Michelle Winters was interviewed about the novel and mentioned that the epigraph was almost “Indelible in the hippocampus is the sound of laughter.� TMichelle Winters was interviewed about the novel and mentioned that the epigraph was almost “Indelible in the hippocampus is the sound of laughter.� That was what Christine Blasey Ford said when asked what she remembered from the sexual assault committed by Brett Kavanaugh during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for his nomination to the Supreme Court. That she could still so clearly hear that laughter haunted Winters.
Our protagonist Louise still hears that laughter and can never shake the shame and anger that sits in her bones after her own high school humiliation. She finds solace in the punk scene and the words of Henry Rollins whose quote "my optimism wears heavy boots and is loud" which instead became the epigraph Winters would eventually use.
And while it is the story of Louise becoming a barber at Hair for Men before fleeing to the East Coast to work a small marina where she finds herself on the day of the Tragically Hip's 2016 farewell performance � it is also an examination of a culture that needs better models for its men.
There is Louise travelling with her charismatic father who sold shampoo to the fawning and flirtatious stylists with a wink and some knowing banter, leaving each salon wiping lipstick from his cheeks. At Hair for Men, Louise is part of a cadre of women working a luxurious salon. There the women create a safe and welcoming space where the male clientele can open up and share in a way they might not be able to at home or with their friends. At the marina, Louise sees how a shrugging noncommittal dismissal of a young boy creates a vacuum where ugly things can begin to fester.
And that boy from high school. What does it mean to apologize for the specific action yet still hold to the entitlement that it sprung from. What happens when he becomes a father to a little girl? The notion "boys will be boys" abdicates any responsibility to something better, to submit to a patriarchal status quo that leaves men ill equipped to truly examine their internal landscape.
And there is Gord Downie backstage the night of the Tragically Hip's final show. He is in a silver suit and flat-topped white hat. Amidst the roar of the crowds outside, he turns to bandmate Rob Baker, taking his face in both hands to kiss him gently on the lips. The band in turn showing clear, naked affection for each so at odds with what we think of from a rock band, from men. ...more
Climate journalist Zoë Schlanger was burnt out of disaster reporting, dutifully marking every grim benchmark on our inexorable slide to catastrophe. SClimate journalist Zoë Schlanger was burnt out of disaster reporting, dutifully marking every grim benchmark on our inexorable slide to catastrophe. So she packed it in and went on a five-year global journey pursuing the lush possibility of our global flora, seeing in plants "a masterclass in living to one's fullest, weirdest, most resourceful potential."
She would soon find the realm of plants was riven with controversy. Contentious debates, strictly policed funding, careers tainted by scorn and dismissal. All thanks to an ascientific collection of beautiful myths called "The Secret Life of Plants" which convinced us that plants enjoyed being talked to and favoured Bach to Bon Jovi. It tainted the entire field of plant behaviour and led to a decades long freeze on meaningful research, and even now plant scientists remain tentative and guarded.
Schlanger knows that our tendency to anthropomorphize plants is dangerous territory, even the term plant behaviour is contentious, and yet each chapter is loosely based on human senses and behaviour. I can forgive the inconsistency as it is bolstered by sheer enthusiasm and, not for nothing, provides a handy bit of categorization to frame the narrative.
Can plants not "hear"? Reacting to the chomp of leaves being eaten or growing roots towards the sound of running water underground. Is it not communication when plants pump chemical gases into the air to warn others of the impending threat of leaf-munching caterpillars so they can change the chemical composition of their leaves or excrete gases of their own to lure natural predators to the caterpillars. Maybe it's not "sight" but then how does a unique vine in Chile change it's appearance to match the leaf shape, color, and vein patterns of nearby plants, often mimicking different plants on the same vine. How do plants recall the time of day when pollinators visit? Are they showing evidence of memory? What about the appearance of cooperation with similar plant species sharing resources as to not crowd out or shade others of their own "family". All this sends plant scientists into a tizzy with a host of "well actually" and "yes but" barely contained behind their lips. I like to think of it in terms of the Buddhist Sutra remarking on a finger pointing at the moon � we need to obsess less on the finger and more at what it's trying to point at.
