Review: 'Bad Thoughts: Stories' by Nada Alic

Women are capable of being many things. And often we are not even aware of what we are being or doing. Recently I feel literature has been more willing to embrace that side of femininity and it feels entirely revelatory to me, each and every time. Thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 7/12/2022
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday; Vintage

Nada Alic's women—the perverts, nobodies, reality TV stars, poetic hopefuls, shameless party girls, and self-help addicts of Los Angeles and its environs—are all wrestling with a shared stark reality: the modern world. To cope, they live in their baddest thoughts: the lush, strange landscape of female make-believe.

In “Earth to Lydia,” a support group meets to enjoy earthly pleasures after achieving "too much enlightenment," engaging in bizarre exercises that escalate to a point of violence and fear. The narrator of "Ghost Baby"—the spirit of a proto-child assigned to a couple whose chemistry is waning—writhes in disembodied frustration as its parents fail to conceive it. In “Daddy's Girl,” the daughter of Eastern European immigrants tries to connect to her distant and difficult father through the invention of increasingly elaborate home maintenance repairs. And in “The Intruder,” a lonely woman’s break-in fantasy quickly builds to a full-blown obsession, until she finds an unwitting partner with whom to act it out.

Though each of Alic’s characters thrive and ache in different circumstances, they all grapple with the most painful equations of modern life: love, trust, power, loneliness, desire, violation, and vengeance. And she conjures them all with a voice that is instantly arresting, unexpectedly hilarious, and absolutely unforgettable.

Earlier this week I read the introduction to an academic book called The Bitch is Back by Sarah Appleton Aguiar, all about wicked women in literature. What Appleton Aguiar argues in her introduction is that second-wave feminist literature, in its attempt to rescue women from negative stereotypes, went too far and therefore created an equally imbalanced picture of what women can be. Appleton Aguiar's mission is to rescue the Bitch, to allow women to reincorporate the Bitch into their personality, and recent books I've read, like Nightbitch, Shit Cassandra Saw, and now Bad Thoughts, seem to be a part of this movement. The women in Alic's stories are usually far from pleasant. Some are outright dismissive and rude, entitled and selfish, others are mostly confused and misguided, a bit pervy and definitely lost. While it makes for confronting reading, I began to absolutely revel in it by the third story.

'My New Life' is about female friendships, especially friendships that are weirdly competitive, super distant yet incredibly close, and probably definitely not entire healthy. It's also about a strong desire to just feel something. 'The Intruder' was the story that keyed me in to the entire collection when I realised that yes, I also have these weird thoughts and desires which are opposite to what I need or actually want. 'Tug, Spin, Release' is all about someone refreshing their email inbox waiting for life-changing news and I've never related to anything so hard. 'Earth to Lydia' is a hilarious, in my mind, take on the whole wellness/Buddhist craze, except that now the group therapy is aimed at bringing people back to the welcoming arms of our late-Capitalist world. Spend more, lust more, eat more! Despite its biting edge, there is something about trying to bring people back to themselves, to their bodies, to their realities, that stuck with me.

'A Free Woman' is about a woman and her sister, the competition innate to that, yet also about the woman herself struggling with her body and her place in the world. 'Watch Me' is a fascinating insight into a woman suddenly on her own, in her boyfriend's house, having a crisis about where she belongs, who she is, if she deserves this, and if she even knows who she is. 'The Contestants' kind of reminded me of my recent read, Patricia Wants to Cuddle, in that it gives us a behind-the-scenes look at reality TV show contestants and their secret thoughts behind the script they've been given. 'Ghost Baby', written from the perspective of a spirit/ghost/something waiting to be conceived by a couple is the kind of outside perspective on a relationship that makes you realise how horrible a relationship can be. I did struggle just with the narrator of the story, due to the whole Roe v. Wade shambles, but that is hardly Alic's fault. 

'Giving Up' shows us an artist deciding to give up, just let the art be. Her self improvement-obsessed boyfriend doesn't understand, but perhaps giving up is the best thing for her art. 'The Party' is a story of middle-age anxiety about pregnancy, getting older, and wondering who you are. I'm sure this will feel more relevant in the years to come.  'Edging' was an odd story about a perhaps one-sided or perhaps confused relationship in which a woman is trying to convince her maybe-boyfriend to consummate their relationships while he focuses on reaching a new level of consciousness. The desperation to be loved and touched truly jumps out at you. 'My God, Your Face' is perhaps my least favourite story because I just couldn't quite connect to what was going on. 'This is Heaven' sees two people engaging in an odd meditation experiment where they try to see each other by not seeing each other. I'm not entirely sure what is happening here, but I did feel it.  'Daddy's Girl' is the final story of the collection and it was the one that really got to me. There is something so gentle and yearning about it, as the main character considers her relationship with her taciturn, immigrant father as he remodels her house. There is such unconditional love there, struggling to make itself clear across cultural and generational divides, that it really hit my soft spot. It was a lovely ending to Bad Thoughts, showing how sometimes, perhaps, some bad impulses can come from good places.

Nada Alic is a revelation for me. While these stories are not easy, in that they aren't easily summarised or understood and in that their characters are, honestly, the worst, I did feel weirdly light reading them. It felt as if, through these stories, I could let certain bad thoughts of my own go. Bad Thoughts deals extensively with difficult topics such as body issues and sexuality, consent and rivalry, internalised misogyny and spitefulness. The best and worst part of Bad Thoughts is that you will absolutely recognise the women in this collection and that you may even recognise yourself in them. This wa sincreased by the fact that after each story there are random thoughts and phrases, each of which struck me. It was like reading my own bad thoughts on the page.  By reading Alic's stories I was able to put some difficult pieces of myself in place. To paraphrase Appleton Aguiar, I found a way to re-incorporate my occasional bitchiness into myself. While this potentially runs the danger of making Bad Thoughts sound like a collection that inspires, it must also be noted that quite a lot of what happens in these stories is straight up not good. These women aren't paragons of virtue and they aren't even really paragons of sin. They're not good at this, life and all that comes with it, but then the world is also messy so no wonder. I can't wait to read more by Nada Alic!

I give this collection...

5 Universes!

Bad Thoughts is indeed a collection full of bad thoughts and ideas and motivations and desires. It is something to revel in, to fully allow for the length of the story. Let your inner bad thoughts air out a little with Nada Alic, it'll be a relief!