A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
By: Alicia Elliott / Narrated By: Kyla Garcia
Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
Kyla Garcia turns mostly-crotchety essays into chipper and jaunty musings… Whatthe?!?
Seriously!
Author Alicia Elliott opens A Mind Spread Out on the Ground with her having to give a reason for her mental un-ease to a medical professional. Right away she’s thinking of things like the state-run boarding schools where Indigenous kids were sent to “Kill the Indian and Save the Man”. Then she ponders the wearying weight of depression and depression itself. It’s heavy stuff, ya know?
And narrator Kyla Garcia couldn’t be more bubbly and jaunty if she tried.
Considering most of the essays are just shy of bitter, the perpetually upbeat tones of Ms. Garcia are staggering to sit around and listen to. What on earth is one s’posed to make of sexual mistreatment and outright sexual assault conveyed with a breezy air? How about reality TV leading to the rise of Fake News (Impish voice for this)?
An increasingly gentrified hometown that has brought wealth to the neighborhoods but led to pricing out residents? This is the elite yet again oppressing and displacing the original owners, which is soooo déjà vu, is it not (Avuncular professorial tones for this)? Loving one’s father despite the gross abuse (This one at least has a sliiiiiiiightly somber air)?
And having what was, before marriage, the longest relationship of Elliott’s life be with her head lice (Oh gosh, exceeeeedingly jovial narration, cuz ain’t it all hiLARious)?!
Oh, Ms. Garcia, did you not speak with the author beforehand? I canNOT imagine she said: Do it! Do it! This is frolicking in the park!
Expect a WIDE range of topics covered, serious topics when you pick up this just over 7-hour Listen. Intergenerational trauma. Colonialism. Intentional forgetting. Mental illness. Sontag’s Ethics of Seeing. Writing and Imagination and how so very many judgments/expectations are thrust upon the writer.
I like how Elliott’s mind works, and I welcome the viewpoint of a fellow woman, plus I admire her ability to use powerful words. It’s just that Jiminy H. Freaking Crickets!
Kyla Garcia! Noooooo!!!
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