I spent most of July trying to get my screen time down and rewriting the first quarter of my novel, which I told myself I wouldn’t do but did anyway. It’s better for it but I’ve been sitting with the same 30,000 words for too long. I have a tendency to edit while I write, which every piece of writing advice says gets in the way of progress. Always worrying over my draft produces clean copy but it also makes the process slower than I’d like it to be. I have finally reached the point where I can explain the novel from top to bottom with some level of coherence and there was a recent conversation with a friend where everything came together and I got a full-body chill that told me I was on the right track. But it was ultimately fleeting. I felt good about things for three days before I was back to wondering if what I was writing made sense. Asking myself if anyone would want to read it. Somewhere in all that I interviewed Yaa Gyasi and another author (soon to come to Working Title!) who made me feel better about my draft anxiety. If these writers, whom I admire and respect, can hate their drafts too then I feel much better about not being confident about the work all the time. Anyway. Onto the post!
Highlights - standout moments from July
Homebodies is out in paperback!
My friend Madison is getting married a few weeks after me and the day before my bridal shower we had a bachelorette dinner to celebrate her. Madison and I are very similar in that neither of us identify with the big to-do of pre-wedding traditions so I loved her take on a bachelorette party, which was a quiet dinner with close friends and instructions to bring her books and that we felt would be relevant to her as she moves into this next chapter. I brought her Monster in the Middle by Tiphanie Yanique, which meditates on emotional inheritance and what we bring to our relationships courtesy of the people that came before us.
C threw me a “surprise” bridal shower. The word surprise is in quotation marks because my mom accidentally told me about it a few weeks ago and I pretended to not know about it. That didn’t stop me from ugly crying as soon as I saw my sister, who drove eight hours from Ohio to be there and the rest of my friends and family who came from all over to send me off into married life feeling loved.
A post-bridal shower seafood boil with some of my best friends. I kept saying this is my dream blunt rotation which is my equivalent of blurting out I’m having so much fun right now, we really needed this, in the middle of the hang.
Doing a reading at Lincoln Center with other authors in the Black Love Letters anthology and going to Noor’s restaurant after.
Being in conversation with Jay Ellis to celebrate his debut book, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)? as part of the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Cocktails and Conversations series. I love talking to authors about their work!
Catching up with a childhood friend over steak frites at Pastis and talking about who we’ve become in the past decade.
My friend Adrienne had a little get together at her house and I’d been feening for a grilled burger. We talked for hours and it was the best way to spend an afternoon.
Helping someone with their query letter. Query letters are notoriously tricky so it was cool to help a new author figure out how to pitch and position their work.
Being a guest on Lemme Say This. Mama I made it!
I’m watching Sex and the City for the first time and sending a running commentary to my friends. I can understand why this show captured a generation because the fashion is so so good and they’re having sex shamelessly and talking about modern dating and love. It’s fun even though I generally find them annoying. I took a quiz and apparently I’m a Miranda which definitely tracks.
The color blocking of this bedding is so good The office is coming along. It’s all painted, the desk is in, the rug is down. It’s starting to feel real.
Indoor volleyball at the Olympics. See below for evidence of me screaming over text.
Lowlights
I can’t find my copies of two books I’ve been meaning to read—The New Naturals by Gabriel Bump, and Ours by Phillip B. Williams. I nearly repurchased Bump’s book but C insists that I should keep looking.
My bookshelves are slightly off-center which isn’t a big deal but is the kind of thing that drives me crazy.
Things I Read
The Material by Camille Bordas
I love novels where the characters are working on something or toward something. I also love a classroom setting, so the premise of The Material really worked for me. It takes place over the course of a day leading up to a big comedy showcase and jumps into the heads of the various characters—a professor, a recently-canceled comedian set to become a comic-in-residence at the school, a student who wants to be famous. I loved Bordas’s writing and her ability to craft deeply neurotic characters who are somewhat self-aware, but not fully. The plot was sort of beside the point, which contributed to an ending that felt a bit rushed, but overall I enjoyed it. I would recommend it someone who liked Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You or enjoyed the theater bits of Idlewild, there was something spiritually similar in the tone.