I loved this read. Not for nothing a lot of this was prompted by the realization that one of the founding members of the Society of Plant Signaling and Behaviour is a cell biologist at the University of Bonn where my daughter is currently working on her Masters in, appropriately enough, Plant Sciences. She has a healthy skepticism for this renewed enthusiasm for plant signalling and will stick with polyploidy self-fertilization rates through runs of homozygosity ratios - just don't tell her I think Schlanger's stuff is more readable. ...more
Here to see the source material that prompted Bong Joon-ho to base his next movie on. It's clear he's using it as a jumping off point and can guaranteHere to see the source material that prompted Bong Joon-ho to base his next movie on. It's clear he's using it as a jumping off point and can guarantee he's going to take some liberties. Mr Ashton, get your bag with the adaptation rights, but honestly the story here is pretty meh.
The potential is all there. Ship of Theseus, immortality, colonialism, capitalist exploitation, beautiful extra-planetary disasters, first contact, surreal threesomes and more. So much meat on those bones but instead it felt more like listening to Mickey bitching about caloric intake and lame friends. I mean the difference between Mickey7 and 8 was pretty profound when you consider they only differ by a handful of days at best. Maybe there's cognitive drift with subsequent iterations, but Mickey8 is a bit of a dick.
The moral of the story is that individuals with humanities degrees are completely expendable in the distant future. ...more
This is clearly Avatar fan-fic harking back to an Ice-Age era Neanderthal ancestor of the Na'vi filtered through a tradwife lens that wants women bareThis is clearly Avatar fan-fic harking back to an Ice-Age era Neanderthal ancestor of the Na'vi filtered through a tradwife lens that wants women barefoot, pregnant, and totally dependent. Of course this is about as relevant as dissecting your pizza deliver guy porn plot as a metaphoric reaction to a problematic gig economy. Folks are here for the ribbed-for-her-pleasure, seven-foot tall, blue alien simp. This is porn with a plot. Sci-fi smut. Alien erotica. ET with BDE. What boggles is that there are 22 books in the series. I could get a boxed set of Na'vi nookie.
Yes it was a bookclub pick, thankfully our other bookclub's foray into inanimate smut featuring deviled eggs and a wider universe that includes suntan lotion, dryer lint, and the Kool-Aid man doesn't quite warrant a book review, coming (hah) in at under 40 pages. But at almost 200 pages this one qualifies � though given the BookTok glow-up and discourse I doubt if I'm bringing anything new to the table. You already know if this is for you....more
Like I need yet another hack that inevitably leads down a rabbit hole of imagined productivity. I've dabbled in Notion, tried Evernote, considered bulLike I need yet another hack that inevitably leads down a rabbit hole of imagined productivity. I've dabbled in Notion, tried Evernote, considered bullet journaling, or keeping a commonplace book. Anything that mitigates my fraught memory and helps me retain a fraction of what I read. And so I tumble headlong into the world of Zettelkasten. I think it has the potential to upend my way of reading.
Zettelkasten sniffs at those of us that merely highlight passages as we read. Less than useless it proclaims! We need to write to think. It is only when we take the time to consider these passages and render them in our own words on the page (digital or otherwise) do we hope to have a chance of retaining them. These notes become an external scaffolding for our thoughts and we connect these ideas to build new concepts that can lead to further inquiry. By creating a standardized framework we improve our chances of recalling these ideas as well.
