‘Diary of an Emotional Idiot’ a novel by Maggie Estep

“Hello, my name is Zoe & this is my book. It is a document of Emotional Idiocy told in two parts. There is the ‘then’ part, which explains how I got here, & there is the ‘now’ part, which documents what I am doing here. Although, of course, I don’t know exactly what I am doing here. At the moment, I am sitting at my desk naked but for some men’s boxer shorts and many silver bracelets. I like to see myself in men’s underwear. I like to see men in men’s underwear. Men in women’s underwear is also acceptable. Other women in men’s underwear doesn’t do so much for me. However if someone were to bring a tribe of women clad only in men’s underwear to my house, I might find it slightly exciting. I might not kick them out of my house.”

“...I live there with few furnishings, many books, & a cat named Wimpy given to me by Jim, a talented but ornery painter I used to sleep with. Wimpy weighs 22 pounds & has a psychological disorder: If I leave him alone too long, he becomes convinced that he has fleas & scratches himself raw. This I am telling you because it is an apt metaphor for how I feel in my skin right now. I am digging at my hide, rubbing it raw because I’ve been rubbed raw by love gone wrong. yes. This is another tale of love gone wrong. This is me turned idiot in the face of human interaction.”

And with this, you are flung into the life of Zoe.

And Zoe shares everything. Like a really good friend, she shares too much information. And that’s a good thing. She & her friends have formed ‘Idiots Anonymous’ where they sit & dish about all things idiots do: drug addictions, eating disorders, sex addictions, theft, and relationships come & gone. And you are like the silent friend at the Idiot’s Anonymous dinners ~ you get to listen, but you do not have to share your stories.

Zoe has fumbled her way in & out of many relationships, & she shares it all with you. Not just the stories of lovers, but the relationships with her parents, friends, and others as well. After all, relationships are not just those we have sex with.

You’ll hear of her childhood in France, how she lost her virginity, of her heroin addiction (complete with the cleaning her drug dealer's toilet for a fix & sex on the bathroom floor in rehab), of the soap opera adventures of the other tenants in her apartment building, the death of her father & well, everything.

But as Zoe has told you, this is a book in two parts. In the ‘now,’ Zoe sits in her ex-boyfriend’s closet, with a bicycle chain, ready to tie him up; as she awaits his return home, she masturbates & tells you what has brought her to this point of enlightened warped action. Yes, she is hiding in an ex’s closet, with a bike chain, waiting to tie him up, & to pass the time she is either masturbating or telling you about her past...

Estep tells the story in a dry, witty & cynical manner, with the wry tone of a friend who knows she is ‘all wrong.’

Most everyone has a nickname. Her neighbors are Daisy the Fading Stripper, the Hefty Lesbian Downstairs, Dave With the Long Dick, Eye Guy (& his girlfriend Eye Girl) & they received mail from Cyborg Mailman. One of her ex-boyfriends is called The Reader, because, of course, he doesn’t read. The Reader is one of the boyfriends after Satin. Satin is her name for the ex-boyfriend she is waiting to chain up.

Now before you go & think Zoe is crazy for calling him Satin when she sits diabolically in his closet, there are two things to remember here: One, that he had this name before the breakup (in fact, he is named such as he’s the reason she left a good & sane relationship), & Two, because this closet-sit-in-with-chains is the result of a breakup. No break up is normal.

Some folks are missing closure. Some twist & burn. Some escalate to points of ridiculousness. Well, it may seem ridiculous to you, but is it really?

To you, Zoe arguing with an ex about whose ass the Dr liked better when he gave them each a physical which included a finger rectal exam may seem strange. It sounds like a normal breakup conversation to me.

While sex & relationships are everywhere in this book, it isn’t a smut book for our erotic pleasure. It’s more of a look at the roller-coaster-ride of relationships. In many ways Zoe is a typical young woman in her 20’s. She has no idea of what she wants, no idea of how it is all supposed to work, or if she even wants it to. It’s a syndrome all to familiar too those of us who have survived our 20’s. This trip back with Zoe makes one remember their own years, in all their glory. Shame, humiliation, desperation, even the joy fades & is replaced with wry anecdotal stories that now make a person laugh. Or at least wince & smile.

Sort of like that rectal exam.

And like Zoe’s argument, those over their 20-something escapades, will now enjoy comparing their past relationship foibles & choices to Zoe’s. Hell, it might even inspire you to one-ass-up your friends as you regale one another with your stories of your own Satins.

For those who lament more active dating & mating in their youth, this book is still enjoyable: Same number of laughs, with none of them at your own expense.

Estep’s writing reads like a gift. It’s as direct, in-your-face, honest & emotional as the character, Zoe, herself. Like a friend telling you her stories, Zoe takes the bizarre incidents, the strange tales & persons, & blends them into a sublime world that you may not want to be a part of, but you sure want to hear more about it.

One of my favorite passages is part of the story of her schooling in France. Zoe, the Ugly American child in Paris, doesn’t fit in well. Least of all with the nuns. One day when she & a male classmate “were caught in the bathroom feeling each other’s hairless genitals,” Zoe is sent off to the head nun, Soeur de France’s office:

“After forcing me to admit that I was indeed a filthy little troll, Soeur de France smiled & seemed to be on the verge of dismissing me. The she said “Zoh-eee, don’t you find my name , de France, to be beautiful?”

I couldn’t believe it. A nun blowing her own horn. What about effacement of self, what about humility? I said that no, de France was really not a remarkable name. This was the straw that busted old de France’s back. She put me in the retard class then. It was me, the little American freak, & some mongoloids & paraplegics & a Portuguese girl with elephantiasis. We were not so much learning-disabled as just plain odd in the eyes of the head nun.

We sat around doing Catholic Art Therapy . One day, the town’s TV news team came to do a special on us retards & how, for all our learning disabilities, we were making progress & would become upstanding French citizens after all. As a demonstration of our accomplishments, they shot several seconds of me, painting. I was making an abstract portrait of two nuns having lesbian sex -- something Frederique & I had halfheartedly forayed into. The painting looked rather pretty with swirls of pink & black that the TV crew interpreted as floral, not sexual. When I wnet home, I snuck into the living room where the YV sat, mostly unused. I was not allowed to watch it & so had to covertly catch the news program. And, sure enough, there it was, me & my painting of dyke nuns, on national French TV. Maybe this was where I got the notion to indirectly make money off of sex. I had painted nuns going at it & there it was on TV. It was a slow but natural evolution to my present-day occupation as a fuck book writer & receptionist to dominatrixes.”

The Diary of an Emotional Idiot is quick, leaves you wanting more, and makes you really, really wish you could write all your life crap like this.