The Maris Review, vol 60

Maris Kreizman

24 Jun 2025 — 5 min read

It really does feel like Bill Clinton's last minute endorsement of corrupt sex pest Andrew Cuomo for NYC mayor is a little bit of a shout out to my book.

It's literally next week:

My book comes out next week! And it really does feel like Bill Clinton's last minute endorsement of corrupt sex pest Andrew Cuomo for NYC mayor is a little bit of a shout out to it. I have an entire essay in the book – I think my favorite one – called "Neoliberalism and Me." It's about how, as a child, I revered Bill Clinton. I went to a rally for him the night before he was elected president in 1992, and I thought he could do anything (also Richard Gere was there and Michael Bolton and the cast of Les Miserables). And it's about how, over time, Clinton became a symbol to me so many of the failures of our democracy. When I talk about the book people ask me what it is, exactly, that I want to burn down. My answer is usually "so many things," but then it comes back around to "the Democratic Party status quo."

If you live in NYC and haven't voted yet, please hydrate and brave the heat and rank Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander numbers one and two. Don't rank Cuomo. Let's dream bigger.

What I read this week

The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey

I can't help it: I love a breakup book almost as much as I love a breakup album. And I've loved Catherine Lacey since I read her debut novel in 2013. Her most recent novel is one of my all time favorites. Catherine's perspective is , can write the fuck out of a sentence.

Her new one is written in two parts: one part is fiction, and one part is... memoir? autofiction? Both parts are about her breakup with a writer whom she calls The Reason, his mundane cruelties and ceaseless manipulations (I have read and enjoyed many of The Reason's books; he's prolific as hell. Sucks to be him right now?). I read the memoir part first, the one in which Catherine details the facts (or are they?) of the breakup and writes so beautifully about despair and confusion. The sentences I underlined!

The memoir part of The Möbius Book is also a really moving tribute to the friends who got her through. More and more I feel like every breakup book is really about friendship, or, as Catherine writes, "taking care of and being taken care of like that hundred dollars passed between broke friends."

The other part is fiction, but with some details you might recognize from the other half of the book: the woman in pieces over a breakup, the self-destruction, the longing for meaning, the looking to a friend for consolation. But there's also a pool of blood outside a neighbor's door and a sinister tone. The writing is more controlled, but there's a hint of chaos on the horizon.

I can't say I caught every similarity, or that I could understand how one half of the book could reflect the other. But what I did appreciate is that The Möbius Book is a thoughtful and tender study in how a writer might process grief. What can fiction can do that nonfiction can't, and vice versa? I'll leave you with this:

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

It's not entirely my cup of tea, but I wanted to give this mega successful fantasy novel a listen because I know so many people who love it so much. I think a lot of people (maybe not always me, but I understand the impulse all the same) are desperate for something fun to read, the kind of novel with memorable characters and great pacing in which no one dies. Sometimes we just really need some joy. My first impulse is always to suggest Laurie Colwin to those readers, but I needed more variety.

It's the story of Linus, a lifelong bureaucrat whose daily life resembles the black & white parts of The Wizard of Oz, and the technicolor thrill of when he finally finds his place in the world. Sent to an island to evaluate an orphanage for magical youth, Linus soon falls in love with each of children, all of whom are endearing as hell. And let's not forget about their wise and kindhearted caretaker, Arthur, who unlocks another kind of magic in Arthur...

What a delight, despite the overuse of teachable moments throughout the novel that seem to come right out of the In This House We Believe sign playbook. It's like an extra woke novel-length Aesops Fable. But fuck, maybe we are simply in dire need of heavy-handed calls to comradeship in a world where so many seem to forget the Golden Rule.