It's such a compelling concept even for someone like me that has no plans to publish scholarly articles, write non-fiction, or even flesh out an especially erudite Substack. I admit, the book is a bit vague in the actual rendering of individual notes (unique IDs, relational linkages, keywords and indices!) which led to googling Zettelkasten explainers, debating the best methods to retain information on these "slips", and of course a flurry of tabs exploring Obsidian workflows as I download yet another note-taking app. Honestly, it's all geek catnip. This will likely involve stationary and buying new pens somehow � and I'm not mad about it. ...more
It's the story of a PR firm working with the Norwegian Post Communications Union opposing an upcoming EU directive involving letters weighing less thaIt's the story of a PR firm working with the Norwegian Post Communications Union opposing an upcoming EU directive involving letters weighing less than 50 grams.
Fine, let's take a look at it through a more critical lens. Ellinor is the 35-year old co-founder of the aforementioned PR firm. She's recently uncovered her old diary from 2000. She can barely recall the events recorded therein but is sickened in the reading of it. "The names were interchangeable, as were the dates, there was no sense of progression, no coherence, no joy, only frustration; shopping, sunbathing, gossiping, eating."
Not much has changed in the ensuing years. She's barely able to go through the motions. She is in a constant daze, zoning out as people try to talk to her, her writing filled with obvious typos, living a small, grey life. Forced to perform at enthusiasm for her job and her relationships. She's beyond pretending to care. As she puts it, "my life is too banal for my despair."
But the PR job opposing the EU directive, almost certainly doomed to failure, begins to stir something within Ellinor. A postman's story of turning dead letters into living ones speaks to the idea of individual effort and care. Of being a dedicated and invested part of a larger community. That there is hope in pushing back against the inexorable tide of capitalism and a disengaged government. That there is worth in sticking your neck out, sharing your story, and not giving into to resigned apathy.
Weaved within that awakening� prior to the revival of something previously dead to living � we find Ellinor failing at her DIY magazine. Her copy is riddled with typos and errors, the words listless on the page. She struggles with another project, a chain called The Real Thing. She only finds renewed purpose with the postal initiative, ensuring that people can continue connecting, one on one, with other people. Metaphors abound! Admittedly there is some fun to be teased out and uncovering the underlying ideas hidden within. In that sense, given the current moment of history we're living through, the story here feels incredibly timely after all....more
Much of it is a form of closely observed and serious music writing that used to occupy the pages of NME and The Wire a lifetime ago. It can feel a bitMuch of it is a form of closely observed and serious music writing that used to occupy the pages of NME and The Wire a lifetime ago. It can feel a bit inscrutable, often referencing things like a "Ballardian infrastructure of British post-Fordist capitalism". Ballard is a particular touchstone. He along with Burroughs will be name-checked over a dozen times, invoking something that I guess I should know. Fisher is interested in the post-punk, a world where the possibilities have expanded and there is the chance of something profoundly new appearing. And it extends beyond music as well, exploring British TV nostalgia with Sapphire and Steel, and more recently Life on Mars, Christopher Nolan's Inception, and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
It feels like a collection of Substack missives from someone interested in exploring their own taste in opposition to the algo-slop we're unconsciously consuming in our current period of cultural stagnation. (In fact it is a collection of writings from his blog k-punk back when blogs were a thing)
I appreciate it introducing me to the uneasy nostalgia of Ghost Box Records and The Caretaker, as well as the melancholy crackle of Burial and Black to Comm. It was also lovely to see a chapter devoted to the synthpop Canadiana of Hamilton Ontario natives Junior Boys. (So This is Goodbye has long been a favourite)
Mark Fisher is clearly a revered figure. I'd come here after reading a chapter in Phil Christman's How to Be Normal where he talks about Mark Fisher's death by suicide on Friday, January 13 2017. The following Monday his students, both current and former, showed up for his class. They would return for subsequent Mondays to grieve and read their way through his remaining syllabus. I wanted to join in that conversation and understand where that reverence comes from.
