Book Review: Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta
Stone Arabia has been billed as a rock-and-roll novel, but that’s only half of the story. Sure, there is music of the rock genre, but memory and truth make up the backbone of Dana Spiotta’s third novel. Like Spiotta’s other works, Stone Arabia has an interesting premise: the narrator’s brother Nik Worth is the author of his own life in a way more true than you or I will ever be.
The novel spans in time but the bulk of the story happens during early 2004. Denise Kranis, our narrator, is having a mid-life crisis, although she never calls it that. She’s living through her daughter Ada and her brother Nik, recalling the past, paranoid about memory loss, and caring for her aging mother who is afflicted with dementia. There are many interesting digressions in Denise’s thoughts on memory- she hates photographs, for instance, because she believes people fail to make permanent memories when they know they have a photograph to rely on. And while she racks her brain about an actress’ name that has slipped her mind or sobs uncontrollably for an actor who shoots his wife and child, the reader gets a very stark portrait of how lives diverge and how even one’s memory can’t be trusted for accuracy anymore.
Memory as truth leads the reader to Nik, who looms over the entire work. He is by far the most fascinating part of the novel, and while I wished for more of him I recognize the genius in separating the reader from this character by how he is seen by Denise. Nik’s motto is “self-curate or disappear.” He has recorded under many names, in many bands, and through many record labels- and he has documented every bootleg, every concert, and every review in the epic Chronicles. The reader learns, in sections, that Nik’s career as a rock star ended before it truly began: the “truth” is that his life is make-belief. But to Nik the Chronicles are his life, and to whom else should they be judged real?
The wide-sweeping contemplations on the middle of one’s life, one’s failings, and one’s memory make the book majestic and strong. The creative play with text makes it the more interesting. While most of the novel is first-person from Denise’s view, there are also section third-person on Denise, as well as some of the Chronicles, fake letters, and Ada’s attempts at a documentary film about her uncle. Some of the playfulness of the book reminded me unfairly of A Visit from the Goon Squad- I preferred Goon Squad but Stone Arabia excels in it’s philosophy rather than it’s multiple points of view.
The very honesty of Denise makes Nik seem completely real to the reader, so that the layers blur our concept of the truth instead of illucidating it. To anyone else Nik might come across as this lonely narcissist who can’t accept reality, but because of the beauty in Spiotta’s descriptions and Denise’s love, he is made just as plausible as anything on the news. It is here that the work excels, and keeps the reader waiting for another glimpse at a memory.
Note: I’m always fascinated by book titles, and Stone Arabia doesn’t have to do with Nik’s music as I originally thought but with a missing Amish girl Denise sees on the news. I feel there is a deeper sense to this section if the reader knows that it is the name of this village northwest of Schenectady beforehand.
by Danielle Bukowski