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Welcome back to CITY ARTS & LEISURE
in which we are surviving
Perhaps optimism is passé, but the more books I read—even those about climate crisis, racial and gendered violence, illness, the terrors of the internet—the more I feel buoyed by the ways these authors continue to imagine modes of survival. This seems a pertinent preoccupation for our current state, on a macro level, but also on a getting through the day level. Some days, reading a book feels like survival. Some days, putting on a new shirt. Some days, I toy with the idea of sticking a scrap of rolled up newspaper into a can of tuna, lighting it on fire, then eating the can of tuna (see below), just to test if I could survive on, say Survivor. I suppose I feel that most of these books (much of our contemporary media?) are on some level about waking up, fending off the foes that try to feud, and getting on with our day. Here are some suggestions that propose a medley of modes of survival.
- your newsletter writer, Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo
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Don't forget! You can still purchase the Fiction/Friction Series, and receive tickets to three literary events for a low low price! See Patricia Lockwood in conversation with Sheila Heti on March 1, Jenny Offill in conversation with Brit Marling on March 18, and Jhumpa Lahiri in conversation with Monica Seger on May 18, all for only $45! This hot literary deal expires on March 1. Read on for more reasons not to miss it!
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BOOKS IN CONVERSATION
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
I read this book over a year ago, when I still read on my morning Bart commute, using my elbows to clear the space to hold a small book aloft, shutting out the scourge of bodies for those of another world. Still, the scenes are sharp in my mind: teens subjected to acting exercises whose ethics are uncertain; high school theater afterparties that zoom between rooms, relationships, and reckonings; a writer reconnecting with an old friend over cocktails. The novel is consistently surprising, vivid, and memorable, as only a story that is both familiar and boasts an unusual edge can be. Read for: a world that is hilarious and horrible and deeply relatable to anyone who did theater in high school, probing examinations of relationships that teeter and tiptoe through exploitative territory and the ways those relationships get reiterated and reified, and a narrative twist that keeps you guessing. And you can still watch Susan Choi in conversation with Rachel Khong—she discusses writing her National Book Award-winning novel as a side project, embodying her teenage self, and gaining wisdom with age.
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
The general vibe of the first half of this book is very "please...my wife...she's very online...." and if you don't know what that means that's ok! Float on, pick up snippets, cobble together an incorrect but adjacent to correct and slightly incoherent understanding, garble it to loved ones and half strangers tipsily over dinner—because that is what the internet is, even for those, as they say, "in the know." And then suddenly hit the second half of the book, and you are offline, or as offline as anyone who has ever been online can be, and if you are like me you will feel e m o t i o n s as the best novels insist we do, because, at the end of the day, Patricia Lockwood is a really expletive good writer. (She would certainly write the expletive.) Read for: a cat named Dr. Butthole, the deeply existential question / parodic viral tweet, "can a dog be twins," and a (rare!) complex portrait of a loving aunt. Then tune in for Patricia Lockwood in conversation with Sheila Heti on March 1!
Weather by Jenny Offill
This is purportedly a book about reckoning with climate disaster, which it is, as any book that is written in this current...climate...is, on some pit-of-stomach-churning level, a book about reckoning with climate disaster. However, this is also a book about working, about being a mother, about being in a relationship, about being a working mother in a relationship, about "surviving." I read it in an evening. Oh! And there are jokes. Read for: how to start a fire with a gum wrapper and a battery, how to use a can of tuna to start a fire (and then still eat the tuna), a defense of the sheer heroism involved in doing such tasks as laundry, putting on new clothes, standing still. Plus, join us for Jenny Offill in conversation with Brit Marling on March 18!
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LOOKING AHEAD
Be in the know before everyone you know
For a reminder of how our society is most stacked against the survival of its already most marginalized and persecuted members, hear author of Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, Reuben Jonathan Miller in conversation with Terah Lawyer on March 8 • For some rejuvenation of spirit and mind, join us for Mindfulness and Meditation with Larry Brilliant and Jack Kornfield on March 23 • As always, a reminder that members get access to discounted tickets to our programs. Join today • Students and educators are entitled free tickets to our programs! Just ask.
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