As Christman notes about Fisher: "he cares. He cares about books, he cares about records, he cares about friends, he cares about students, he cares about ideas, he cares about the world. He cannot write indifferently." ...more
I enjoy a bit of a hot mess every now and again and Bradley Pearson delivers. At 58 he's a retired inspector for the Inland Revenue Service, freed to I enjoy a bit of a hot mess every now and again and Bradley Pearson delivers. At 58 he's a retired inspector for the Inland Revenue Service, freed to compose the long dormant literary masterpiece stewing inside him. But life seems intent on thwarting his artistic ambition. We have a recently widowed ex-wife and her mendicant brother returning to town and intent on his attentions, a best-selling literary rival who is sure he's killed his wife, their naive daughter who's seeking a literature tutor, as well as a hopelessly depressed sister finding herself at the precipice of a divorce. Every time Bradley attempts to escape to the country he is beset by doorbells, phone calls, and visitations that unleash antic frenzies that border on farcical. All rendered with with the flowery prose of Bradley himself, attempting a highbrow work of thoughtful erudition, at the same time delivering an overwrought mass market tale that he would disdain had it come from his literary rival Arnold Baffin. Despite the barely contained hysteria on the page there seems to be a stiff rod of prim propriety throughout, where you imagine everyone still stopping for tea with their pinkie's raised.
Is this a middle-aged fantasy where it seems that every woman Bradley encounters is intent on his affections? Humbert Humbert style intellectual gymnastics wrapped in flowery philosophical prose to justify a May-December romance? An unreliable closeted narrator wrestling with his own sexuality? A last ditch attempt to write a commercial piece of sensationalistic fiction to grasp at relevance? All and none of the above. Bradley's story is bookended with two forwards and six postscripts that further confound any sense of what's to come and what has passed. I have to say, it's certainly a dim view of middle-aged marriage in the end. ...more
I mean I'm no stranger to awful people in fiction, but 81-year old widower Maggie Burkhardt is the final boss of busybody, octogenarian Karens. Holed I mean I'm no stranger to awful people in fiction, but 81-year old widower Maggie Burkhardt is the final boss of busybody, octogenarian Karens. Holed up at the Royal Karnak Palace Hotel in Luxor Egypt, she's on a one-woman quest to "fix" the misaligned couples she encounters on vacation. Whether they like it or not. The first third of the book is a slow, bordering on arduous, boil. Maggie splits her time vaguely intimating that her meddling may have taken a tragic turn in the past and smugly comparing the middling affairs of the couples around her to the incandescent love she shared with her husband Peter. She is the distillation of every obliviously insufferable boomer Facebook harridan that just can't mind their own. Given our current gerontocracy, where cruelty seems to be the point, maybe this grated more than I was ready for.
And then she meets 8-year old Otto Seeber. He's a callous and sneering manipulator that recognizes Maggie for who she really is. And yes, this malignant man-child gleefully sowing discord, feeding his own base self-interests, and inflicting pain also feels discomfortingly familiar.
What could have been deliciously spiteful instead becomes morbidly, shockingly dark. My body was not ready. And maybe this proved less of an escape from the current reality than I would have liked. ...more
The subtitle "An Ambiguous Utopia" is doing a lot of work. We have portrayals of anarchism, socialism, and capitalism on display but done with a lightThe subtitle "An Ambiguous Utopia" is doing a lot of work. We have portrayals of anarchism, socialism, and capitalism on display but done with a light touch. You can easily imagine a lesser author with a distinct bias hammering their points under a sci-fi scrim of imaginary planets and alien races.
We're introduced to Shevek, a revolutionary scientist on the planet Anarras. A society based on radical sharing where no one owns property, children are communally raised, and work is equally shared and distributed. But it's an arid place and many are living on the edge of subsistence. There is no government but that doesn't prevent petty politics and jealously from marring Shevek's brilliance. He's stymied from realizing his life's work in Sequency and Simultaneity that could have such a profound impact it would ripple outwards from Anarres into the galaxy itself.
He resolves to go to the planet Urras where he's given the tools and support to realize his theories on a lush and vibrant planet filled with immense beauty. But of course in this patriarchal, capitalist society his dream has value only as currency, the enabling technology giving the nation of A-Io unrivalled power. Shevek soon sees the vast chasm between classes here.
