The Tooth Fairy: Parents, Lovers, and Other Wayward Deities (A Memoir)

by Clifford Chase

Overview

In shimmering prose that weaves among intimate confessions, deadpan asides, and piercing observations on the fear and turmoil that defined the long decade after 9/11, Clifford Chase tells the stories that have shaped his adulthood.   There are his aging parents, whose disagreements sharpen as their health declines; and his beloved brother, lost tragically to AIDS; and his long-term boyfriend—always present, but always kept at a distance.   There is also the revelatory, joyful music of the B-52s, Chase’s sexual confusion in his twenties, and more recently, the mysterious appearance in his luggage of weird objects from Iran the year his mother died.   In the midst of all this is Chase’s singular voice—incisive, wry, confiding, by turns cool or emotional, always engaging.   The way this book is written—in pitch-perfect fragments—is crucial to Chase’s deeper message: that we experience and remember in short bursts of insight, terror, comedy, and love. As ambitious in its form as it is in its radical candor, The Tooth Fairy is the rare memoir that can truly claim to rethink the genre.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781468309263
Publisher:	ABRAMS
Publication date:	02/06/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	975 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Clifford Chase is the author of the cult classic novel Winkie. He is also the author of a memoir, The Hurry-Up Song, and edited the anthology Queer 13:Lesbian & Gay Writers Recall Seventh Grade. His writing has appeared in publications ranging from Newsweek.com to Yale Review to McSweeney’s. He lived in New York City and Sharon, Connecticut, and teaches at Wesleyan University.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for The Tooth Fairy

“Resonant . . . Haunting . . . Tender and sympathetic . . . Chase still feels the pain of losing lovers, his parents and his older brother, but in writing about them here he lovingly caresses their memories . . . Chase builds his searching memoir out of torn-up letters, snippets of conversations, accounts of dreams, quotes from journals and observations from his daily life. The effects are candid, confessional and . . . always original.” —The New York Times Book Review

"Chase capably combines these scraps of observation into a clear story while resisting the urge to rationalize and overexploit. In the process, he avoids writing the tidy tales of self-redemption that so many memoirs are. So many memoirs strive to simplify lives. The chief virtue of The Tooth Fairy is how well it complicates them." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“The tension of the pieces of this life feel more like something Anne Carson would do under the same circumstances, if she were, say, a gay man reaching middle age, with a dog and a boyfriend, trying to survive late capitalism and despair. He is elliptical, but his book is not purposeless . . . When I say the fragmented style of The Tooth Fairy is an exercise in aesthetics, it is not to accuse it of being some decorative thing—aesthetics can make us knowable to ourselves, and thus to others, can make something out of one’s old grief and despair that has the feeling of that ancient divine gift, the blessing.” —Slate 

“Chase is an appealing narrator of his own life—humble, candid, funny and always interrogating the choices he's made . . . With his fragmented prose style, Chase has produced a powerful meditation on memory itself.” —Newsday
 
"With complete candor and insight Cliff maps the phases of his personal evolution throughout The Tooth Fairy, using fragmentary bursts of text, the format, he says, of rawest honesty." —The Henry Review
 
"I’m wild about The Tooth Fairy, a riveting and deeply moving creation. Clifford Chase transforms sex and grief into exquisitely tuned sentences, whose wit and concision magically neutralize loss. Line after line, he feeds the reader a concentrated opiate of insight, hilarious as stand-up comedy, and as glittering as an imagist poem." —Wayne Koestenbaum, author of My 1980s and Other Essays

“Each sentence stands like a tooth in a mouth, perfect on its own . . . Full of emotional punches.” —HTML Giant
 
"Groundbreaking . . . Touching . . . The grander life portrait emerging from the puzzle pieces is breathtaking and often heartrendingly poignant." —Booklist 
 
"Clifford Chase’s memory has sent him a series of telegrams—precise and tender observations that call to mind the 'I remember's' of Joe Brainard. They’re sad and they’re funny, and they tell a brave and moving story of loss, survival, and belated understanding." —Caleb Crain, author of Necessary Errors

“Chase is something of a photographer when it comes to imagery, choosing exactly the right thing to capture and the best words to do so . . . It is Chase’s honesty and sharp observations that make this memoir more than just a successful experiment with form. It is sure to inspire writers to tell their stories in new and imaginative ways.” —Lamba Literary
 
