Our Book Critics On Their Year in Reading

Summary

The Book Review Podcast Summary: "Our Book Critics On Their Year in Reading"

Release Date: December 13, 2024
Host: Gilbert Cruz
Featuring: Jen Zalai, Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs

---

Introduction

In the December 13, 2024 episode of The Book Review podcast, host Gilbert Cruz engages in an insightful conversation with New York Times Book Review critics Jen Zalai, Dwight Garner, and Alexandra Jacobs. The episode, titled "Our Book Critics On Their Year in Reading," delves into the standout books, themes, and literary trends observed by the critics over the past year. Skipping over advertisements and introductory segments, the discussion focuses solely on the rich content shared by the hosts.

---

Year in Reading Overview

Dwight Garner opens the discussion by reflecting on how this year's books provided much-needed refuge during a turbulent period marked by uncertainty and angst. He states:

"It was such a year of turmoil for so many people and uncertainty and angst and books, at least for me, they're where I went to escape."
[01:36]

Garner emphasizes that while the themes in this year's literature echo those of previous years, their resonance was particularly poignant given the collective societal concerns.

---

Highlighted Books and Authors

Sally Rooney's "Intermezzo"

A significant portion of the conversation centers around Sally Rooney's novel Intermezzo. Initially met with skepticism among the critic community, Garner shares his transformation in perception:

"It's really smart. It's just the book that I dove into and found deep pleasure and indeed escape in."
[02:21]

Alexandra Jacobs complements this by comparing Rooney's approach to Miranda July's, highlighting a shift towards more playful narratives:

"Miranda July being taken seriously, as seriously as Sally Rooney, and her book was the one... embraced with excitement."
[02:42]

Miranda July's "All Fours"

Jen Zalai discusses All Fours by Miranda July, describing it as a narrative that challenges the confines of domestic life and explores deep emotional landscapes:

"It's about a woman in a marriage partnership with a young child who... feels somewhat stifled and confined in her domestic arrangement."
[03:10]

The conversation underscores the book's exploration of personal freedom and the complexities of modern relationships.

Alvaro Enrique's "Yous Dreamed of Empires"

Garner lauds Yous Dreamed of Empires for its unique portrayal of Mexican history infused with humor and humanity:

"Atmospheric, funny, sort of a surreal version of deep history in Mexico... mosquito bites and butts itch. It's just really funny and humane."
[05:24]

Alexandra adds that the book's blend of historical detail with personal anecdotes makes it both intellectually stimulating and emotionally engaging.

---

Genres: Biographies and Memoirs

The critics delve into the evolving landscape of biographies and memoirs, particularly in the digital age where traditional sources like handwritten letters are dwindling.

Alexandra Jacobs reflects on the challenges modern biographers face:

"How will it even be possible to write a biography of someone who is a notable personality right now, given that there largely is no written record?"
[12:35]

Jen Zalai praises Katherine Bucknell's biography of Christopher Isherwood, emphasizing its depth despite being a concise work:

"It's a wonderful biography. One of my favorite books of the year."
[13:15]

Dwight Garner highlights the effectiveness of Brad Gooch's The Life and Line of Keith Haring, appreciating the author's ability to capture Haring's vibrant personality:

"The Elaine May biography by a young writer... very approachable and very in your face."
[17:18]

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Impact of Political Climate on Publishing

The episode touches upon how the election year influenced publishing, especially for nonfiction. Jen Zalai explains the challenges publishers faced in gaining visibility amidst the saturated political discourse:

"Publishers who want to get publicity for their books find it difficult to penetrate that maelstrom."
[06:52]

She further discusses John Ganz's When the Clock Broke, which offers an alternative history perspective on the early 1990s in America:

"A history of the losers... combines historical evidence with impressive storytelling."
[08:28]

Garner praises Ganz's work for its humanity and nuanced portrayal of historical events:

"Its humanity, its small bore humanity the most. It's a novel where mosquitoes bite people... really humane as well as being complicated and intellectual."
[06:33]

---

Memoirs and Personal Narratives

Caleb Carr's memoir, My Beloved Monster, garners significant attention as the critics discuss its heartfelt exploration of personal relationships with cats and its connection to broader historical and literary backgrounds:

"It's a love letter to his cat Masha... a history of his life with cats and how cats saved him."
[20:53]

The memoir is praised for its powerful narrative and emotional depth, contrasting with more disturbing titles like Tony Tulithamudi's Rejection.

