brief reviews of some things i read and listened to this year
according to goodreads i'm currently 16 books behind schedule
Books
Sleepless: A Memoir of Insomnia, Marie Darrieussecq
I first came across Darrieussecq’s writing when I read an excerpt of her book on Paula Modersohn-Becker, the German painter who was friends with Rilke and died at the age of 31, and found this book on the Fitzcarraldo shelf last autumn. Her writing is reminiscent of Moyra Davey and Kate Zambreno (fragments and diaristic forms, obsessions with other mostly dead writers, a preoccupation with dailiness). Would not recommend reading this book at 4 am during your own insomnia spell, or if your neighbour & friend is suffering from a sleep-deprivation-induced psychosis that makes her come down the stairs and ask for the woman who died in your flat a year ago.
Molly, Blake Butler
Writers love passing judgment on other writers, so when a memoir from a small press became Daily Mail fodder, they couldn’t stop debating the ethics of publishing a memoir about your dead poet-wife’s lies and affairs. If you think there’s a lot of oversharing, wait till you read the other books that came out of the alt-lit movement Butler and Megan Boyle and Tao Lin and Patricia Lockwood were part of; Lockwood, who knew Molly, wrote the best review of the book for LRB. Read this, then this, and decide for yourself.
The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor
I had to make my own character relationship chart to keep up with every name mentioned in the novel, and I feel like Taylor would probably get some sadistic joy out of readers being as frustrated with his book as they would be with a Russian novel. At some point, all the characters start feeling like the same; I liked Taylor’s first two books, but found this one just okay.
Liars, Sarah Manguso
A book about a marriage between a writer and a man who’s laughably bad at chores. You can tell Manguso’s still writing through her anger, because the husband character had no redeeming features at all. I sent an ePub to my ex-husband, and a few days later he sent me a section from Parul Sehgal’s review of the book. “‘John washes most but not all of the dishes. John does the dishes, but he puts the refillable seltzer bottles in the dishwasher and melts them. John forgets to clean the cutting boards. John forgets to buy the muesli.’ Lol.” his text read. He’s a very good sport.
The Tattoo Collector, Cheng Tim Tim
Tim Tim, like me, is a Gemini with a water moon, and, also like me, extremely bad at taking compliments. “Nepotism is awesome,” she says whenever a friend tries, in vain, to promote her book out of genuine admiration for her talent.
Albums
Vespertine, Björk
James Acaster once joked that it’d be very annoying being Björk’s neighbour, because she’d constantly be throwing car parts and bottles and cutlery off the cliff, and it’s a joke I now think about whenever I hear “Hyperballad”. I’ve tried Vespertine in the past and it never caught on, but relistened after listening to the Sonic Symbolism podcast, and played it a ton when I was back at the Highgate garden house this May. A few days later I found a Björk fanzine at the Leeds library, read it in one sitting and cried.
Nymph, Shygirl
I missed Shygirl when she played at Wide Awake in 2023, unwisely skipping her for, I think, Oneohtrix Point Never, who was barely audible in the tent. The Shygirl extended universe includes her collaborators Sega Bodega, Oklou, Sevdaliza, or as music internet sometimes call them, “Björk daughters”. This year I listened to “Shlut” whenever I felt either tired or horny, which is to say all the time. According to my Spotify, it’s my top song of the year.
Like Daughter, Like Author, Midwife
I found the album via a depressed girl on Twitter and proceeded to put it on repeat for the week after. For fans of: Grouper, salvia palth’s melanchole, and rawdogging existential despair without antidepressants.
You Win Again, Spivak
I used to listen to this album on the ferry back to Lamma after work: “My loneliness! Is healing me!” Perfect island isolation soundtrack.
Party Girl, Michelle Gurevich
Gurevich has a wonderfully androgynous voice and sings some very fun, very queer lyrics on this: “Aviva, aviva, come on let's have a threesome” “Let this love be what it wants / It wants to be fucked up”. I sent my friend Rob the album after work one day. “I love the farm song,” I said. “The one about being a ho?” he said. Actually, the whole album’s about her being a ho (affectionate). But my favourite line is the one off “Party Girl”: “It doesn’t matter what you create / if you have no fun.”