The Maris Review, vol 73

Maris Kreizman

23 Sep 2025 — 6 min read

"'It's like Joyce Carol Oates is trying to start a feud with me,' I say. 'Does everyone have this feeling?'" – Patricia Lockwood

What I read this week

Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood

"... if to write about being ill was self-indulgent, what followed was that the most self-indulgent thing of all was to be ill. But I was determined to do it. I was going to write a masterpiece about being confused."

Folks, she did it. There are very few authors I'd trust to construct an entire cohesive book out of thoughts nonlinear and non sequitur, but Tricia Lockwood has always been a writer who can balance big ideas with online minutiae and an eye for the absurd. This is her wheelhouse. In her new autobiographical novel, long Covid acts as a mind sucker, a brain eater, the kind of identity-sapping affliction that reduces her to having to write about herself in the third person. A quintessential Tricia passage: "She took wormwood every morning, like a witch from the Bible. And had fallen so far out of the world, out of the human population, that she could not even rejoin them to watch the butthole cut of Cats."

This is the book that captures that mildly euphoric part of being high on Benadryl before passing out; the last book that made me feel so enjoyably disoriented was literally called Fever Dream. In it Tricia recounts a variety of events from her post-Covid time, from taking mushrooms and becoming temporarily psychic while "reading Anna Karenina so hard I almost died," to inventing new words to Meanwhile she's working on adapting her memoir. The act of adapting your own life story surreal when you're not really sure who you are anymore.

I think I benefitted from how many of the details I know about Tricia's life, from reading her memoir and her autobiographical first novel and all of her Twitter posts ever. And still I did not catch every reference (although she writes some truly illuminating stuff on everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Joy Williams) or follow all of her trains of thought. But such opacity has never stopped me from enjoying poetry, and Tricia is, first and foremost, a poet. A still chronically online, blisteringly smart, poet. Will There Ever Be Another You is not the place to start if you're not familiar with Tricia's work, but if you are a completist, as I am, it's an essential dive straight down deep into her beautiful brain.

First Time, Long Time by Amy Silverberg

One of the kinds of books for which I'm most often asked for recommendations is the elusive novel that's smart but funny, literary but still a good time. I can't believe Amy Silverberg's debut novel isn't in everyone's tote bags right around now. Think of First Time, Long Time as this year's Margot's Got Money Troubles, a book that poses big questions with both confidence and a breeziness and that will keep you wanting to turn the pages.

I should say that Amy and I have a lot in common. She and my husband know each other through standup comedy. She is a Type 1 diabetic, as am I. She used to run book clubs, and so did I. Plus she is an avid reader with a deep abiding love of Lorrie Moore. Me too, so much. Amy uses my favorite Lorrie Moore quote in her new novel – I won't tell you which one so you have to read it. What I love about Amy's prose is it's written with the authority of someone who's studied and taught writing for years, but it's got the rapid joke structure of a good comedy set.

First Time, Long Time is the story of Allison, a woman in her late 20s who would like to be a writer but who spends more time teaching than doing, and who is still deep in grief over the loss of her older brother, a standup comedian. Allison's life feels unfulfilling in a variety of small distinct ways until one night when she meets one of her dad's heroes in a Silver Lake bar. When you hear the term "shock jock" I bet you think of Howard Stern, except a few of us who grew up in the tristate area and still can't believe we listened to the Z Morning Zoo every fucking day. In the acknowledgments Amy confirms that she did in fact base the celebrity radio DJ character of Reid Steinman on Stern: both are pompous and gross on the radio, more low key and respectful and maybe even a bit boring off of it. Allison and Reid begin a full-fledged age gap romance and Allison seemingly finds purpose in playing a supporting role in a superstar's life.

Reid is a fun character, but Amy's portrayal of Allison's dad was the highlight of the book for me, simply because I have encountered this kind of person in real life but haven't seen much of him on the page. He reminds me of so many of the charismatic adults from my childhood who I once thought had tons of wisdom and authority but who were actually just spewing out cliches and platitudes and who now support Trump. Allison's dad is a narcissist and a flake, but Amy's depiction of him allows for so much more complexity than I have ever been willing to consider for those types.

There is also so much great writing about writing. First Time, Long Time is secretly an excellent craft book as well as the perfectly voice-y coming of age novel.

Please remember

I know if you're already reading this I'm preaching to the choir. But looking at the news day after day, particularly online, it's tough not to feel alienated. I won't go into the reasons why; I think you know.

It was such good timing that the Brooklyn Book Festival fell on the same day as the Charlie Kirk memorial. If I was at home I would be reading, but then pausing my reading to look at my phone. My phone is full of little bombs.

Instead I walked over to Borough Hall and saw how big the festival had gotten. I sat on the steps of Borough Hall and watched a panel with Lynne Tillman, Ed Park, and Jared Lemus on the art of the short story, and behind them I saw hundreds of people milling by, on their way to look at booths for bookstores and indie presses.

My panel, with Saeed Jones and Scaachi Koul, and moderated by Christopher Shay, was also just what I needed. Saeed was his inspirational self, and Scaachi was charmingly bitter, and I was somewhere in the middle. And between the four of us we came up with a vision for what hope in the current day might look like. It involves caring about other people and working to make our communities stronger. When Christopher asked me what's giving me hope I gave him my standard answer, which remains true every time I say it: that week after week, despite all of the problems in the world in the media in particular, there are always new books by very smart people that I want to read. That's not nothing.