---

Contrasting Narratives: "Rejection" vs. "Beautyland"

The critics compare Rejection by Tony Tulithamudi with Alexandra Jacobs' Beautyland by Marie Helene Bertino, highlighting the stark differences in tone and theme:

• Rejection explores the darker aspects of online existence and extreme social isolation, with Jen Zalai noting:

  "He captures the most extreme version of being online... incredibly powerful, but very off-putting."
  [24:13]

• Beautyland, on the other hand, offers a more uplifting narrative about an alien struggling with human norms, evoking emotional responses from Jacobs:

  "I cried at Beauty Land. It's so much nicer."
  [27:53]

---

Controversial and Divisive Reads

The episode addresses books that sparked debates among readers and critics alike. Dwight Garner mentions Sally Rooney's Intermezzo as a polarizing read:

"Half the people say, thank God you nailed it. Other people are like, what are you thinking?"
[28:21]

Jen Zalai discusses Daniel Chandler's A Manifesto for a Just Society, highlighting the lively discussions it ignited regarding its relevance in contemporary times:

"Adopting a veil of ignorance... sounds a little bit out of step with where we are right now."
[29:01]

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Final Thoughts and Upcoming Episodes

Wrapping up the episode, host Gilbert Cruz anticipates future discussions, including a monthly book club episode focused on Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These. The critics express their appreciation for the diverse readings of the year and the engaging conversations that emerged from their collective insights.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Dwight Garner on Book Refuge:

  "It was such a year of turmoil for so many people and uncertainty and angst and books, at least for me, they're where I went to escape."
  [01:36]

• Sally Rooney Praise:

  "She's no joke as a novelist and one of the best writers in the world right now."
  [02:42]

• Alvaro Enrique's Humanity:

  "It's a novel where mosquitoes bite people and they get colds and their butts itch. And it's just really funny and it's just humane..."
  [06:18]

• Impact of Digital on Biographies:

  "How will it even be possible to write a biography of someone who is a notable personality right now, given that there largely is no written record?"
  [12:35]

• Caleb Carr's Memoir:

  "It's a history of his life with cats and how cats saved him."
  [20:53]

---

Conclusion

This episode of The Book Review podcast offers a comprehensive look into the reading landscape of the past year, highlighting how literature served as both a refuge and a mirror to societal changes. Through engaging discussions on a variety of genres and themes, the critics provide valuable insights into the evolving nature of storytelling and its impact on readers.

For listeners seeking in-depth literary analysis and diverse book recommendations, this episode is a treasure trove of thoughtful discourse and passionate critique.

Transcript

[T. Rowe Price]

At T. Rowe Price, global teams leverage extensive experience to see investment potential differently. Instead of fast answers, they understand that the true road to confident investing is curiosity. It's what drives them to ask smart questions about our ever changing world, like how can clean water transform farmland? Can healthcare innovations create a healthier world? How will AI be part of a new tomorrow? T. Rowe Price's curiosity runs deep, and with it comes the power to help you invest more confidently. Better questions, better outcomes. T. Rowe Price. Learn more@t rowprice.com Curiosity.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and this is the Book Review podcast. Recently, we released our top 10 books of the Year episode, in which we discussed our collection of books collectively chosen by the editors and writers here. But this week, we want to hear from the bold face names. No anonymity here. I'm joined by our staff critics, Jen Zalai. Hello, Jen.

[Jen Zalai]

Hi, Gilbert.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Dwight Garner.

[Dwight Garner]

Hey, Gilbert.

[Gilbert Cruz]

And Alexandra Jacobs.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Hi, Gilbert.

