about why I like or dislike art, because more often than not I have no idea why or why not, and because I don’t have a language for it – I haven’t really said anything re: “why” or “why not” so far in this review, besides “Seems funny/relatable” – but I suspect the not liking then liking of Mickey had something to do with me eventually “getting into,” or gaining more context/perspective on, the protagonist’s tone, and [other things].

I enjoyed Martin’s thoughts re: art and being an artist. I like the sentence “Anything can be humiliating, but sometimes I think that making art is a uniquely humiliating experience. For your work to be successful, it has to posses or imply original thought (which is impossible), intelligence (which is dependent on the intelligence of other people and, therefore, is uncontrollable), or visual appeal (which is pointless and stupid and demeaning).”

I felt intellectually and emotionally stimulated thinking about the sentence “Maybe sarcasm is not a mask to hide my true self from the world, but colored glasses that help me appreciate its beauty.”

Another line I liked: “When people are young they think nothing is going to hurt them, and nothing ever does, and gradually they realize that the hurt is coming from within.”

Chelsea Martin’s anxieties and thought processes, complex while stylistically concise throughout Mickey, were fun for me to read and think about. I felt amused by the way she seemed to reframe conventionally bleak thoughts and unexciting downgrades (job to no job, boyfriend to no boyfriend, bedroom to no bedroom) into refreshingly intricate and interesting musings. I will probably re-read Mickey 1-3x over the course of the year 2016.

The Hurt Is Coming From Within: A Review of Chelsea Martin’s Mickey was last modified: June 28th, 2016 by Jordan Castro
Chelsea MartinContemporary LiteratureCurbside Splendorfiction
0 comment
1
Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
Avatar
Jordan Castro

Jordan Castro (b. 1992) is the author of two poetry collections, 'if i really wanted to feel happy i'd feel happy already' (CCM, 2014) and 'YOUNG AMERICANS' (CCM, 2013). He lives in Cleveland, OH.

previous post
Birdwolf XXV
next post
Mini-Syllabus: How to be from Hong Kong

You may also like

Summer of my Mother, Summer of My Grandmother

May 23, 2016

GOTHIDEAS: Ankh Funeral

August 5, 2016

On Weather: Tornado (Quack)

June 5, 2016

Pies and Tarts and an Entropy Cookbook Review

February 6, 2015
Facebook Twitter Instagram

Recent Comments

  • Lei Yu wow so beautifully written!

    Review – : once teeth bones coral : by Kimberly Alidio ·  January 18, 2021

  • Lisa S Thank you so much for your kind words and your feedback. I can only hope my story is able to help someone who needs it.

    WOVEN: This isn’t love ·  January 8, 2021

  • Ann Guy Thank you, Josh. And glad you didn’t get tetanus at band camp on that misguided day.

    A Way Back Home ·  December 24, 2020

Featured Columns & Series

  • The Birds
  • Dinnerview
  • WOVEN
  • Variations on a Theme
  • BLACKCACKLE
  • Literacy Narrative
  • COVID-19
  • Mini-Syllabus
  • Their Days Are Numbered
  • On Weather
  • Disarticulations
  • The Waters
  • Session Report series
  • Birdwolf
  • Comics I've Been Geeking Out On
  • Small Press Releases
  • Books I Hate (and Also Some I Like)
  • The Poetics of Spaces
  • Fog or a Cloud
  • Tales From the End of the Bus Line
  • 30 Years of Ghibli
  • Cooking Origin Stories
  • YOU MAKE ME FEEL
  • Ludic Writing
  • Best of 2019
  • The Talking Cure
  • Stars to Stories
  • DRAGONS ARE REAL OR THEY ARE DEAD
  • Foster Care
  • Food and Covid-19
  • LEAKY CULTURE
  • Jem and the Holographic Feminisms
  • D&D with Entropy

Find Us On Facebook

Entropy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

©2014-2020 The Accomplices LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Read our updated Privacy Policy.


Back To Top