1 over x

it’s very interesting following an author’s work over time, seeing them take different angles on the same object. 1 over x, like cockatiel x chameleon before it, deals a lot with the internet, with modernity. cockatiel depicted the internet through metaphor. everything was rendered physically. chatrooms became smoke-filled parlors, social media an unruly mob. given that cockatiel is about roleplayers, this makes sense, right? everything becomes artifice and performance.

1 over x is a horror novel set in a prestigious girls’ school in new england. its second chapter is the protagonist’s twitter x the everything app feed, presented dryly. sequence of posts. the occasional video. i find 1 over x’s depiction of Online very resonant. constant information overload. there’s a trump monologue about deep state nephilim. at one point a five nights at freddy’s youtuber interrupts the story to provide her analysis. it’s incredibly dense and layered… seems very rewarding to study closely, to cross reference all the little references, all the recurring themes…

there’s a lot of sexuality & class & gender in here, too. the students all place bets on who at the school is a lesbian. (the correct answer might be “everyone”. there’s so much repressed shit going on.) many students are introduced in relation to someone more powerful, their rich parent who got them into the school. the protagonist’s roommate is the daughter of a tech ceo and so on. as for the gender, well. the school is all girls, sequestered away from the outside world, away from (frequently cast as male) intrusion. crossdressing is frequently discussed. again. a lot here.

and it gets quite scary! it’s a horror novel, after all. like any good slasher, it sets its pieces up and knocks them down quite well. the collapse of normalcy in the face of an outside context problem is rendered very effectively. even before bavitz shows us all the fantastic human blender, it’s good horror. the protagonist is schizophrenic. instead of relying on cheap “insane… asylum!” horror, the early portions of the novel focus on how scary it is to not be able to trust your own perception. which is nice to see in a world where a solid chunk of horror media is “what if there was a mentally ill and/or trans person.”

and it has a far more satisfying ending than, say, revealing it was all a plot to test pharmaceuticals. overall: very overwhelming read. highly recommend.