"Partly a documentary of [Chase’s] life, partly a meditation on living . . . [A] candid and insightful memoir." —Kirkus Reviews
 
"Clifford Chase reinvents the memoir—thrillingly—with these stanzas in meditation, excruciation, and exultation. His profound self-scrutiny, aphoristic elegance, lyrical gifts, and cracked hilarity unlock ‘crucial but shrouded’ moments of personal and collective history, and are a tonic. Read this book out loud. Believe in it." —Lisa Cohen, author of All We Know: Three Lives

"Fascinating . . . Artful and dotted with bits of wry humor . . . So many memoirs strive to simplify lives. The chief virtue of The Tooth Fairy is how well it complicates them." —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"Consummate storyteller Clifford Chase delivers a funny, strange and ultimately heartwarming recollection of a contemporary gay life. With a detached wit reminiscent of David Sedaris, these short linked fragments should make for the perfect book on the go." —Next 

"Any aphorism of praise I could write about The Tooth Fairy would be trumped by your opening to a random page of it right now and reading the first few lines you put your finger on. Like Montaigne, Clifford Chase is an endlessly curious, incisive, poignant chronicler of human nature, especially the one most local to him, his own." —Matthew Sharpe, author of The Sleeping Father
 
"In sweeping text as fluid and vivid as thought, Clifford Chase brings all his questions, loves, and losses to life in this wonderful demonstration that, for the self-aware, the funny, painful business of coming-of-age is a never-ending process." —Kit Reed, author of The Story Until Now
 

Editorial Reviews

…Chase builds his searching memoir out of torn-up letters, snippets of conversations, accounts of dreams, quotes from journals and observations from his daily life. The effects are candid, confessional and…always original.

The New York Times Book Review - Alysia Abbott

03/10/2014
Chase (Winkie) has—deliberately or not—written a memoir for the Twitter age. Constructed of almost entirely of arch single sentences interspersed on rare occasions with some longer paragraphs, he reflects on his family, coming-of-age, sex and his sexual identity, and even someone else's lost luggage. The prose consists of "stray happy memories to counterbalance" difficult episodes from his life. His twee-dious style and content could generate a few knowing smiles from fans, but readers unfamiliar with Chase may find it hard to relate to. When he writes, "Even now, some combination of dread, embarrassment, and longing stops me after each sentence, and I have to take a breath," he is being nakedly honest. But his highly personal feelings, insights, and breakthroughs—particularly in regards to understanding his brother—reveal his insecurities, not universal truths, making it hard for the reader to connect with the memoirist. Likewise, when describing common issues such as aging/dying parents Chase mainly discusses playing "couples counselor" to his folks, and his taking sides. When he focuses on one subject, rather than flits around multiple characters and events Chase shows the strengths of his gimmicky format. However, the few touching parts here are far greater than the whole. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Tooth Fairy

“Resonant . . . Haunting . . . Tender and sympathetic . . . Chase still feels the pain of losing lovers, his parents and his older brother, but in writing about them here he lovingly caresses their memories . . . Chase builds his searching memoir out of torn-up letters, snippets of conversations, accounts of dreams, quotes from journals and observations from his daily life. The effects are candid, confessional and . . . always original.” —The New York Times Book Review

"Chase capably combines these scraps of observation into a clear story while resisting the urge to rationalize and overexploit. In the process, he avoids writing the tidy tales of self-redemption that so many memoirs are. So many memoirs strive to simplify lives. The chief virtue of The Tooth Fairy is how well it complicates them." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“The tension of the pieces of this life feel more like something Anne Carson would do under the same circumstances, if she were, say, a gay man reaching middle age, with a dog and a boyfriend, trying to survive late capitalism and despair. He is elliptical, but his book is not purposeless . . . When I say the fragmented style of The Tooth Fairy is an exercise in aesthetics, it is not to accuse it of being some decorative thing—aesthetics can make us knowable to ourselves, and thus to others, can make something out of one’s old grief and despair that has the feeling of that ancient divine gift, the blessing.” —Slate 

“Chase is an appealing narrator of his own life—humble, candid, funny and always interrogating the choices he's made . . . With his fragmented prose style, Chase has produced a powerful meditation on memory itself.” —Newsday
 
"With complete candor and insight Cliff maps the phases of his personal evolution throughout The Tooth Fairy, using fragmentary bursts of text, the format, he says, of rawest honesty." —The Henry Review
 
