Recent Items of Note (To Me, But Also Maybe to You?)

Writing my little book reviews as the world burns.

Hi!

Maybe one day, I will not sit down to write a newsletter after a very long day of intellectual and parental labor, but alas, I am once more writing to you as an almost-corpse.

But maybe that’s actually the most fitting mode for communication in these dark times. It is draining to be so angry and worried all of the time, especially when one is angry and worried about things that were not previously cause for ire or concern. When I allow myself to think about the destruction being wrought by Trump Part Deux—and when I contemplate the many potential ramifications—it feels as if I’m perched precariously at the edge of an abyss. Entertain these thoughts for too long, and I’ll fall. So far I always manage to bring myself back, not through optimism, exactly, but through the desperate force of my self-preserving instincts. And I’m stubborn enough that I refuse to despair or give myself over to nihilism on account of these incompetent, evil clownfucks.

Anyway, maybe you’d like to know what I’ve been working on lately?

My most recent piece was published in The Atlantic the week before last. I wrote about Haley Mlotek’s debut memoir, No Fault, a lovely, rigorously searching, and generically playful work which understands at its core the ontological quandary of trying to fit feelings into narrative. Originally, the piece had more to say about that, but as is so often the case, a couple of paragraphs were cut during the editorial process. I thought, instead, I’d share some of that writing here:

“Apply a bit of pressure, and the term “love story” reveals itself as an oxymoron. It unites—marries, if you prefer—two fundamentally opposed entities. A story committed to the page or screen, no matter how unconventional, generally functions according to a precise, language-bound logic. It sets its terms and unfurls in accordance with them.

But love does not abide reason; it is bound by neither internal coherence nor temporal structure. So too is the case with anger, grief, ambivalence, and every other existential condition a person experiences in the span of a lifetime. For all their ineffability, we name our feelings as if doing so might make them more legible. And we seek to comprehend and explain them with the tools available to us. The result, oftentimes, is narrative.”

Cuts and revisions happen; ultimately, I am very happy with the published version of the review. (Here’s a gift link, by the way.) Moreover, The Atlantic has been very generous in its promotion of the piece, which I definitely appreciate. And I’m grateful that my wonderful editor thought of me for this assignment in the first place. I love the intellectual exercise of writing about books, but this was a particularly meaningful read, and I hope that my review will encourage you to pick it up.

I’ve got some more writing projects in the works, and I’ll share them when they are published/exist. In the meantime, I am very excited to share some writing adjacent news. The excellent people at Smith & Taylor Classics are reissuing Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s sensation(al) novel, Lady Audley’s Secret, a book that you’ve probably read if you completed graduate work in Victorian literature, but otherwise is not especially well-known. Each S&T edition includes a conversation between two critics about the text, and I was fortunate to be one of the critics in conversation on Lady Audley’s Secret. My conversation partner, Sarah Weinman, is a brilliant crime fiction expert, and I learned so much from her. Our discussion was wide-ranging, including such topics as Victorian sensation novels, contemporary crime fiction, Gone Girl, hysteria and misogyny, surveillance, and why Robert Audley is The Worst. Obviously I’m biased, but the edition is gorgeous, and I highly recommend preordering a copy so that you can hold it in your hands immediately upon its May 2025 publication. It’s a delicious novel, even a little campy in parts, and it lives in the DNA of countless works of crime and neo-gothic literature (Daphne DuMaurier, for instance, surely read both Braddon and Wilkie Collins).

Speaking of books, mine turned five last week. I was a different person when I wrote Too Much, but as Joan Didion puts it, I am on speaking terms with that person, and I’m very glad she wrote this book. I am, moreover, deeply grateful to everyone who has read and shared it.

Alright, I think that’s enough for now. Please take care of yourselves. For every thirty minutes of doom scrolling, maybe look at a tree? (This is advice that I need to follow as well.)