[Gilbert Cruz]

The three of you, as you've done for the last several years, have written a piece looking back at your years in reading. We're going to talk about some of the highlights that each of you wrote about. I do want to start with Dwight. At the beginning of your little section of this piece, you write, this year's best books mattered because they offered refuge from the wheels grinding in our heads. They made us feel less alone and reminded us that we are still sane. Do you still feel that way?

[Dwight Garner]

Gilbert it was such a year of turmoil for so many people and uncertainty and angst and books, at least for me, they're where I went to escape. And these themes, these kind of these themes that we worked out in this year's fiction and nonfiction are themes that are there every year. But I think this year they really stuck out for a lot of us, the things that spoke to our concerns and when we weren't escaping, that spoke to the things we were all thinking about.

[Gilbert Cruz]

One of the books that you were big on this year, I don't know that you called it out in your piece, but I did want to briefly touch on it, was Intermezzo by Sally Rooney, as you recall. And I think as you might have said, this was a book that going into it, you had heard people on this desk sort of talking smack about it, and then you dipped into it yourself and you fell in love with it.

[Dwight Garner]

It's carbs, it's cheese, it's butter, and it's really smart. It's just the book that I dove into and found deep pleasure and indeed escape In. Even though she's quite a serious writer, as I'm sure most listeners know, she's no joke as a novelist and one of the best writers in the world right now, I think. But this was her sort of. I don't know, it felt like she let herself go a little bit more. She had more fun.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Well, you know who really let herself go was Miranda July. And it's like everybody was expecting and anticipating the Sally Rooney book to be a big book of the year. But what I was surprised by was that Miranda here was Miranda July being taken seriously, as seriously as Sally Rooney, and her book was the one, it seemed to me that the people, young and old were embracing with excitement.

[Dwight Garner]

Alexandra, I still haven't read that book. Can you convince me in two sentences to read it?

[Alexandra Jacobs]

The first three quarters of it are fantastic. It's being celebrated as a novel of paramenopause. It's about a woman in a marriage partnership with a young child who, despite all the progress we've made with feminism and everything, feels somewhat stifled and confined in her domestic arrangement. And she embarks on a road trip. She's gonna drive, you know, to celebrate her 45th birthday or something. I may not be remembering this correctly, but anyway, she. She embarks on a road trip, she doesn't make it very far, and then she begins to have an extremely explicit affair with a young guy she picks up at a gas station. Again, I might not be remembering that exactly right, but she begins to have an extremely explicit affair.

[Dwight Garner]

The older woman and the younger man. That's one of the three lines in Sally Rooney's novel as well.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

We should get them on a panel.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Jen, did you read either of those books?

[Jen Zalai]

I read All Fours by Miranda July and I think it was a car rental agency where she.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

A car rental agency where she met.

[Jen Zalai]

The guy and then they have this affair. Everything just calls into question, like where she is in her life. And the main character herself is a Miranda July esque creature.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yes.

[Jen Zalai]

Who's, I think a person of. I can't remember what term she uses, but it's sort of like semi celebrity.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yes.

[Jen Zalai]

Where she's artistic, she has some renown, but she's not like super famous like Taylor Swift.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Right, right.

[Jen Zalai]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

And you feel like she's. And she's very committed to making her life her art and vice versa.

[Jen Zalai]

Yeah, exactly.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It's so wonderful to see live critics giving each other recommendations. You are probably among the three most well read people that I know. And this still proves that you can read that much. And still not have gotten to one of our top 10 books of the year, All Fours by Miranda July. But, Dwight, you did write early on about another one of our top 10 books of the year. And I think it was your piece that really put it on a ton of our radars, which was yous Dreamed of Empires, which was a book by Alvaro Enrique that we all just love so much.

[Dwight Garner]

God. Atmospheric, funny, sort of a surreal version of deep history in Mexico. And it's one of those books you pick up and you think, where is this? Where's this writer been all my life? He's such a talent. And what did you think, Gilbert?

[Gilbert Cruz]

I talked briefly about it on our Top 10 Books podcast. I happened to read it right as I was going to Mexico City. So I also. It was sort of like, right book, right place, but it was completely surprising. It's sort of an alternative history of this moment when Cortez and his people land in what is now Mexico City and encounter Moctezuma, the Aztec emperor, there. And it is. It just feels lively and funny because it's this sort of comedy of manners. Slightly gross, slightly tense. It just. It mixes so many different tones and what, in the end, is only about a 200 page book.

