Good evening!
This is (days) late because it was actually my birthday on Friday, and even though I chilled in the evening after a day out, I did think it was a bit much to write my newsletter. Usually I’d just leave it until the next week but I will be on a hen party weekend and so I’ll probably be incapacitated when I usually send it out. And, again, a bit much to be sitting activities out to write a newsletter.
If you’d like to buy me a coffee, on Ko-Fi, you can do here 🙂
What I’ve been reading this week and what I think about it
I absolutely inhaled Melissa Broder’s newest novel Death Valley, which was an advanced copy sent to me by Bloomsbury -- it’s out in October. Some authors have writing that is so easy to digest while still remaining clever and thoughtful, which is an incredible skill. Broder is one of them. My favourite of hers is The Pisces (2018), which is also one of my favourite books ever, and one I had to physically stop myself from reading in one go, practically.
Death Valley does not disappoint; it’s a very funny novel that is also moving and profound. What I admire about Broder is that she has this affect of a gum-smacking Valley girl who both overthinks everything and is self-centred (the gum-smacking thing is based on real-life events, when I saw her host a literary event while chewing gum. I don’t like to throw the word iconic around but in this case, the boot fits). Or, at least, that’s how she thinks of herself, as is evident from her essay collection So Sad Today (2016).
Most of her protagonists also read this way -- they’re from or living in the American West and fixate on things like their weight, their age, their hair and so on and so forth. On the other hand, they’re intelligent, booksmart women, but in a kind of contemptuous way -- like they know their lives would be easier if they weren’t also concerned about high-brow culture. This means that they are grossly self-absorbed, but intelligent enough to feel keenly that they shouldn’t be, and that this naval gazing leads to diminished relationships with their romantic partners and families. They’re obsessed with themselves but they’re self-aware enough to know that this isn’t a virtue.
The protagonist of Death Valley is no different, and is perhaps the most like this description out of all of Broder’s novels. She is a novelist who begins the novel by checking into a Best Western in a very small California town, so that she can get some research done about the desert landscape for her next book. At home, her father is in the hospital (and has been for a while), and she is struggling to get to grips with the possibility that he might die. Her husband is chronically ill and suffers with pain everyday, something she is finding difficult to manage as part of their romantic relationship. She is highly-strung, sleeps all the time and is having a lot of thoughts about god (lowercase G throughout all of the narrative), as well as her Jewish identity. She is also incapable of making a decision about anything without checking Reddit.
My favourite parts were, to the surprise of no one, her thoughts about hotels, specifically Best Western motels. She has a lot of thoughts about the Best Western brand, and the comfort of a generic hotel chain. The Best Western she checks into has two members of staff on the front desk that she also has a lot of thoughts on, and they themselves have a lot of thoughts on the Grab N Go breakfast they provide. A lot of thoughts, a lot of insights.
I think this nails the crux of why I think Broder is a genius; she can have her protagonists monologue on the pens and paper in a Best Western in a town at the arse end of nowhere, and you’ll be laughing, but you’ll slowly realise that there is something very wrong, or very relatable, or very right with this woman. Things that could be very banal if handled by a less deft writer are made into very real moments of reflection by her. Anyway, I loved it, and I think you will too.
Keeping with the zippy writers theme, I’m rereading Eliza’s newest, Penance, ahead of our event at West Kirby bookshop in a couple of weeks. I originally read this on my phone via a pdf -- it’s a good job that Eliza is also a genius who writes in such a way that you read her quickly because it was not enjoyable having to find the email it was attached to, open the pdf and then find where I was up to everytime I sat down with it. On my second read, it’s even better, somehow. It perhaps doesn’t need any introduction at this point, but it follows the events leading up to and after the murder of a schoolgirl in a declining northern seaside town. Joni, the victim, was murdered by three of her fellow school students, but the case largely went unnoticed by the larger British newscycle because it happened on the eve of the Brexit vote.
What I’m noticing on this read is all the little details that Eliza peppers in to make Penance’s universe so realistic. I won’t spoil them for you, but there is a section that describes a gameshow popular in the 70s and 80s that is so well-described and so, so funny.
Most of these details are based on actual, real-life people and situations but they’re equally all Eliza.There are very few people who write that kind of satire and interpretation so well. What this novel is, at its core, is a criticism of the true-crime industrial complex, and how the people who are victims and/or impacted by crime are often stripped of their basic humanity because their pain has been turned into entertainment. Penance is made up of excerpts and documents, like true crime podcasts, interview transcripts and novelisations of events that have been relayed to the protagonist, an effectively ‘cancelled’ investigative journalist. As the narrative develops, it becomes increasingly clear that this is a very nuanced situation involving a lot of people, as well as institutional issues such as the tourism industry, local politics and education. And, as in Boy Parts, Tumblr features heavily.
Books on my radar
I bought Elliot Page’s memoir Pageboy this week, and I’m so excited to read it, especially after liking Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022) so much. It also came with a promotional bag, something I feel we have largely lost as a society. Bring them back, for good.