Fish Tales

Nettie Jones
1983
Rating: 3

Fish Tales draws from an interesting or even spicy millieu, and the author’s own life, but for the most part does not work as a novel. It is clogged with various sex acts, drug use, and conversations that do not come together into a plot or a story. There is also very little in the way of character development. There is a kind of descent the protagonist experiences, but it feels like this happens at a great distance, despite the first-person narration.

It’s an autobiographical novel, and Jones deserves credit for writing it, but I wonder if it would not have worked better as a memoir. The epilogue Jones appended to the FSG re-issue, in which she recounts her years as a struggling author, professor, and woman, was much more interesting than the novel.