The Maris Review, vol 103

Another huge release day

This week's theme is the excesses of girlhood

What I read this week

Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalez

It's been a long time since a novel has captured a particular time and a place with such love and precision of feeling, if not fact. Xochitl's latest novel is set in Fort Greene in 2007, back when it was still home to a diverse array of young professionals and creative types, before the threat of the construction of the Barclays Center and other impending gentrification would force so many residents out of their homes and destroy the community.

It was also a time of hope, and it's impossible not to read Last Night in Brooklyn and not feel nostalgic for that era. The Democratic primaries featured Obama versus Hillary, and in the moment it felt like it could go either way but whatever happened America would be moving forward. Change was coming. If you had told me in 2007 where we would be in 2026 I would have punched you in the face.

Last Night in Brooklyn is the story of Alicia Canales, 26, who was raised in Gravesend but spent two weeks on the Vineyard every summer with her father's much posher family. Alicia isn't ready to get married just yet, so while her fiance is off at med school, Alicia moves to Fort Greene (or at least the outskirts of it), the Brooklyn neighborhood that one character refers to as "Buppy Bohemia," to be nearer to the action in both Brooklyn and Manhattan while she works at an ad agency. Alicia's life gets so much bigger: she's got a new group of friends, all with interesting jobs and big dreams (yes, there are a lot of part-time deejays in this group) and a party or a bar hangout every single night. This is the age of New York City clubbing dominating the pages of gossip columns, and Alicia always gets by the bouncer. At the center of it all is Alicia's neighbor La Garza, a fashion designer and thrower of legendary parties, a charismatic figure with a whole mythos built around her.

Meanwhile, Alicia's cousin Devon, a Rolex-wearing banker, has recently purchased a brownstone in prime Fort Greene, and the novel slowly reveals how Devin and La Garza's pasts are linked. Things get complicated (the novel is partly based on The Great Gatsby, after all) but what feels easy and well-earned is the electricity of the place, and how, perhaps, it was too fragile to last.

Repetition by Vigdis Hjorth

Repetition is novella-length, and it's mind-blowing how much Vigdis Hjorth can do in so few pages, and how the pacing of the narrative itself can do so much of the storytelling. The book is composed of a novelist's remembrances of her teenage girlhood, a tumultuous time no matter what. At 16 years old, she, like so many other girls before her, imagines that she's the only one who doesn't quite know how to move with confidence in the world: "Would I always feel excluded from everything that was natural, from everything that was easy?"

We see her do regular teenage girl stuff: going out with a few pals and meeting up with boys. But her mother has an outsized reaction every single time, as if her mother's worst nightmare is that her daughter might come home one night smelling of cigarettes and beer and having done something terrible. Repetition propels us towards one night in November of 1975 when everything changes, but not in the way the heroine (or the reader!) was led to expect. It's a devastating portrait of a loss of innocence and the freedom that comes from knowing the truth.

Famesick by Lena Dunham

I didn't have any major revelations while reading this bestselling memoir. My general impressions of the author didn't really change. But wow, I had a good time listening to Famesick. Lena Dunham is a lovely reminder of how entertaining a celebrity memoirs can be when the celebrity is actually a good writer and storyteller. It's almost like you have to be good at both to write a book!

I particularly liked how she talked about chronic illness and the idea that looking to recover is not the right goal – coming to terms with being differently abled is. Yes to this. And yes, I enjoyed the celebrity gossip. Bruce Springsteen says something to Lena towards the end of the book that made me cry. I must admit that the book did nothing to diminish my parasocial relationship with her – I should have known better than to be personally disappointed (??) to see her posing at the Met Gala last night, mingling with all of the evil billionaires.

Next week in NYC

So excited to talk to these geniuses.

New releases, 5/5

Another enormous release day. Where is the benign millionaire who will fund a new book criticism publication so that more of these books will get coverage? Where are you??? Were you at the Met Gala last night looking stupid?