My Body Is a Book of Rules

Each section of Elissa Washuta’s strikingly original My Body is a Book of Rules is distinct, and yet, just as a body’s many parts – it’s interwoven physicalities – give rise to the unique abstractions of cognition, perception, the mind, and the soul, the book itself ultimately coheres to form a powerful, at times hilarious, at other times devastating whole.These unique parts exist both in the body and the mind that are explored here, as well as in several, interlocked themes: bipolar disorder; sexual assault; Catholicism; native identity. Unlike the vast majority of the books that have touched on any one of these terrains, Washuta finds her meaning in a non-traditional structure that comes to mirror her mind and her body’s journey as she moves from her childhood into her adult years.At first, each theme is explored in relatively distinct and varied forms that are intriguingly original. Along with more traditional analytical sections, which in themselves are laced with sharp insights and piercing humor, there is: (1) an anthropological academic study of the term “hooked up” as it is used on college campuses; (2) a grid that juxtaposes quotes from Law and Order SVU next to Washuta’s self-written dialogue about her own sexual assaults; (3) a hilarious Match.com profile; (4) a strangely moving dialogue with a GPS; (5) many, many footnotes, which often undercut the text they modify.Each of these original forms not only capture the many varied, conflicting, and devastatingly *real* workings of Washuta’s experiences and of her mind, but also to highlight how drastically earlier explorations of these areas, especially in relation to bipolar disorder, have failed. Time and time again it struck me that the other explorations I have read of the disorder have almost been working too hard to translate the bipolar experience for a non-bipolar world, and in doing so shed the shape and the color of the bipolar mind, leaving us only with vague generalizations of the experience – words like “mood swings” and “on a high,” which mean something entirely different to every reader. In contrast, Washuta’s forms, even with all of their internal conflict and contradictions (scratch that, *because of*) are specific, precise, understandable and identifiable. There is no escape for the reader; there is no way not to see.There are moments when Washuta’s prose is so pointed and precise, it hurts, but it’s in that way that says, “I know you.” It pinpoints exactly how I’ve felt, how I imagine others have felt, and the exact shape of the injustice at hand.My Body is a Book of Rule is a reclaiming of mind, story, identity and form. And yet it is a release, too.

My Body Is a Book of Rules is an unfinished book by a promising young writer.At times gimmicky and jumpy, the book weaves together the author's experience of being Native American, her rape and simultaneous deflowering, and her eventual bipolar disorder and treatment as a young adult. The author believes that these threads are obviously related but the book does not make the case persuasively and ends up being at times irrational.At its heart, the book is about a rape that the author did not acknowledge as rape for a long time, even going out with the perpetrator for a while after. The book then relates the process of coming to terms with the rape and the flurry of abusive physical relationships that follow. It was this part of the book that I really came to understand the psychology of acquaintance rape and the damage to self-esteem that it can inflict.How her rape fits into the long history of white men raping Native American women is unclear. Because the author herself does not look particularly Indian, because her ethnicity was not mentioned as an issue in any of her relationships, the connection is illogical. At one point, the book goes from discussing sex to talking abut how she learned about Lenni Lenape Indians in New Jersey (?). She is trying to juxtapose these two seemingly disparate items, but the author never succeeds in bringing them together. These are the types of non-sequitur that could have been edited out. The author herself in the final pages of the book acknowledges that her traumas are not her ancestor's traumas, and yet the book still tries to make the connection. I can understand how in the author’s experience of it, her being Native American is inextricably tied to being raped but the book just doesn’t make the case persuasively. This could have been done with a chat with an aunt or mom who also went through the same thing, but her immediate family is virtually absent from the book, and the author discusses the cases of distant ancestors (in clinical language) more than she talks about her relationship with her mother, suggesting the author is still processing some stuff.Prefacing the rape/deflowering and her mental breakdown is the astonishing fact of the author’s Catholic school education in dramatic contrast to her later promiscuity. And although there is a lot of discussion of what the author learned in Catholic school, this juxtaposition is not milked to its full possibility. There should be a full (short) chapter introducing this background but there is not.Told through journal entries, semi-fictionalized psychiatrist reports, lists of commandments, an academic essay on hooking up, Match.com profiles (with footnotes), encyclopedic entries of certain saints, psychiatric analyses of Kurt Cobain and Brittney Spears, the book switches between genres and theme, voices and topics and is at times a bit of a mess. In its mix of scholarly and personal writing, the book is reminiscent of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee or Lisa Kanae’s Sistah Tongue, but in the other books, the history of colonization and its connection to the present generation is more apparent. In Washuta’s book, the connection is a stretch.The back of the book describes My Body Is a Book of Rules like this: "As Elissa Washuta makes the transition from college kid to independent adult, she finds herself overwhelmed by the calamities piling up in her brain." This is a vague and misleading introduction. This book about a rape and its aftermath. The book would have been better written if it had known this and stuck with it.

As other reviews/ reviewers have noted, My Body can topically be a difficult book to read (rape, illness, historical atrocities, modern prejudices, and the interconnectedness of all these forces on the author’s’ life). But in the words of Teddy Roosevelt, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”And yet, and yet!, as (the internet says) Lao Tzu said, "All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small." This book that covers intense varieties of pain, victimhood, and confusion (from Latin confusio(n-), from the verb confundere ‘mingle together’) is simultaneously notable for its total clarity of tone, masterly sentence-to-sentence writing, and an easy-breezy play with a wide (and challenging) range of (mostly original, I would say) invented forms.Sometimes I find myself unexcited or unchallenged by Literature (reader blames herself, no one else; it's just a state I find myself in when my reading list needs a shake-up). From a craft standpoint and a humanistic one, too, Washuta's book is just the type of antidote/ prescription I find myself needing for a case of the Reading Blahs. I closed My Body with a sense of great possibility and inspiration to "keep on keeping on" with my own life struggles including the often-difficult task of empathizing with others.

This is an exceptional, brilliant, brave book that made me cry. I expected it to be a bit gimmicky due to the unusual story-telling methods - lists, interviews ect - but it never felt like Washuta was just writing in a different way for the sake of textual difference. There was always a point to the style/form she used. I feel like everyone should read this book.

This was a very different kind of autobiography than I am used to reading. This book contains several short essay-style chapters as well as a few other formats such as interviews, lists and a letter from Washuta's psychiatrist.I found it very engaging and would definitely recommend this book to others.*****However, I would advise anyone who is sensitive to the topic of rape and victim blaming to proceed with caution as there may be a few triggering pages.*****