The Maris Review, vol 112
The theme of the week is multiple personalities, figuratively
What I read this week
I'm a Lot: Surviving Myself and All the People I've Been by Alison Leiby
Alison Leiby is my husband's work wife which means that we are family. I know a lot of standup comedians and TV writers at this point and only some of them are hilarious in regular conversation and Leiby is one of them. Now I know that she is also hilarious in prose. You might know her from her wonderful one-woman show about abortion, and if you liked that, as Anna Wintour famously did, you'll be pleased to know that her collection is very much about laughing at difficult things.
When I was writing my essay collection, which happens to be out in paperback today, Alison sold hers. I knew that we had a lot in common but it wasn't until I read the book that I realized how similarly we see the world. We both used a Fiona Apple quote in our epigraphs. We are both book people: Alison worked at Random House in marketing for a time, I've worked... everywhere. We both mourn the loss of discount clothing mecca Loehmann's and how shopping for clothes used to be an almost meditative practice where you could turn your brain off to everything else. Online shopping doesn't compare.
More importantly, we both start our collections by laying out our health issues, the lens through which we see everything else. For me, it's living with Type 1 diabetes; for Alison, it's a bad back that almost killed her as a teenager and the chronic pain she's experienced ever since. She has one of the best jokes ever about what her mother said to her after she saw her back after a gnarly surgery. I'm not telling you what it is.
How we differ: Alison is a jock. She's a swimmer and she rode crew and she has excellent stories about both. I was a theater nerd. Different worlds. I also don't fuck with Housewives very much, but I have to hand it to Alison, her argument that Bravo TV is not just fun, but empowering, hit harder than I'd expected it to. Especially when she reminisces about celebrity tabloid culture of the aughts and how paps used to be able to tell whatever story they wanted to about famous people, who didn't get a say in how they were covered.
And the most resonant note of the collection, in my opinion: What do you do when you're outrageously talented in a stupid world that increasingly doesn't value talent all that much? I don't think about this at all, of course.
Her book release party is tonight at The Bell House, and it features Claire and Ashley from Good Noticings, Liza Traeger, and Alison's work husband, Josh Gondelman. See you there?
Did I mention that my paperback is out today?
Get on board with a more pocket-ready edition of the book that NPR called "a must-read" and that Kirkus called "unexpectedly charming!" Why unexpected?
There is still so much that I want to burn down, but it's been so gratifying to see how many other "good Democrats" are sick of the status quo as well. I never thought that by the time the paperback came out establishment Dems would be shaking in their boots, terrified that a new wave of progressive politicians would be demanding more. I was really insistent that my book not end on an uplifting note, as books about politics are wont to do. So it's really a joy to see all of this hope in the world bubbling to the surface.
(I'm sorry I'm advertising at you so heavily today, but wow, it's tough out there.)
Names Have Been Changed by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
The premise of this debut novel is a little gimmicky – a woman on the run starts a podcast to confess the tales of her criminal past and why she can never go home again – but the execution is not. The novel consists of nine podcast episodes that our heroine records during Covid lockdown, but it's got more depth than 99% of podcasts.
This isn't a fun, zippy crime novel. It's more about consequences than crimes. This is a story about life in exile, once the crimes have been done and most of the excitement and glamour of a previous life have gone away.
But even more than it's about consequences, Names Have Been Changed is about identity. Our heroine, who calls herself Ophir for the sake of the podcast but who has run through a long list of pseudonyms, speaks so beautifully about her childhood and young adulthood in the very small country of Singapore. It's only after she's gone on the run to escape punishment for a petty crime that she realizes how singular the Singaporean experience is, with its own customs and language even amid the larger and more dominating forces in Southeast Asia. After the loss of her home Ophir becomes a code switcher extraordinaire, changing her accent to match her current circumstances whether she's in Tokyo, London, or Colorado, and of course, changing her name and backstory as well. We watch as Ophir transforms from a petulant, materialistic young person to a world-weary chameleon, who fits into so many different worlds so well, but longs for the one place to which she can never return.
Save the date
Yes, the paperback edition of I Want to Burn This Place Down is out today! If you're in NYC please come out to The Strand next Wednesday to celebrate.
I've roped in Megan Greenwell and Amanda Hess, brilliant authors of Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream and Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age respectively, to come chat with me about what our books look like a year after they've been out in the world.
Tickets here.
New releases, 7/7
I Want To Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman (paperback edition)
I'm a Lot: Surviving Myself and All the People I've Been by Alison Leiby
Daughter of the Mountains: poems of heartbreak & homecoming by Fatimah Asghar
A Real Animal by Emeline Atwood
The Simp: A Novel Without a Hero by Roshan Sethi
Tree of Knowledge: Poems by Victoria Chang
You Won't Get Free of It: Stories of Mothers and Daughters by Rachel Aviv
Get Lost by Justin Halpern
American Alt: A True Story of Madness and Friendship in a Fractured Country by Chris Lockhart
Country People by Daniel Mason
Dangerland!: A Novel by Erin Singer
Helpless by Jessica Knoll
Man Overboard! by Kathleen Rooney
Perverts: Stories by Mac Crane
Some People by Parini Shroff