[Dwight Garner]

I think I loved its humanity, its small bore humanity the most. It's a novel where mosquitoes bite people and they get colds and their butts itch. And it's just really funny and it's just humane as well as being complicated and intellectual about Mexican history.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So this is a very hard pivot. But it was an election year. And Jen, as you wrote, if you work at a book review long enough, you learn that presidential election years are vexing for publishers, especially when it comes to nonfiction. Are they vexing for nonfiction critics like you?

[Jen Zalai]

I think it depends. This year was a hard one for publishers, not just because of the election. And there's always this issue where. Because American political campaigning just consumes so much time and so much of the news cycle that publishers who want to get publicity for their books find it difficult to penetrate that maelstrom.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Unless you're Melania Trump dropping your mailbox right at the end of the campaign.

[Jen Zalai]

Exactly.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

That was interesting.

[Jen Zalai]

Yeah. Some books, Some books will make it through. I think for publishers, there is this sort of feeling of the news cycle is just gonna consume everything. And I think this year in particular was difficult because the election was very close, both before and after, in terms of the actual numbers. And so there was this sense of, okay, what is the political reality that writers are Publishing into what kind of country do we live in? I think that we're still trying to figure out those questions, in a way. And so that, of course, has bearing on what people want to read, what they're excited to read. Do people want to read more political stuff? Do they want to have something that's totally unrelated, that's like counter programming? I think those questions were all up in the air.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I think one thing that was definitely true, and you write about this, is that you could not escape that one of your favorite books of the year was one that dealt intimately with American politics. Not American politics of the moment, but American politics from the early 90s. Tell us about when the Clock Broke by John Ganz.

[Jen Zalai]

Yes. So this is a book that is about, as you mentioned, Gilbert, about the early 1990s, which is an era that marked the end of the Cold War. This sense that American capitalism had essentially won. It was the end of history. And I think, you know, sort of in the common memory, I mean, for those of us who lived through the 1990s, we remember in 1992 that Bill Clinton won. And that sort of the sense of maybe sort of a bland consensus around the middle coalescing around that time. And what Ganz shows is, in fact, there was a lot of seething resentment. There was a lot of discontent. There's a lot of stuff that I think we're reckoning with now. And it was really bubbling up. And you saw it in third party candidates. You saw it in people like Ross Perot. You saw it in the political candidacy of people like Pat Buchanan. You saw it in somebody like David Duke. And so what he does is he tries to give us, as he puts it, a history of the losers. And I was really impressed with how he combines this sort of marshaling of historical evidence, all these details, some of them totally absurd, with his very impressive storytelling skills. This is his first book.

[Dwight Garner]

I feel like Gann's came out of nowhere this year and became one of the intellectual stars of the year. And I'm curious, where did he come from?

[Jen Zalai]

It's really interesting. He apparently worked for this website called Genius for a while. You know the website that annotates genius.com. yes, exactly. Rapidly. Rap lyrics, Right.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I think all lyrics at this point, but started with rap lyric, started with rap lyrics.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Not always directly attributed as. Right.

[Jen Zalai]

And he started a substack several years ago, and he started getting attention because he obviously is incredibly interested in history and how history bears on the current moment. And I think really made a name for himself drawing Connections, connecting the dots. And I think writing with style. And I will also say that I think online, on social media, he has a reputation for getting into fights with people on X. So maybe that also has something to do with it, this idea of sort of like the intellectual pugilist, which I think is like a lost tradition that maybe he's trying to revive. But in any case, I was really pleasantly surprised by this book. To have a first book really come out right out of the gate with something I think so ambitious and impressive.

[Gilbert Cruz]

He is also co host of a podcast called Unclear and Present Danger that he co hosts with Jamelle Bouie.

[Jen Zalai]

Right, Exactly. About post Cold War movies.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Yeah, I think one it's Hunt for in October maybe is one of the first ones.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

It's good to have very specific, very hyper focused podcast topics.

