When I was reading this novel, I thought, about seventy times: wow, I'm really enjoying this, but I don't know that I would have twenty years ago, wheWhen I was reading this novel, I thought, about seventy times: wow, I'm really enjoying this, but I don't know that I would have twenty years ago, when I was a different sort of reader.
At a certain point, I started feeling a little annoyed that I couldn't go back and get ahold of 23-year-old me to find out if it was true. Have I changed or do I *think* I've changed, and is the thinking of changing as good as doing?
This is what this novel is about.
Yes, sure, it's also about a woman who is comforting her ex-husband after a bunch of shocking Life Events, capital L, capital E, but it's also just about what it means to live a recursive, cumulative life (this is a thing I've already been thinking about, ever since starting to write the THE LISTENERS—no, probably back when I was writing the Dreamer Trilogy, too, if I think about what Declan Lynch became in that). The novel itself is short and the forward motion is slight, but Strout has packed two generations of living into it in a way that feels personal and immediate. Life has no easy answers and the book knows it; it's a sad and joyful little thing. The characters are wonderfully real.
23-year-old Maggie, call me, let me know what you think of it....more
I dimly suspect I just found my favorite novel of the year, and it's only February—is that a good thing or a bad one?
The scope of the novel is microsI dimly suspect I just found my favorite novel of the year, and it's only February—is that a good thing or a bad one?
The scope of the novel is microscopic: an art dealer in his late thirties takes a business trip to Berlin after having a falling out with his boyfriend. He learns things about himself. The end. But, like THE HUMMINGBIRD and SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU, two other novels I'm stupidly fond of, the characters in this book became alive to me. Berlin, too, appeared in vivid color, seen with the glittering partial clarity of a tourist's eyes. At the center of the book is an art installation that looks at Ostalgie, the nostalgia for life before the Wall came down, and Schnall takes his time discussing the difference between nostalgia and history, drawing parallels between Berlin's difficult past and Samuel's difficult existing relationship. At one point Samuel's mother busts out this line: "Nostalgia is memory with a really good director."
I MAKE ENVY ON YOUR DISCO is wonderfully happy, wonderfully sad, and wonderfully contained. My 2025 reading list suddenly has a lot to live up to....more
If Nick Hornby would write something with a ghost or a unicorn or a demon (could be a minor one), I'd be all in.If Nick Hornby would write something with a ghost or a unicorn or a demon (could be a minor one), I'd be all in....more
It's a memoir, and I've been up to my eye bags in memoirs for my last novel and the current one. And it was about a novelisI did not want to buy this.
It's a memoir, and I've been up to my eye bags in memoirs for my last novel and the current one. And it was about a novelist grieving after her beloved husband suddenly dropped dead—I already had Didion cued up for later this year.
But it was by Geraldine Brooks, one of my favorite novelists, who just has a way of putting story on a page. At once soothing and ecstatic. So I bought it today and I finished it just now and it was just ... it was just so good, guys. It reminded me a bit of how I felt when I finished WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR, a little book that also felt as if it were bigger on the inside than the outside. Highly recommended to those who enjoy her novels, but also to anyone who needs to remember how joy and grief can (and should) coexist....more
I read this backwards, which wasn't as bad a time as you might expect, sort of like a dated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novelization of a fever dream.
II read this backwards, which wasn't as bad a time as you might expect, sort of like a dated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novelization of a fever dream.
I did BEGIN reading it forwards, and swapped at around page 50, when I read a review that said it had a terrific last line. What to say that hasn't already been said? It's a classic; I know more than one person with a Kerouac tattoo; I wanted to be able to spell his last name correctly every time; I wanted to have my eyes on it.
I am not getting a Kerouac tattoo, but I feel I understand everyone in my life with one better now....more
It's been a hot second since my last novel. After I finally concluded the world of the Raven Cycle, I knew I wanted to approach my next project like oIt's been a hot second since my last novel. After I finally concluded the world of the Raven Cycle, I knew I wanted to approach my next project like one might approach a bear: intentionally. With a plan. With a desire to use all the skills I've acquired over fifteen years to curate the bear's emotional experience.
(this is how you approach bears, right?)
I wanted to write controlled, intense, strange, sensual, truthful novel set firmly in a genre I'm increasingly thinking of as Wonder (what is the opposite of Horror? or at least, what do you call it when the speculative aspects are more likely to provoke awe than terror?). I wanted it to be magical, but I wanted the story and characters so firmly stitched into the fabric of human history that it all felt truer than true. Am I describing magic? Probably not. I wanted to write myth. I wanted to write something ambitious enough to make me work harder than I ever had before. My readers have grown into curious, sophisticated folks, and I wanted my writing to grow with them.
THE LISTENERS is that novel, my adult debut, published by Viking in the US and Headline in the UK. It's a very Stiefvater novel. There's odd prose, slippery magic, class conflict, an ensemble cast, about four different kinds of love, and the mountains in whose shadow I was born.
It's the most authentic thing I've ever written. I did my best. I adore it. I hope you guys will, too....more
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