Hello, hello.
My modest goal is to send out a newsletter every time I publish a new piece, but I’m failing to hold to it. I so enjoy reading other people’s newsletters, and I find it fun to write my own missives — still, I can’t seem to do it with any regularity. Sometimes I worry that this means I don’t have much to say about the things that interest me, but I don’t really think that is the case. My energy is simply too finite a resource these days: after the freelance assignments, the parenting, the teaching (during the school year), and the basic household upkeep (but let’s face it, I shirk these duties whenever possible), I don’t have much left in the tank. Add to that the drain of my consistent horror over the multifaceted (geo)political nightmare, and I can hardly maintain consciousness until 9 p.m. I know so many of you are in similar boats, and I join in you fervent solidarity. Things are very, very hard right now.
I feel guilty for bemoaning what often feels like a relentless pace of life because, god, who cares?? I whine about my lack of a true vacation or general domestic ease and then look at the news to see what new hell has been unleashed on Gaza, or on America’s immigrant communities. Yes, it’s all relative, but America is in genuine crisis right now because, for the second fucking time, millions of people in this country empowered the absolute worst human being to run it. I still cannot fully wrap my brain around that. I don’t want to accept that such a broad swath of our population abides with such hatred, such desire to inflict harm on others for their own perceived benefit. I’ve been desperately clinging to the naive belief that cruelty is a minority, that most people are governed by kindness, or at least tolerance. It is hard to maintain this belief nowadays.
Anyway, there are more crucial matters afoot than my exhaustion.
I have been writing, thankfully, and I’m grateful to have a good bit of new work to share. All the following URLS are gift links, so you can click freely.
In April, I wrote an essay for The Washington Post’s Book World on grief literature which draws significantly on Lauren Markham’s Immemorial, an extraordinary book-length essay on memorials and climate grief. The essay also includes some forays into Roland Barthes’ wonderful Mourning Diary and a bit about a tree that I think might remember my mother as a child. The art that Book World commissioned for the piece is really dreamy, and I was glad to have the space to consider how my love and grief for my mom, who will be gone eight years in November, evolves over time.
In May, Smith & Taylor Classics released their new edition of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s excellent sensation novel Lady Audley’s Secret, featuring a back-and-forth conversation between brilliant crime fiction expert Sarah Weinman and yours truly on queer desire, hysteria, domestic fiction, and other varied topics. I love this wild novel, and it was a real honor to be a part of such a gorgeous reissue.
June was a real whopper. I made my New York Times Book Review debut by writing about two middle grade novels which are distinct in scope and motivation but aligned in their depictions of rites of passage achieved through the characters’ harsh recognition of adult solipsism and corruption. I appreciated being thought of for this assignment because I really enjoy thinking rigorously about books written for younger audiences. I loved studying Victorian children’s literature in graduate school, and I think we do ourselves a disservice by ignoring the smart youth literature being published today. I’ve come across so much compelling work in the last few years, as I’ve begun building my son’s library. Children’s literature deserves attention and insightful conversation (and thankfully, it is getting a bit more, with the start of newsletters like Looking At Picture Books, by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen).
Back to June: I also wrote my first cover story! I reviewed Jayson Greene’s miraculous debut novel UnWorld for WaPo’s Book World, which gave me an opportunity to scream about the scourge of AI and why I think people are eager to rely on it in the first place. The piece was chosen for the section’s Sunday cover after I submitted it, which is lucky for me, because I otherwise would have gotten stage fright while drafting it. Again, the art accompanying the piece is beyond humbling. I feel very fortunate.
I currently have a couple more pieces in the works, one of which should be publishing soon. Otherwise, I’ve cleared my summer dance card so that I can (hopefully) finish drafting the book proposal I began last summer. It occurred to me that I’m feeling nervous to return to it. I’m afraid, I think, that I won’t be able to live up to the idea. I’m telling myself that this fear is an indication that the idea is worthwhile. And in any case, it won’t abate until I force myself to open that Google doc and see what’s there.
I’ll leave you with some reading recommendations!
I was lucky enough to read a galley copy of my friend Erin Somers’ sophomore novel, The Ten Year Affair, and oh my GOD, you are not ready for this searingly insightful, intelligent, sexy book. Erin structures the novel with such elegance and narrative intuition, and she depicts millennial adulthood with both tenderness and frank precision. I loved it so, so much.
And then I also finally read my dear longtime friend Jamie Hood’s sophomore work, Trauma Plot, which came out in April. I’d been fortunate to read an early version of part of it, but I wanted to save the finished book until the spring semester crush was over, and I could take my time. It is marvelous, which comes as no surprise. Jamie and I met at undergraduates at the College of William and Mary in Nancy Gray’s Politics of Female Storytelling class. I knew then that she was a singular mind, and it has been a joy and a privilege, as we’ve both navigated post-academic writing careers, to think and write alongside her. Trauma Plot broke my heart, because it’s impossible to read about someone you love dearly suffering like this and keep your heart in tact. (I also think our hearts should break from time to time.) But beyond that, I was thrilled by the way Jamie examines trauma as a problem of literary genre—how she interrogates the ontological problem of fitting the fracture of pain into the teleology of narrative. It is also a dazzlingly hopeful book, and hope on the page is an especial balm right now.
A few more books on my radar that I haven’t had a chance to read yet, but which are authored by brilliant writers I know and love: I Want to Burn This Place Down, by Maris Kreizman, See Friendship, by Jeremy Gordon, and Amber Spark’s forthcoming novel, Happy People Don’t Live Here.
(I should mention that Erin, Jamie, Jeremy, and Amber are all members of my nonfiction writing group.)
I also highly recommend Immemorial and UnWorld. And if you have a middle grade reader in your life, you must get them Meg Medina’s Graciela in the Abyss. (You can read my reviews for extended thoughts, obviously.)
At present, I’m reading Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea, which I’m loving for many reasons, among them the fact that I cannot resist a nasty first person narrator. (One of my erstwhile dissertation chapters was focused significantly on the delightfully bitchy narrator of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. He’s awful! I adore him!) More when I’ve actually finished the book!
Time to sign off, I think. But this was fun! I hope you had fun! I should do this more! I’m going to do my best.
Until then, take care of each other. <3
RVC