[Jen Zalai]

And I think also because he is talking about the culture wars of the 1990s, I think the fact that he himself is so clearly interested not just in politics, but also in movies and music, he brings all of that to bear in this book. So it's really kaleidoscopic.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I was at an independent bookstore in the West Village recently, a Three Lives bookstore, and I bought another copy of this book. And they said we, I think they only have two at a time, but they said they can't keep it on the shelves. People keep buying it. A guy came up to me as I was buying it and said, that's a really good book.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Aw.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I feel like he was planted there.

[Jen Zalai]

But it was John Ganz who said that.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

I can't discuss when the clock broke without speaking up for the Year that Broke America by Andrew Rice, the New York magazine writer, which is about the year 2000 and how it was the foundation for everything that followed. I just think the two go nicely together.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Why was the year 2000 the foundation for it?

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Well, think about it. The Supreme Court decision about the election and also everything that Donald J. Trump was doing that year, he. He lays it out really well.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Okay, you got a two for here.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

If the John Ganz book is sold out, you could buy the other one.

[Gilbert Cruz]

What an endorsement, Alexandra. Something that you wrote about a lot this year were biographies and memoirs. And as you wrote, I'm thinking a lot these days about how biography and to some extent memoir is soon to change irrevocably. Modern subjects don't send or say very many handwritten letters. And many have abandoned diaries and date books for social media and Google Calendar, which will be a lot harder and less fun for researchers of the future. To rifle through. I think about this all the time. I think about how will it even be possible to write a biography of someone who is a notable personality right now, given that there largely is no written record?

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yeah, I think not unless they're incredibly assiduous about preserving things for posterity. And I think archivists are thinking about this a lot. But also it's just no matter how. How many emails you get printed out and put, it's just not gonna be the same as going through the fun handwritten material. So I did think about that. There were a lot of. I reviewed a lot of biographies and a few memoirs this year that were very dependent on that kind of material. And it was just a joy. One of the books I reviewed that I was very surprised to like as much as I did was the one of Christopher Isherwood. The biography of Christopher. Christopher Isherwood, Inside Out. I remember when I took that assignment, I think, Dwight, you said, you get 100 pages. Are you sure? Or something like that. And when I embarked on it, I was reminded that in fact there had already been an almost 900 page biography of Christopher Isherwood. So you would think this would be like a kind of. Why does this exist? In fact, it was wonderful. It was one of my favorite books of the year.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Now that was by Katherine Bucknell. You also wrote about a Keith Haring biography, the Life and Line of Keith Haring by Brad Gooch.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yes. I was interested by that book for a number of reasons. I grew up with Keith Haring. He was like the wallpaper of my teen. I grew up with those dancing figures and I was very aware of him. I hadn't remembered he died quite so young. It's just astonishing. Brad Gooch is the perfect person to write this biography. They're absolute wonderful match of biographer and subject, which can be a difficult thing to do. And it's just amazing what he accomplished in that short time.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I'm gonna ask the same question of Dwight in a few. But I'm curious as someone, Alessandra, who reviews both fiction and nonfiction, what is it about biography or memoir that is particularly interesting to you as a critic?

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Oh my gosh. I think about this a long ago editor of mine once said it's easier to write about a person than an idea. And I think that is. I've never forgotten that. It's A person is an entire world that leads to other worlds and a generator of ideas. There's no argument that needs to be made for writing about a person's life. I think Actually, you could write a biography of everyone in the world. But you look at the obituaries. Our obituaries are wonderful. I also read our. Our short little obituaries that are placed that people pay to put in the newspaper that I still read.

[Dwight Garner]

I do too. I love them.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yeah, yeah.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Don't get embarrassed for reading the Brit newspaper.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Dwight wrote a memoir this year. Are we allowed to talk about that?

[Dwight Garner]

It was last year.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Last year. Shoot.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Why did I bring him? Do you even know him?

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Do I even.

[Jen Zalai]

No.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

You know what it is? It's that I'm old in like the are starting to blend together.

[Gilbert Cruz]

This is what Miranda July was writing about.

