'While her parents were busy ruining their marriage, she’d spent three or four days a week with her paternal grandfather, Woody Boyle, a mild-mannered man, an avid reader and functional alcoholic. But he’d taught her all of life’s essentials: how to spit like a man, take a good photograph, drive stick, make a stiff drink, swim butterfly, French-braid, and, perhaps most importantly, how to play dumb.'

Mona’s voice is always entertaining for me as it’s unfiltered. In Pretend I’m Dead it was all about her love for drug addict Mr. Disgusting and his “creepy honesty.” She staunchly remains messy, keeps her cracks like we all do and isn’t going to transform into a perfect human ideal giggling under some rainbow because she has it all figured out. Does anyone ever truly do this in real life? Wherever you go, there you are whether you’ve gained wisdom or not, you’re still you! So Mr. Disgusting is out, what does she do? Takes up with a married man she calls Dark, of course, which isn’t really a step up from chasing after her dead junkie boyfriend. Still cleaning other’s filth, she spends her days swooning over the love notes he brazenly leaves behind for her to find on her cleaning days at his home. The stupor their love-making puts her in dissipates when Rose, his wife, enlightens her about the true state of their marriage. Then there is the mystery pooh, yep… poop. Jen Beagin can spin some of the strangest situations for Mona, darkly hilarious, she seems to witness people at their lowest. I shouldn’t grin like a lunatic when I read her books but I do. This novel is a great escape from the usual writing out there.

Soon she meets the barbarians, cats owned by the Kosas, a pill popping Hungarian couple. The murderous cats are as exotic as Lena and Paul, both artists with a house that feels like a lover waiting to be explored by Mona. Explore it she does, making her own art, taking photographs while talking to herself (Terry, her subconscious or imaginary friend), crossing boundaries, as always. We learn more about Mona’s past in this book. Yoko and Yoko (Shiori and Nigel) are still telling her to ‘stay curious’ but she isn’t curious enough about her childhood, would rather leave what is hiding in that dark abyss untouched. Lena and Paul convince her to pose nude for them, but it’s the way Lena helps Mona feel carefree enough to ‘bare’ herself that bonds them as much as Lena’s “war stories”. Then there are the pills, no big deal… Lena can mentor her, help her get her foot into the art world, do something with her photographs. Lena helps her give birth to the meaning behind her pictures, which tell a story Mona hadn’t been paying attention to until Lena’s keen eye comes along. Their intimacy happens fast, Mona is finally opening herself up to someone, telling Lena a story she buried long ago, making her vulnerable in a way she has never been and just like that, Lena is gone, a sudden abrupt departure.

Mona is left alone to pose for Paul as Lena is called away for work at the gallery, props are firing off memories of her past better left untouched. She discovers through Paul that Lena hasn’t been as open and forthcoming as she seems. There is something about Mona that has inspired Lena to pull her into their world, that has Lena praying for her and for rain, rain in a clear sky. Paul wants too much from her, it begins to feel wrong, and to the surface the muck of her long-held shame rises. The couple may be a catalyst forcing her to understand that her long held beliefs about her relationships have been skewed, always forcing her into the role of villain.

Licking her wounds from betrayal, her biological mother calls and asks her to come out to LA and pick up the boxes she has kept. Returning feels like regressing, and her mother and stepfather Frank seem to have ‘gone to the birds’. Drug abuse, mental illness… all sorts of troubles in her family genetics, but things can change, people can sober up and face their pain. It’s never too late for one’s mother to take her rightful place in your life, is it? For Mona, it’s ‘mercy’ that brings her to tears, and tough Frank may surprise her as much as her ‘reformed’ mother. The forces of nature lead her to a man named Kurt and Bakersfield but old habits die hard, Mona doesn’t always do the right thing for herself, and she sometimes figures things out too late, but some people take the long way home. Mona likes to chase her own tail, but by the end she may find direction and clarity.

I think Jen Beagin is fantastic because maybe I enjoy my characters shell-shocked by their life experiences, it is easier to relate to imperfection. I loved it!

Publication Date: February 26, 2019

Scribner

Too be honest, this book was not my cup of tea. I really did not enjoy reading it. I guess that I was expecting more. I enjoy a book with somewhat more depth than this one.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.*

I downloaded this title months ago from Netgalley, and I'm not sure why I waited so long to read it!

I did not realize that it was a sequel, even as I was reading it until I looked up the book to see what the reviews were like. Not surprisingly, the reviews for this title run the gamut.

Vacuum in the Dark is the story of Mona, an artistic, emotionally struggling cleaning lady who maintains an ongoing friendship (in her mind) with Terry Gross (the NPR newscaster). Mona is deliciously weird. I immediately liked her for all of her quirks. However, the story tends not only to the absurd but often to the vulgar and definitely toward the extremes. There is heavy graphic sexual undertones, backstories involving sexual abuse, and decidedly unhealthy coping mechanisms.

All that said, I really enjoyed the book. It is not for everybody and I'd be very careful about who I would recommend it to, but I will recommend it. I also plan to read the first book in the series and look forward to more from Jen Beagin.

