Hollow, hallowed damage…

DRAMA QUEEN by Rosalie Parker

Initially, I thought this a rather hollow tale about a hollow actor as narrator and a hollow actress with whom he sporadically interacts, but eventually it becomes an ingenious story of unrequited love and of one’s legacy or posterity. A symphony of false appearances as well as the act of living or dying for the part one plays.
I feel rather affectionate about this story, as the reader of its ruthful runes. Especially with it addressing me as ‘my dear’. A real-time moment’s passion of reading as a fearless faith in fiction, indeed in any story that stays the hollow hand of death, at least for that moment. Playing one’s rehearsed and recurring rôle till the very end. The act of reviewing fiction as an art in itself: an act not as hollow or fictitious, now, as it once seemed.

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Full context of this review: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/12/15/damage-rosalie-parker/