[Jen Zalai]

Yes.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Paramount. No.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Dwight.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Never mind.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Dwight, you also wrote on a fair number of biographies this year. You wrote about Elaine May. You wrote about Carson McCullers. You wrote about one of my favorite bands. Because I am a middle aged man of a certain age. R.E.M. the R.E.M. biography. What is it about artistic biographies that sort of always seem to capture your camera?

[Dwight Garner]

Oh, I'm so in love with the form. I just like a life well met. I frankly reviewed a lot of biographies negatively this year. Some of the books were too distant. They were just printing fact after fact and I felt no presiding intelligence. It's what I want. I want to feel like I'm reading like a novelist on this person's life, making fine distinctions, saying things, having a good time while giving you the real life. So I didn't like the biography of Randy Newman very much. I didn't like the Kirsten McCullers biography. There's a better one written 25 years ago anyway. But the REM biography is terrific if you are like me, Generation X ish, Right up my alley. And it's sensitive and it's well put. And also the Elaine May biography by a young writer. She just has a way. She writes like a millennial. In a good way. She's very approachable and very in your face and she'll curse. And it just feels like a new form. Someone reinventing what's happening out there.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

That book was surprisingly good. I was expecting it to be awful.

[Dwight Garner]

Yeah, me too.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Because Elaine May's famously no cooperation won't give an inch. And she pulled it off.

[Gilbert Cruz]

And this was a book called Ms. May Does not the Life and Work of Elaine May. Hollywood's hidden genius.

[Dwight Garner]

Yeah, in a. It's hard to go wrong with Elaine May. She's just multifaceted, fascinating from the word go. Succeeded in so many areas, had huge failures, massive successes and quirky. And of course total New Yorker, a stone New Yorker, as much as Fran Leibowitz is. And yeah, I recommend it highly.

[Gilbert Cruz]

We'll be right back.

[T. Rowe Price]

At T. Rowe Price global teams leverage extensive experience to see investment potential differently. Instead of fast answers, they understand that the true road to confident investing is curiosity. It's what drives them to ask smart questions about our ever changing world, like how can clean water transform farmland? Can healthcare innovations create a healthier world? How will AI be part of a new tomorrow? T. Rowe Price's curiosity runs deep, and with it comes the power to help you invest more confidently. Better questions, better outcomes. T. Rowe Price. Learn more@t rowprice.com Curiosity the holidays can.

[Jen Zalai]

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[Gilbert Cruz]

Welcome back. This is the book review podcast and I'm Gilbert Cruz. I'm joined this week by our three staff critics and we're talking about their year in reading. And as anyone who knows you, Alexandra, knows you are devoted to your cats and you wrote about a cat memoir this year.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

This is the year that cats entered the chat.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Okay, say more.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

They entered leshaw. Entered the chat.

[Gilbert Cruz]

There we go.

[Jen Zalai]

Nice.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

It was. Who knew that cats would be such an election talking point. And in fact for me, and I think for Jen as well, this was one of the really enjoyable things about keeping an eye on the election was that all the discourse was double edged.

[Jen Zalai]

Cause there were some negative talks.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Oh, there was definitely some ladies. The cat ladies. Right. But the angry memes that rose up and presciently before he died, Caleb Carr published a memoir, a myanoir about his.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I'm sorry, a what?

[Alexandra Jacobs]

A Myanmar, which I got into the My proudest accomplishment this year is that neologism is now in the archives of the New York Times and Caleb Carr is an author. Talk about back to the 90s when the clock broke. Caleb Carr wrote ruled the 90s with the alienist. And he was, it was just I felt for men who own cats there can be a bit of a stigma. And he just ripped that off. It was like this was a love letter to his cat Masha. And it was. But it also, it was a portal to again, as we were describing about memoirs and biographies, I had forgotten who his father was.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Lucien.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Lucien Carr. And like this whole Lucien Carr, the beats and this murder and whatever. And Caleb Carr goes into his sort of literary family background, dysfunctional childhood, everything. And the kind of crazy bohemian atmosphere which included animals wandering around. And it's a history of his life with cats and how cats saved him. And anyway, it's a pretty powerful, powerful book. And then, you know, I was, yeah, sorry, it's. You can't. Once you start, you can't stop. But it stayed with me. So thank you, Jen, for letting me have it. We clawed it out over that book.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I'm gonna put an end to this. That book is called My Beloved Monster.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

My Beloved Monster.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Alexandra, I don't know what this says about 15 year old Gilbert, but I think I read the Alienist six times. Like Teddy Roosevelt.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yeah, it's a huge bestseller and so was the sequel, I think.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Angel of Darkness.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yes.