There's so much to dwell on in a perfect ouroboros of a story that ends exactly where it starts. It invites a rereading and will likely reward such an effort with even more ideas to debate and consider. ...more
Coming out of the pandemic and settling into the pervasive brain-rot of social media it's clear to Christman that “we are ruled, locally and nationallComing out of the pandemic and settling into the pervasive brain-rot of social media it's clear to Christman that “we are ruled, locally and nationally and internationally, by greedy and silly people." In the face of that he grapples with his own identity as a cig-gendered, heterosexual, white man. In the chapter "How to Be a Man" he struggles with our culture's demands of masculinity where “your choices are between stick figures, between Death Wish or Animal House, the Batman of Christian Bale or the Batman of Adam West.� In both cases he feels like an imposter, covered in flop sweat. In "How to Be White" he decries the prevalence of "shit-eating allysim" and how whiteness toggles between "monstrosity and banality".
Despite the title it's not a how-to manual, more a state of the union infused with warmth, a self-deprecating precision, and a slight bit of Christian sentiment that never feels hectoring or proselytizing. That warmth is what is going to have me revisit some of the essays here. They feel worth the extra time and consideration. ...more
As a self-professed lapsed philosopher, always on the cusp of finishing her PhD at Harvard, Becca Rothfeld's collection of essays wavers between challAs a self-professed lapsed philosopher, always on the cusp of finishing her PhD at Harvard, Becca Rothfeld's collection of essays wavers between challenging and cerebral analysis with very sweaty, human feelings wading though our current culture. At times it can make for a challenging read, and whether I'm interpreting it "correctly" or not it still opened up an interesting line of thinking.
Rothfeld is arguing for excess while throwing Sally Rooney, Marie Kondo, and American Puritanism under the bus. It's a reaction to our current obsession with minimalism (that may have been a reaction to the excesses of the '80's) which is tied to the precarity many of us feel at this point in late-stage capitalism. Let us embrace and demand more for ourselves.
I also loved her response to the trend to just "Shhh. Let people enjoy things" which seems especially prescient in this time of peak mid and the constant enshittification of media. Some things are just bad. Taste demands better. This egalitarian pose we seem intent on applying to everything just falls apart when faced with love, which is "at its root a species of prejudice."
Becca is admittedly a bit extra and mentions a suicide attempt, online stalking an ex's new girl, and her very visceral feelings when initially dating her now husband - but I appreciate the on-brand personal narrative. Why not demand more of everything, mess and all. ...more
It's not a perfect book but easily one of my most favourite reads of 2024. It's T.S Eliot's The Wasteland for those of us terminally online. It's immeIt's not a perfect book but easily one of my most favourite reads of 2024. It's T.S Eliot's The Wasteland for those of us terminally online. It's immensely smart and readable but it becomes even more so for those of us that recognize the argot of Reddit AITAs, raging incel manifestos, bot armies, and unhinged group chats.
The lightly interconnected set of short stories opens with the most read piece of fiction ever published in n+1's 20 year existence as a literary magazine. It's a pitch perfect sounding embittered "good guy" that is completely invested in his involuntary celibate martyrdom while going big brain on feminist theory that he wields like a cudgel. It is the concentrated, high-potency distillation of incels, barrel-aged in the language of the manosphere.
By book three we have an absolutely batshit, 20-page Grand Guignol of erotic fantasy that requires its own sidebar on getting the viscosity of several gallons of fake cum just right. Tulathimutte commits to the bit and somehow manages to render a generation of perpetually online, information overloaded introverts with crippling real world anxiety recognizable behind their own glazed ahegao.
Once again Tony manages to reject himself before you. He maintains an uncanny ability to anticipate criticism and respond within the work which was subtly done with his debut Private Citizens. Here, in what should be absolutely insufferable, a publisher flatly rejects the collection of short stories we've just read. Somehow it still manages to be an immensely readable and meta romp to finish the collection.
