Mary MacLane is nineteen and growing up in Butte, Montana in 1902. Over the course of three months, she conveys the mundanity of her daily life, and the expectations of women in the early 1900s, with the wild passion of a woman chomping at the bit, ready to live a life. In what's regarded as one of the first confessional memoirs, and an early feminist text, I Await the Devil's Coming is a collection of rages and monologues and desires from a young girl who wasn't allowed any.
I have such mixed thoughts on this collection. On the one hand, Mary MacLane can write. She has a wonderful handle on language that makes for a compelling read. She's angry and biting and bored, and I can't even fathom a life like what she's lived. Interestingly too, the memoir explores sexuality beautifully. MacLane's sexual desires extend from the devil to Napoleon to an old teacher, and stem from both a desire to be loved and a desire to, well, act on being the sexual being she is.
That said, it's also a nineteen-year old's memoir. I read a great review on Goodreads which said it was like being locked in the bathroom with the drunkest girl at the party, and I kind of agree. It's a similar rollercoaster of thought, the same bold, entitled, insecurity that she might have, and it makes this both a glorious read and a bit of a trying one at times.
3.5 out of 5 sexy devil fantasies.
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