[Gilbert Cruz]

See, I wish he had kept going.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yeah, he did, but with more. He did a lot of military history and he went into other.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So we'll go from My Beloved Monster, Caleb Carr's memoir about his cat, to a book about different kinds of monsters, which is Rejection, a book by Tony Tulithamudi.

[Jen Zalai]

Yes. Yeah, I did not review this book. Dwight reviewed it beautifully for the Times. So this is a book about monsterslosers who live a lot of their lives being extremely online and they experience the very, I think, common situation of being rejected, but maybe in more extreme forms. And for example, the first story is called the Feminist and it's about a guy who considers himself an ally of women. A lot of his friends are women. And so that makes the fact that he's unable to find a romantic relationship even more hurtful. And he's essentially an incel like protagonist. And I don't wanna give anything away, but the story, I think ends with a surprise. And you could say that about a lot of the stories in that book which have these endings that at least in my experience, I literally gasped at several of them.

[Dwight Garner]

I did too. I did too. And Jen gave a very polite, succinct description of some of these stories.

[Jen Zalai]

I can't go into detail because it's too disgusting.

[Dwight Garner]

It's a very moral, philosophical and physical pimple gets popped in this. It's just really down and out rejection. Cut from the herd. No one wants to touch you or kiss you or be your friend. This happens to these characters and oh God, it really pounded me. But he is such a Good writer. Jen actually first turned me onto his work because I had not read his first novel, Remind me of the title, Private Citizens. Private Citizens. And I've since read it and it's terrific. And God, he really captures what it's like to be just terminally online now.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I read several of the stories in this book and a bunch of the people at the Book Review read the book and discussed it. And it was one of those where it's like, this is amazing writing. And I can think of 75% of the people in my life that I would not recommend this book to because they'd find it so disturbing and troubling. What is it about this book that makes it so powerful, despite the fact that it is sort of hard to read at points?

[Jen Zalai]

I think it's the quality of the writing that make it so captivating in one sense, but also so repellent in another. Where you get he's just Tulith and moody is so good. I think at the immediate sensual details, I think of feeling lonely, isolated, resentful, outraged. There's a way in which he captures, I think, the feeling of when you spend a little bit too much time online where he captures the most extreme version of that. So he's able, I think, to bring to life this experience that's really incredibly powerful, but I think in another way, very off putting. So I don't know if enjoy is the word, but I love this book.

[Dwight Garner]

I agree with that. I would just add that I think achieved art, great art, is never really depressing. It's so good that it raises you, despite the fact that he's staring these horrible things directly in the face. So somehow it leaves you lifted up. It just. He writes that well.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Also, it's the honesty about where we are now. I mean, I've been searching for a novelist or fiction writer to depict, to not go to other eras which are easier to depict, to actually depict the cruel, the horrible reality of what online existence has done.

[Jen Zalai]

Yeah, I.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

To us as humans, I think.

[Jen Zalai]

Yeah, I think I really. The book is very short and they're short stories that are connected. There's something really ambitious about it. I think that that was also what I was impressed by, that he's really capturing the way that we, and I use the term we very loosely, but the way that we live now, I think in a way that is just completely unforgettable. As I said, I gasped when reading these things out.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

You didn't.

[Jen Zalai]

I mean, it's pretty. There's some stuff here that's But I also laughed. I mean, the sort of his sense, like his dark sense of humor. And his comic timing is really impeccable.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It's so much funnier than it should be, given what so many of these stories are about.

[Jen Zalai]

Yeah.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I would like to ask you, Alexandra, about a book that is so sweet. It's the opposite of rejection.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Are you gonna say Beautyland?