Godwin by Joseph C. Neill
This was one of my most anticipated books of the year and not at all what I thought it would be. It’s marketed as a book about a man who leaves his corporate job to help his brother track down an elusive soccer star named Godwin. This is sort of true, but oversells it as this high-flying pacey novel which it is not. Reading it reminded me a little bit of Please Report Your Bug Here by Josh Riedel, where the marketing really sold the speculative angle but it ended up being about a guy and his feelings around working in a soulless tech job in San Francisco. I still really liked that novel and I also enjoyed this, even though the ending sort of made me want to toss the book across the room. What this book did well, though, was tease out the tension between Black athletes (and other athletes of color) and the often white people who manage them without interrogating their relationships to colonialism or racist attitudes because of their love of the sport. There’s also lots of soccer history in there, so if you’re not interested in learning about the minutiae of Global South and African football for many (many) pages, I’d say skip.
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
I like the cover!
This month in book mail
Only Big Bumbum Matters Now by Damilare Kuku
Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida (trans. by Haydn Trowell)
Rental House by Weike Wong - out December 3
City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim - out November 19
Things I watched
As always, so much tv!
The Good
Something’s Gotta Give (Max)
This was my first watch of Something’s Gotta Give, a romcom starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, reluctant housemates who fall in love. Visually, it’s beautiful, and I understand why the aesthetics have stood the test of time. The characterization was good too and I left the film feeling frustrated by Diane’s choices while still recognizing that you don’t always get to choose who you love. Sometimes you can’t psychoanalyze your way into the “right” choice because some love just feels inevitable even if to the rest of us (me) it seems like there were better options. I also thought using the turtleneck as a metaphor for her loosening up was absolutely hilarious because turtlenecks can be sexy too. Additionally, I loved that they showed sex between older people. Love is for everyone and I adored that Diane Keaton’s character was allowed to be messy and silly and ambitious all at once because I hope to be all those things at every age.
Presumed Innocent (Apple TV)
I started this last month so I won’t repeat the whole synopsis but it landed the plane. Watch it, it’s good!
Lady in the Lake (Apple TV)
Lady in the Lake is one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time, and possibly a favorite of the year. The show, an adaptation of the novel by Laura Lippman, follows two women, Maddie Schwartz née Morgenstern, played by Natalie Portman and Cleo Sherwood, played by Moses Ingram, whose lives are on a collision course following the murder of a young girl in Baltimore. It’s obviously careening toward a dramatic conclusion but I’m invested in the character’s lives and look forward to watching it every week. Please watch with me so I can discuss. There’s also a rendition of Nina Simone’s See-Line Woman, sung by Toni Scruggs that absolutely changed me. I think about that scene, and that song, at least once a week.
Taxi (Tubi)
Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon are so good in Taxi, a buddy comedy about an incompetent cop and an incredibly competent cab driver who team up to track down a gang of hot bank robbers led by a young Gisele Bündchen. The star power in this movie is quite literally insane and it’s a great way to pass an evening!
Bowfinger (Prime)
I also rewatched Bowfinger, one of the funniest movies put out in the last 25 years. Steve Martin always plays this lovable, well-meaning, sort-of dorky dude, but in Bowfinger he’s an ambitious director who is willing to do anything to make a movie including lie and steal. There’s some very un-PC moments in this but that’s not at all what makes it funny, so if you can get past the cringey parts of it and watch it in the context of what was acceptable to say in 1999, I’d recommend.
Dirty Pop (Netflix)
This documentary is about music manager Lou Pearlman who assembled the Backstreet Boys and N’SYNC, along with lots of other boy bands. He was a titan of the music industry for decades but also defrauded lots of people in what they’re calling the longest running Ponzi scheme. I would argue that the Oman Ghana Trust Fund scam has been running for longer, but maybe they just meant in America? Anyway, this was a fascinating look at how a titan becomes exposed as a man, a bad one at that. There’s also some meta drama happening around the filmmakers choice to deepfake a dead Pearlman, which sort of previews the way AI will be used moving forward. In the words of the icon Beauteuss, spooky!
Wicked Little Letters (Netflix)
I loved this movie about an ultra-religious English woman who accuses her Irish neighbor, a single mother at that, of sending her filthy, rude letters. It becomes a big to-do in the conservative community and the movie has a satisfying twist. It’s based on the real life Littlehampton letters scandal, so there’s something else to dig into after you finish the film.
The Fine
Sex and the City (HBO)
I like it! I get it. I’m watching it in doses.