I love Jia Tolentino's review in the New Yorker where she states it wasn't "until I picked up Tony Tulathimutte’s “Rejection� did I realize how fun it could be to read a book about a bunch of huge fucking losers."...more
Barbara Van Laar is the 13 year old scion of a wealthy banking family. As the novel opens on this nearly 500 page novel, Barbara is discovered missingBarbara Van Laar is the 13 year old scion of a wealthy banking family. As the novel opens on this nearly 500 page novel, Barbara is discovered missing from her bunk at Emerson Camp. She is not the first Van Laar child to have been lost. 14 years ago at the very same camp her then 8-year old brother Bear also disappeared, never to be found.
That perfunctory dust-jacket synopsis is all you need. You are in the expert hands of author Liz Moore who elevates this mystery thriller to literary perfection. She is deftly jumping across decades while keeping tabs on over a dozen critical players. Hard enough, but each of them is so distinctly realized that I swear I'd recognize them if I ran into them on the street.
It's filled with affairs, misdirects, lies, betrayals, conspiracies and more but always within the bounds of plausibility. It smartly spans the 1950's through to the mid seventies, before social media and the pervasiveness of the internet. And, more tellingly, harkening back to a time when wealth necessitated a certain type of prim propriety that is completely absent in our current crop of crass capitalists.
This thing has all the smart, propulsive pacing of a true crime podcast with the literary chops of a Kazuo Ishiguro. This thing just hits....more
We get a middle-aged writer, ranked as one of the hundred most important people in twentieth century British culture, whose best works are now decadesWe get a middle-aged writer, ranked as one of the hundred most important people in twentieth century British culture, whose best works are now decades in the past. He's sitting down to a play in London's West End that's been getting good reviews - reviews he's willfully avoided to allow himself the pleasure of taking it in completely fresh. He wants to enjoy his daughter's first major stage production with no knowledge of what to expect.
To his horror he realizes that he is the lewd, rutting centre of a scathing production that calls into question his talents as a writer and a parent. Where he once may have been seen as a literary bad-boy and provocateur, he now sees himself portrayed as an irrelevant misogynist, a source of derision. Even so he can't help but admire his daughter's work. It's good, maybe better than anything he's ever done.
As he endures his life parodied onstage his daughter is having lunch with her mom. Far from being delighted at sticking in the knife she feels conflicted. Unsaid is the idea that she could be trading in on his fame, a nepo baby offering up salacious insight into a once looming literary figure. As one theatre going muses, it's just "All these white female characters making a show of reclaiming an anglophone novel from a privileged white man. Like that’s changing the narrative." And while the details of the play remain vague there does not seem to be a resolution baked in, that it serves as simply a hit piece. One that does little to amend the relationship between father and daughter. ...more
Written in the wake of Trump's first election, the ensuing seven years and Trump's triumphant return to office only sharpen the points being made. TruWritten in the wake of Trump's first election, the ensuing seven years and Trump's triumphant return to office only sharpen the points being made. Trump isn't even president as we close out 2024 and already the first edict in this book "Do not obey in advance" seems especially relevant. In Canada we see our Prime Minister scurrying to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring, throw Mexico under the bus, and offer pre-emptive concessions that only serve to embolden the President-elect. And Justin's just one of many all too ready to bend the knee.
We've already ceded too much. Chapters titled "Defend Institutions" "Remember Professional Ethics" "Be Kind to our Language" and "Believe in Truth" already sound naive, the Overton window long since moved past the point of these retaining meaning.
As a professor of history with a focus on Eastern European political history, Timothy Snyder's seen this all before. As the warnings increase with every chapter, he leaves us with the admonishment "Be as courageous as you can." He hasn't given up hope yet and looks to rouse us to action. ...more
I loved Four Thousand Weeks so this was a no-brainer. What struck me as I was reading this is that Burkeman is a fantastic writer, far better than whaI loved Four Thousand Weeks so this was a no-brainer. What struck me as I was reading this is that Burkeman is a fantastic writer, far better than what I'd expect from traditional "self-help" authors. It helps the medicine go down. So while others might find the observations obvious, decanted from multiple previously known sources, they are presented in pithy little chapters ripe for revisiting.
