Synopsis:
Angela has everything she thought she ever wanted—a successful husband, a lavish house, and a bottomless fortune.
But the sight of a strange man in a grocery store one night reawakens her dormant sexuality and soon Angela embarks on a dangerous descent into the world of underground pornography and back-alley plastic surgery.
As the stakes get higher, long-buried memories resurface and Angela finds herself enamored with Reena, a fetish film performer. With some help from a queer gang called The Waifs, Angela is forced to make the decision between her unhappy upper-class life and the treacherous world of underground film.
Edition:
E-book (purchased)
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Trigger Warnings:
Hover for Trigger WarningsMy Thoughts:
Waif is what I think would happen if Switchblade Sisters had a three-way lovechild with American Mary and Crash. And I mean that in the absolute best way possible. Waif tells the extremely complicated and totally bizarre story of Angela – a woman pushed so far beyond her breaking point that what follows is well and truly beyond belief. Throughout the entirety of this short read, this was me:
In other words, Waif is WILD. WHYYYYELLLLLD. Angela’s descent and ultimately ascent (at least that’s what it felt like from where I’m sitting) will keep you so deep in the WTFs you won’t know up from down.
And just like Kolesnik’s debut novella, True Crime the writing here is superb. Sometimes, when a debut is as compelling and well-written as True Crime, you might go into that author’s sophomore creation thinking, “how are they going to top that?” See, cuz we tend to expect authors to one-up themselves (it’s pretty stupid, but I think we all do it when we’re particularly impressed by a debut). And I think that Kolesnik has shown that she has enough range that this concern is completely unfounded – she didn’t end up needing to outdo jack shit. This story is very different from True Crime. While they’re both definitively grindhouse (lol – in form and publisher – please someone stop me), Waif traffics more in relentlessly bizarre depravity than its predecessor.
“…I went to the bars that night looking to hurt myself with the nearest man, which ended up being Matt. I know it’s not rational. Does grief have to be?”
It also has a distinct and powerful element of exploitation-style feminism to it. That reference to Switchblade Sisters wasn’t made idly. While Angela goes about getting to it in ways most would never consider, there is definitely an undercurrent of empowerment here. And it is so much fun riding along on the rollercoaster of aggressively bonkerballs causes and effects as she finds her way toward living life on her own terms.
It’s utterly transfixing, the way Kolesnik shows the reader the compounded impact of a lifetime of trying to fit yourself into a mass-produced box. Every step of Angela’s life seemed to have been about punishing herself for not fitting the image she wanted to portray, and Waif shows the consequences for that. Outlandish? Absolutely. But let this be a lesson to live your truth. Otherwise your life might spiral completely out of control into some sort of Roger Corman-esque Alice in Wonderland.
Rating:
Kolesnik seems to have an incredible talent for tackling tricky subjects (feminism, desire, control, trauma) in ways that will really make you think, but will also ensure that you have a fun (if also slightly soul-shattering) time of it.
Waif By Samantha Kolesnik Grindhouse Press ISBN: 9781941918951 Published: December 1, 2021 Paperback, E-book 114 Pages Author's Website
Awesome review!! I tried to give this one a go, but Samantha’s writing was SO GOOD it set me off and I had to put it down! haha