The Man With 1000 Kids (Netflix)
This documentary is about a man who is donating an incredible amount of sperm and lying about it. He would tell couples or single women that he was willing to help out five or so families and that he had a track record of live births, but really he had already inseminated dozens if not hundreds of women. The series mainly focuses on families he defrauded in the Netherlands, but there’s reason to believe he’s been doing it all over the world. While it isn’t illegal for him to do this, it’s definitely unethical and poses lots of issues genetically. It also looks at the business of sperm banks, which are partly to blame for this. They collect an incredible amount of money with poor regulation and often act as isolated entities that don’t communicate. The guy who’s giving out the sperm has some weird populate the earth-style complex and is producing hordes of small blonde children. It’s hard to imagine there’s not a racial component here, though the film doesn’t explore this deeply. Either way, a worthwhile watch if you’re interested in the space between ethicality and legality and the world of sperm donation.
Hit Man (Netflix)
I can’t really get into the Glen Powell obsession because I don’t think the material is necessarily there (Anyone But You is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the past five years), but I generally enjoyed Hit Man, in which he plays a teacher who moonlights as a fake hitman for the police department. It had a strong first half (I loved the different personas) and then fell apart toward the end. If you’re able to suspend belief around his ability to essentially be the master of disguise with seemingly no effort and zero moral compass then I’d say go for it.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) (Tubi)
My dad has great taste in films and we often bond over whatever we’re watching on TV. He recently recommended The Thomas Crown Affair because I like a good heist movie and because of, and I quote, “the aesthetic” and he was right. The vibes are in fact immaculate. It’s a very glamorous looking movie, complete with preppy polos and coiffed hairdos and sharp suits.
The Black Widower (Max)
A man married a bunch of women and a lot of them turned up dead. The story isn’t particularly inspired, it’s mostly tragic for the families that lost a loved one, but what was interesting is how little can be done for women who are being victimized and abused.
The Associate (Hulu)
In The Associate, Whoopi Goldberg is an investment advisor on Wall Street who goes solo after her white male coworker gets promoted instead of her. The plot is fine but I liked watching a young Whoopi, who wears great hats and has a great name—Laurel Ayres sounds like the lead of a fire romcom.
Time Bandits (Apple TV)
A geeky kid who loves history accidentally joins a group of time traveling bandits in this Apple TV show. It has a Liberty Kids vibe and is the kind of show that can be watched across generations. Side note, whoever wrote the parent characters deserves an award. They’re a very minor part of the show but are incredibly charming and encapsulate random modern life moments in a way that feels so relatable. There’s nothing transcendent about this show but I enjoyed falling asleep to it on a lazy afternoon.
The Abysmal
Emperor of Ocean Park (MGM+)
This so badly needs the Shonda Rhimes touch, but alas it’s in the hands of MGM+ and worse off for it. It follows a Clarence Thomas-like judge, played by Forest Whitaker, who has ties to a shady FBI person and becomes a conservative pundit after being denied a Supreme Court seat because of that connection. The show opens with his death and the effect it has on his three children who are trying to make sense of his demise. It feels flat, and while the writing isn’t bad (at times it’s decent) it isn’t enough to make up for the show’s weird tone, clunky plot and questionable directorial choices.
Divorce in the Black (Prime)
Life without parole.
Best bites
Fresh cut watermelon
Ricotta and grilled bread and pan seared salmon at Chloe
Crisp grapes
Kale salad
Peach cobbler biscuits from Sundays Only
The crab cakes at my bridal shower
Things I want
A bathroom cabinet. Considering this stainless steel situation I found on Amazon with zero reviews.
A new laptop. My last one was purchased in 2017 and now it barely functions. I’m debating between a new Macbook Pro, the Macbook Air or really switching things up and doing a Mac Mini with a display.
This Floyd suitcase, which I know nothing about but the color combination is nice.
Savant makes the best t-shirts.
This printer—do you guys have better printer recommendations? I’m open.
Things I bought
Lots of formalwear from ASOS for my friend Madison’s wedding later this year, none of which worked. It’s all going back.
Primary-color post-its in 2x2
An Owala water bottle for C
A rug for the office – which Carrie bought too
A Magsafe charger and holder
Lots of books
The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas
Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi
Evenings and Weekends by Oisín Mckenna
Honey by Isabel Banta
Tomas Nevinson by Javier Márias
"I like the cover!" RIP, me
🥹 the bridal shower pics - you are all so beautiful. my heart really swelled at those pics. Boring on Godwin bc I (we lol) thought that would be good! Shame. Look forward to whenever you read Evenings and Weekends tho!!
I want the text screenshot at the bottom on a tshirt. People are ridiculous about book criticism - get a grip!!