Review of Night Night Fawn by Jordy Rosenberg

In this wonderfully bonkers, darkly funny novel, a dying Jewish matron with rigid views and a litany of disappointments to share with those who caused them experiences drug-induced hallucinations and faces vulnerability as the end of her life draws near.

Jewish matron Barbara Greenberg is terminally ill, medicated out of her mind with opioids, and writing down key elements of her life, particularly the laundry list of her failures--including, in her view, her raising of her only child (to be a confident, noncomforming, open-minded person).

Tracking back in history, she recounts her front-desk work at a questionable plastic surgeon, to her marriage to a man with declining aspirations, her failed attempt at a career as a film actress, her estrangement from her former (and now famous and successful) best friend, and most especially sticking to her outdated and close-minded views on gender and sexuality--illustrated by her inability to understand the motivations of or identity of her trans son. Barbara offers her extensive, unwavering opinions and doesn't sugarcoat a thing.

Add in vivid hallucinations in which her son takes the form of a bird; hints late in the novel that not every character featured in present-day, detailed interactions with the Oxy-addled Barbara is as they seem; striking (somewhat jarring, and puzzling), brief forays into the past where the reader witnesses the actuality of firsthand events, not colored by Barbara's yearning for fame, fortune, and acceptance; and you'll need to buckle up for this wild ride.

Through it all, death looms, and as Barbara prepares to exit the corporal world she is at times afraid, unmoored, and alone. The pending end of her life eliminates some of her previously die-hard cocksureness, and she shows moments of vulnerability as her frailty becomes overwhelming--and at times humiliating.

This is darkly funny, poignant, and surprising. Barbara is an unreliable narrator, and she digs in her heels on points that the reader can see are shadowed by her spectacularly misguided and relentlessly held convictions about how things should be--but aren't. Barbara's voice is so particular and perfect, it felt as though Rosenberg was well versed in real-life characters with bossy certainties and little hesitation in voicing a litany of disappointments regarding the person sitting in front of them.

This is bonkers in the best possible way, and I'm in for reading Jordy Rosenberg's other books.

More Books to Check Out

Jordy Rosenberg is also the author of Confessions of the Fox and Transgender Marxism.

Click here to check out other oddball reads I've reviewed. And check out these other books about death and dying.