"I’m wild about The Tooth Fairy, a riveting and deeply moving creation. Clifford Chase transforms sex and grief into exquisitely tuned sentences, whose wit and concision magically neutralize loss. Line after line, he feeds the reader a concentrated opiate of insight, hilarious as stand-up comedy, and as glittering as an imagist poem." —Wayne Koestenbaum, author of My 1980s and Other Essays

“Each sentence stands like a tooth in a mouth, perfect on its own . . . Full of emotional punches.” —HTML Giant
 
"Groundbreaking . . . Touching . . . The grander life portrait emerging from the puzzle pieces is breathtaking and often heartrendingly poignant." —Booklist 
 
"Clifford Chase’s memory has sent him a series of telegrams—precise and tender observations that call to mind the 'I remember's' of Joe Brainard. They’re sad and they’re funny, and they tell a brave and moving story of loss, survival, and belated understanding." —Caleb Crain, author of Necessary Errors

“Chase is something of a photographer when it comes to imagery, choosing exactly the right thing to capture and the best words to do so . . . It is Chase’s honesty and sharp observations that make this memoir more than just a successful experiment with form. It is sure to inspire writers to tell their stories in new and imaginative ways.” —Lamba Literary
 
"Partly a documentary of [Chase’s] life, partly a meditation on living . . . [A] candid and insightful memoir." —Kirkus Reviews
 
"Clifford Chase reinvents the memoir—thrillingly—with these stanzas in meditation, excruciation, and exultation. His profound self-scrutiny, aphoristic elegance, lyrical gifts, and cracked hilarity unlock ‘crucial but shrouded’ moments of personal and collective history, and are a tonic. Read this book out loud. Believe in it." —Lisa Cohen, author of All We Know: Three Lives

"Fascinating . . . Artful and dotted with bits of wry humor . . . So many memoirs strive to simplify lives. The chief virtue of The Tooth Fairy is how well it complicates them." —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"Consummate storyteller Clifford Chase delivers a funny, strange and ultimately heartwarming recollection of a contemporary gay life. With a detached wit reminiscent of David Sedaris, these short linked fragments should make for the perfect book on the go." —Next 

"Any aphorism of praise I could write about The Tooth Fairy would be trumped by your opening to a random page of it right now and reading the first few lines you put your finger on. Like Montaigne, Clifford Chase is an endlessly curious, incisive, poignant chronicler of human nature, especially the one most local to him, his own." —Matthew Sharpe, author of The Sleeping Father
 
"In sweeping text as fluid and vivid as thought, Clifford Chase brings all his questions, loves, and losses to life in this wonderful demonstration that, for the self-aware, the funny, painful business of coming-of-age is a never-ending process." —Kit Reed, author of The Story Until Now
 

From the Publisher

2013-12-04
Fragments come together to reveal a life. Novelist and memoirist Chase (Winkie, 2006, etc.), who chronicled his brother's death from AIDS in The Hurry-Up Song (1995), constructs this book--partly a documentary of his life, partly a meditation on living--in the form of "aphorism-like statements" which, "when added one to another, might accrue to make some larger statement that will placate despair." The passages, most not longer than a sentence or two, contain random observations; journal entries; remembered dreams; overheard remarks; and bits of conversations with Chase's partner, therapist, parents, co-workers and friends. He records losing his baby teeth, rewarded by a dime from the tooth fairy--a rare happy memory of his boyhood. His parents' contentious marriage, he writes, resulted in his "crippling inner turmoil as an adult." Emotional turmoil has been fueled, too, by his struggle to admit his homosexuality, "The odd nature of the closet, the open secret, not only to others but to oneself." Lost "in the forest" of his feelings, he engaged in an affair with an emotionally fragile woman. "But this isn't merely a story of sexual confusion," he admits, "rather of self-doubt, which is bigger." He doubts, above all, his ability to love and to be loved: "As the reader may have noticed, I like to mingle love with panic, self-doubt, and conjecture." Chase writes movingly of his parents' serious health problems and deaths and his brother's tragic last years. He recounts travels to Rome and Egypt with his partner and reflects on the emotional impact of 9/11. Ellipses are as forceful as words: "[L]et the white space between these sentences stand for what couldn't be seen then; or what can't be remembered now…." Coherence is a contrivance of any life story, Chase implies in his candid and insightful memoir; some truths may be shared in words, others hidden between the lines.

Kirkus Reviews