Absent is the admonishments to grit and getting it done, the valiant efforts required to achieve your lofty goals, and the implied failure when you inevitably fall short of the author's step-by-step guide. Here is an embrace of failure and finitude. The idea that instead of lightening the load there is value in making it so heavy it needs to be put down. That in doing so, permission is given to stop struggling. Many only achieve this through burnout, but there is an alternative.
It's a tricky balance between being kind to yourself and still striving to meet your ambitions. It's even tougher when you realize there is no definitive achieving of that balance, no end state where it's all made clear, just a constant struggle to adjust the scales everyday and move imperfectly onward. ...more
Admittedly forgettable but cozy tale that's Richard Scarry meets Agatha Christie. It follows all the right mystery conventions with red herrings, misdAdmittedly forgettable but cozy tale that's Richard Scarry meets Agatha Christie. It follows all the right mystery conventions with red herrings, misdirects, and a mounting body count but feels slightly less dire when it's a curmudgeonly toad with a knife in his back floating in the pond. I hate to admit it, but with a growing cast of characters I did come to appreciate the names being a tad on the nose. Vera Vixen is a fox, von Beaverpelt owns the sawmill, Lenore is a raven, and naturally the Chinese restaurant owner is a panda named Sun Li. Even as the author precedes the book with a note to not overthink things and simply resolve to consider the denizens of Shady Hollow as humans with particularly animalistic traits, I couldn't help but wonder how "relations" between a fox and bear might work out and exactly how a raven restocks shelves at the bookstore....more
This was a fantastically fun bit of literary fiction that considers the working poor and social media. For a culture so permanently online, and perennThis was a fantastically fun bit of literary fiction that considers the working poor and social media. For a culture so permanently online, and perennially obsessed with the cost of living, we don't often see it expressed well in current books. Thorpe tackles both with aplomb and keeps the pace pumping.
Margo is a 19 year old waitress who finds herself pregnant after a brief fling with her college English professor. He promptly nopes out when Margo decides to keep the baby which results in her losing her job, losing her roommates, and in very real danger of not making rent. Her mother meanwhile, a former Hooters waitress, is too busy to offer any help, relentlessly trying to get her hooks into a bible-thumping, but stable man. Margo in desperation turns to OnlyFans and Hungry Ghost is born. She's there to bare all with a bit of rating dick pics as pokemon characters. By her side is her once estranged father, a retired WWE superstar with addiction and infidelity issues but who understands the nature of kayfabe and helps Margo take her online presence up a notch.
It's a lot but somehow it comes off as warm. Margo is remarkably self-assured and shameless with an abundance of grace despite her at times tenuous situation. The book ends up being smart and a lot of fun. ...more
A bracing alternative to the wailing bathos we tend to expect from the grieving (certainly a valid response that many adopt) But for some of us grief A bracing alternative to the wailing bathos we tend to expect from the grieving (certainly a valid response that many adopt) But for some of us grief settles in the tiniest of details in the following months. Didion talks of feeling invisible, incorporeal - of being remarked as a "cool customer." And maybe it's a bit of that steely resolve that needs to be deployed as she tends to an ailing only child that would die a year or so after the book was published. It left me feeling a bit breathless, this tightrope walk between the loss of her husband and the anxiety of tending to her only child's illness in the wake of that loss. Granted, given our current class consciousness it can reek of privilege, of connection, and globe trotting recollections. Didion is privy to an access of care and consideration that is alien to most of us in our current climate and that distance feels sharp. Nonetheless, I appreciated the cool incisive prose bent to navigating this liminal, crazy-making space grief can land us in. ...more
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