*with thanks to Netgalley for the digital ARC in exchange for this honest review.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

In some ways this book felt pretentious and depressing, but at the same time I was kind of into it. It's less of a novel and more a collection of four related short stories. The "point," to me, is less about the narrative and more getting into the head of the narrator and feeling what she feels. In that way, I think this book will stay with me for awhile, but I've already forgotten most of the characters' names. I love that she has a running dialogue in her head with Terry Gross, host of NPR's Fresh Air. Super random, but it also totally worked.

All in all, I liked how this book made me think and feel, but not a lot of story. I would read more by Jen Beagin, though, I can see her doing great things.

Mona has recently moved to Taos, NM from Massachusetts following the loss of boyfriend. Here, she makes a living cleaning houses for the quirky clientele of Taos. While cleaning, Mona converses with her imaginary version of Terry Gross, the host of the NPR show, Fresh Air. Mona is humorous, funny, self-deprecating with a touch of despair. She finds humor in the sad moments. About half way through, it takes a turn to the sadder side, but we find greater depth and appreciation for Mona’s character, however at this point the book seemed like two different novels to me. This book is funny and will make you laugh out loud. I wasn’t expecting the more serious part of the book, but I didn’t mind. I will definitely go back and read Beagin’s previous work, “Pretend I’m Dead.”

Beagin has a singular voice, and like her stellar first book, Pretend I'm Dead, this is a fun, quirky, sui generis romp. If I didn't rate it quite as highly, it's because, as with many (most?) sequels, this suffers just a tiny bit from sophomore slump ... cleaning lady Mona was such a surprising, unique character the first time around, that encountering her again doesn't have quite the same impact. It's more like running into an old friend, and though you're grateful for the encounter, you're just somehow NOT quite as excited as you were initially. Still, should there be a third volume of Mona's exploits (and the ending here certainly indicates that IS an option), I'd definitely be up for the ride! Or really, wherever Beagin wants to take me next.

My sincere thanks to Scribner and Netgalley for the ARC, in exchange for this honest (nd enthusiastic) review!

4.5 certainly. 4 chapters, that made up this mad hatter of a novel. Vacuum in the dark and Mona are the most deliciously weird things that have entered my life lately. There was a book before this one, and I'm hoping there's going to be a book after this one because where we left off was one tick shy of a grave in the desert. Jen Beagin strings together words into sentences that my brain would never even think belonged on the same page, but they're beautiful in their entirety. Taken one sentence at a time they're just weird, but as a whole they're achingly wonderful. She's 26, she's a cleaning lady, she gets involved in one love story after another, she's got trauma galore, and somehow this just turned into the Little Mermaid theme song. Any way I write it is going to make is sound mundane and it's anything but. I'll be waiting for the next novel on tenterhooks.

Beagin’s debut which I read back when it appeared on Netgalley was quite something. Her darkly humorous take on the life of a genuinely singular cleaning lady was a strangely pleasurable read. And one I’d never imagine getting a sequel. And yet…here we are. And the cleaning lady is still at it, vacuuming in the dark, which is not only an occasionally apt job description, but a nice metaphor for her life, no less messed up, confusing or confused since the last time, despite tucking a few more years under the apron’s belt. More places to clean, still no personal boundaries, resolving in bizarre relationships and attachments. This novel is structured as a quartet of sequential and almost self contained stories (which also do a nice job of refreshing the first book for the reader), each one a different situation, a different environment, a different love story in a way, from romantic to parental. Essentially what it does is peel off the layers and Beagin’s protagonist is one odd onion. Or maybe it’s more like the nesting dolls, each one stranger than the last. Either way, the author dips far enough into the past to explain certain present behaviors and tendencies, but after a while it does get slightly frustrating…and while explanations might be provided, there doesn’t seem to be any closure or changes or maturity. The cleaning lady stays consistently quirky and odd and, while I appreciate consistency in real life, fictional ones are usually improved by transformations. Mind you, Beagin’s created a genuinely terrific original character, but how long can you hit that piñata and appreciate all the weirdness that emerges? That sort of thing tends to get old. But yet the book is such an entertaining and funny read. There’s no reason for it to exist really, but for the author’s reluctance to leave the character behind or possibly due to the fact that both books are quite short and should have been one long one to begin with, but it’s fun while it lasts and I’d probably even check out the further adventures of the cleaning lady if the author comes up with any. The book’s ending certainly makes you think she might. Much like a thing cleaned over and over again no matter how well it doesn’t quite have the luster and freshness of the original. Fun read though, for cleaning tips, for weird love stories and clever badinage with imaginary friends and all that. Easily done in one sitting too. Thanks Netgalley.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for this arc.

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What...……..????
"Constantly surprising, laugh out loud funny... ...dealing with some of the most universal in America today..."

I must be inhabiting a different America. I requested this book based on the publisher's blurb. The first book of this series had received somewhat mixed reviews (I've not read it), but seemed to have settled around 3.5 stars. So I thought I'd try this one.....

3-D rating from me. Desperate....Depressing... Dismal. And I skipped through some of the repetitive pages.