NPR's Book of the Day: Patricia Lockwood on Writing, Illness, and the Puzzle of Brain Fog

Episode Date: October 8, 2025
Host: Ari Shapiro (with introduction by Glenn Weldon)
Guest: Patricia Lockwood, author of Will There Ever Be Another?

Episode Overview

This episode of "NPR's Book of the Day" centers on Patricia Lockwood's new novel, Will There Ever Be Another? The discussion delves into how Lockwood draws on her personal experience with long COVID—specifically, its confusion, dissociation, and "brain fog"—to craft a highly meta, disorienting reading experience. Host Ari Shapiro explores how Lockwood sought to document and creatively reframe the challenges she faced during and after her illness, including encounters with other writers who experienced similar symptoms.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Writing About Confusion and Dissociation

• Meta-Narrative Structure: Lockwood’s novel features a fictionalized version of herself on a book tour, blurring reality and fiction in ways that mirror the disorienting effects of illness and the pandemic.

  • “It's in Patricia Lockwood's new novel. The narrator is a novelist named Patricia…” (01:22)

• Intention and Creative Process:

  • Lockwood set out to explore confusion itself as a literary subject, describing her book’s mission statement as, in her own words:

    “I was going to write a masterpiece about being confused.” (03:00)
    “I just strongly felt that no one had done that before… It’s really what I was doing. Yes, it's absolutely. It's a mission statement. It's my motto.” (03:18)

• Immediate Documentation:

  • The writing began almost as soon as she fell ill in March 2020, serving both as observation and as an act of survival during her dissociation.

    “I immediately went into a state of disorientation, dissociation, confusion, seeing gorillas in the trees… The process of writing this book really began in summer of 2020.” (03:57)

2. Encountering Other Writers with Similar Experiences

• Susanna Clarke’s Brain Fog:
  • Lockwood meets and is moved by Susanna Clarke (author of Piranesi), who also struggled with illness-induced cognitive impairment. Audio from Clarke herself describes the pain of being unable to write.
    • [Susanna Clarke]:

      “At some points during my illness, I'd suffered very badly with cognitive impairment, with what they call brain fog. So it had been impossible to write. But... the pressure of all the years when I hadn’t written… weighed very heavily.” (04:53)

  • Lockwood found hope in Clarke’s recovery and success:

    “She was such a hero to me… When she did win [an award], thank God, she grabbed me from behind… I will never forget this in my entire life, that Susanna Clark, the great genius, grabbed my elbow to steady herself… I mean, this means that I'll be able to do it again.” (05:32, 05:40)

3. Humor and “Brian Fogg”

• Embodying Symptom through Language:
  • Lockwood foregrounds the distorted perception caused by brain fog, even jokingly spelling it as “Brian Fogg,” which resonates with the tone of her writing and the communal experience of online sufferers.

    “It's absolutely Brian Fogg… I was reading a lot of Reddit at that time. People… misspelling things. They were saying that they were suffering from Brian Fogg. And I just felt that I was like, I'm on the front lines of something…” (06:34)

    • Ari Shapiro:

      “That’s one of the things that I love about your writing, is that even as you're describing near death experiences, you're doing it in a way that takes very serious things not too seriously.” (07:01)

    • Patricia Lockwood:

      “I just think that both things are present… you have to keep both bits in… that's part of what makes it true.” (07:11)

4. Mind and Body: Juxtaposing Visible and Invisible Illness

• Concrete Tasks During Dissociation:
  • Lockwood describes how her husband's health crisis required her to address a tangible, physical wound—even as she herself battled the intangible confusion of long COVID.

    “It put me back into the realm of the concrete. Yeah, it filled me back to my fingertips. I had a job to do on this planet Earth… And I tended my husband's wound. You know, it just felt… you had something to do.” (07:54)

  • She notes the importance of feeling needed, which offered a reprieve from her own “uselessness.”

5. Searching for Wholeness and Identity

• On Assembling the Self:
  • Lockwood reads from her novel’s end, contemplating the incomplete yet vital process of assembling herself, both body and mind:

    “The end was an oasis you never wanted to reach. The best version was when you were in it and all the components were in a hurricane... If I could communicate the way it was put together or the act of putting togetherness, this was a kind of immortal life. Her body was to be found. Her correct body and mind were to be found in the process of assembly.” (08:34)

  • Asked how she feels today, Lockwood says:

    “I feel closer to my own name. I do feel more like myself and I am much better.” (09:13)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On confusion as a subject:

  “I was going to write a masterpiece about being confused… It's a mission statement.”
  — Patricia Lockwood (03:00, 03:18)

• On brain fog and humor:

  “It's absolutely Brian Fogg… I was like, I'm on the front lines of something.”
  — Patricia Lockwood (06:34)

• On the hope from Susanna Clarke:

  “The fact that you were able to do it again… I just felt in that moment that I'll be able to write another book.”
  — Patricia Lockwood (06:03)

• On wholeness in recovery:

  “I feel closer to my own name. I do feel more like myself and I am much better.”
  — Patricia Lockwood (09:13)

• On her experience caring for her husband:

  “It put me back into the realm of the concrete… You know, it just felt you were on your feet.”
  — Patricia Lockwood (07:54)

Important Timestamps

• [01:22] Ari Shapiro introduces the novel’s meta structure
• [03:00] Lockwood articulates her mission to write about confusion
• [03:57] Lockwood describes her immediate post-COVID symptoms
• [04:53] Susanna Clarke shares her experience with cognitive impairment
• [05:40] Lockwood’s moving interaction with Susanna Clarke
• [06:34] The “Brian Fogg” anecdote
• [07:54] Lockwood on caring for her husband and reconciliating physical/mental health
• [08:34] Reading from the novel on assembling the self
• [09:13] Lockwood on her current state of recovery

Tone and Style

The conversation is candid, witty, and suffused with both gravitas and humor—mirroring Lockwood’s own literary style. Both interviewer and guest interweave serious topics (illness, cognitive struggle, care for loved ones) with irony and playfulness, creating an accessible yet deeply thoughtful exchange.

Summary prepared for readers who want a comprehensive yet engaging overview of this NPR episode—and the ideas that animate Patricia Lockwood’s latest work.