Leave Metaphors at the Door

At the Hay Festival Querétaro last year, Deborah Levy spoke about avoiding the term “autofiction” when describing her work. “I don’t believe in genre,” she said. “I think that is just for a commercial thing.” I thought of the comment while reading Therese Estacion’s powerful Jelly, Baby. To call these meditations a collection of essays is perhaps evidence of the challenge of trying to wedge art into commercial spaces. Fusing poetry, memoir, travel writing, and cultural history, Estacion’s project is more expansive. If you come to it expecting just essays, you will be in for a surprise.

Jelly, Baby is not a before-and-after story. It is not a narrative with upward, linear motion. Works of fiction and memoir usually have an arc that depicts change and a sense of progress for the events and characters. But here, Estacion sits with her anger, her bitterness, and her “messianic rage.” Thank goodness! Social media — and media more generally — is a place...