What Should We Read Next?
Three choices, you decide!
Hello friends! I hope you are having a week that does not involve a 3 year old stepping in dog shit and then tracking it all over hard-to-clean crevices of your car. Or severing your finger while opening a can of crushed tomatoes so badly that you are still finding splattered blood in your kitchen.
Other than that stuff, I’ve been having a relatively good time out here, albeit a chaotic one. I’m deep into working through some key plot/backstory points for a new novel and am running into some mud (which has resulted in many brisk neighborhood jaunts for my dog in attempts to “walk it out.”) I’m starting a writing accountability group run by
next week (very excited!), so I want to at least have a solid framework for the beginning of the new book. I’ve been prepping for an upcoming conference where I’m going to pitch some agents IRL on the “finished” novel I’m querying (problem: I’m not a very good IRL “pitcher”). I’m taking a humor/satire writing class with who wrote the memoir Hysterical and also edits the hilarious column Funny Women on The Rumpus. (The class is so fun! I've already written drafts of two pieces!). I’ve become increasingly interested/obsessed with some new research around diet and bipolar disorder (thx for the tip !), which is giving me an idea for a personal essay, perhaps a satirical one but TBD. And also, children. Only one urgent care visit this week (everyone’s fine) so far, which is a win! Except it’s only Wednesday, literally anything could still happen.Anyway, what should we read next? Let’s do a poll. Here are three choices. Descriptions of each below!
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid.
Description (from publisher): From the celebrated New York Times bestselling author of Such a Fun Age comes a fresh and provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students.
It’s 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie’s starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue.
Some reviews: The New York Times, NPR, LA Times
Victim by Andrew Boryga
Description (from publisher): There’s a fine line between bending the truth and telling bold-faced lies, and Javier Perez is willing to cross it. Victim is a fearless satire about a hustler from the Bronx who sees through the veneer of diversity initiatives and decides to cash in on the odd currency of identity...A sendup of virtue signaling and tear-jerking trauma plots written with the bite of Paul Beatty, Victim asks what real diversity looks like and how far one man is willing to go to make his story hit the right notes.
Some blurbs: This one actually comes out next week, but has been named one of the most anticipated books of the year by The Washington Post, Time, USA Today and more. Here are some high profile blurbs:
-“You get debuts this blazing once in a generation if you’re lucky. Boryga is brilliant, a brilliant writer, a brilliant satirist and his voice could light up a city. Victim is a stake of truth aimed at our vampire culture’s charlatanic heart.” —Junot Díaz
-“Blazingly trenchant, unflinchingly Bronx, Boryga’s the rare writer who knows sometimes it’s in the unlearning where real education begins. Victim diddy-bops into your skull; smooth, cool, fun-loving and knowing full well a sense of humor always trumps one’s sense of entitlement. Break night with this one—it isn’t to be missed.” —Paul Beatty
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Description: A witty thriller from 'Luminaries' author Eleanor Catton centers on young members of an radical environmental rights group who wind up entangled with a billionaire drone manufacturer.
Reviews, etc: This one came out a year ago.
(author of Self Care, sage on all things book publishing/internet/Attention Economy, and the keynote speaker at the conference I’m attending) recently recommended it (in addition to Victim, actually) on Sarah’s Bookshelves and I was intrigued. Other reviews/ink on it: The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic.
Vote! And also read this charming New York Times profile: How to Grow Old Like Isabella Rossellini.
Your two drafts were so good! I wish I could steal them and publish them as my own! That should be my right as a teacher!
Are you coming to Westport writers conference?? (or pitching virtually?)