[Gilbert Cruz]

I wanna ask you about Beautyland.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yes. It's funny. Cause I was gonna offer Beautyland as a sort of counterpart or feminine perhaps counterpart to this book. The protagonist of Beautyland by Marie Helene Bertino is actually. Even as the novel, she's born in 1977. And even as the world goes online, she doesn't go online. And part of the reason is she's an alien. She is from outer space. And she communicates to these sort of overlords in outer space a via fax machine, which, as I think I said in the review, it's like the best narrative use of a fax. I mean, what more useless technology do we have than the fax machine? But this is just a beautiful book. It really is a jewel. It's about. It's about. I think it's really about. It could be about being neurodiverse in a way. You know, it's about being an alien on Earth, but it could also be about being a woman and how not really Beautyland the title comes from. It's a cosmetics store that the character's mother takes her to. And it's like, where you, like, become a woman. Like you buy your curlers or your makeup or your perfume or whatever. And it's about the same thing that rejection is about, which is about feeling alien on this Earth and feeling alone and.

[Gilbert Cruz]

But so much nicer.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

It's.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Believe me, believe me, it's so much nicer.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Yes, it's prettier. You say you laughed at rejection. I cried at Beauty Land. Again, another box set we can offer our listeners.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Oh, my God, what a perverse double feature, those two books. I'd love to draw this conversation to a close by asking each of you if there are any books that you got into sort of arguments or let's say, strong debates about with people here at work or people in your personal lives. I'm sure this never happens.

[Dwight Garner]

As book critics, we talked about this a bit. But for me, of course, it was Sally Rooney and Intermezzo. This was a book that split readers right down the middle. Some people, especially younger readers in my experience, who expected something more wise and cutting and small and political. Out of her something this book was more. It was her just being generous, trying to she's pleasing a mass audience, but in a way that I found very effective and very wise. But this book, everyone I meet, I probably 50, 50, half the people say, thank God you nailed it. Other people are like, what are you thinking? So that was it for me.

[Jen Zalai]

A book that I found myself getting into. I don't know if I'd call them disagreements, but at least lively discussions about the book itself was free and A Manifesto for a Just Society by Daniel Chandler. And it's a book that is basically a manifesto for how the philosophy of John Rawls can direct us toward a better future. And the review that I wrote was mostly positive, but I had some qualms about whether or not resuscitating a 50 year old philosophy text would really be something that is helpful nowadays. And John Rawls had this idea, the idea that people, if they have heard of the name John Rawls, probably associate him with is this idea of the veil of ignorance. And so he proposed that to create a truly just society, what we should do is try to imagine that each of us comes into it behind a veil of ignorance. So we don't know if we're born a woman or a man. We don't know if we're born rich or poor. We don't know what race we are. And so what is the kind of society we would create that we would be happy with not knowing what kind of privileges or disadvantages or situation we're born into. And so ultimately the kind of society that this philosophy supports is this pluralist liberal democracy. And so Chandler, I think, makes a very spirited case in favor of adopting that thought experiment and seeing how it would play out in our political society. But I think one of the concerns that I had when I reviewed it is that sounds great. That sounds really reasonable. But at the same time it sounds a little bit out of step with where we are right now. The idea of adopting a veil of ignorance, this sort of very, I think, lofty philosophical ideal doesn't really fit in, I think with the immediate issues that we're thinking about.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Doesn't match the times, maybe, right?

[Jen Zalai]

Yeah.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Alexandra, come out from behind your veil of ignorance and tell us about a book that you.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

I'm not the only one coming out from behind a veil of ignorance, Ricky. Ian Gordon, the composer, also came out from behind some kind of veil to write his memoir, Seeing Through A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs and Opera. This is a book I definitely thought about with people this year A lot of people think of opera as something stuffy. He really takes out the stuffing and he leaves it all over the floor. It's very delicious. Talking about other composers, Stephen Sondheim, he talks about Tony Kushner, the playwright. It's gossipy, it's full of letters.

[Dwight Garner]

I also love the fact that he's an opera composer who goes by Ricky. How many of those are there?

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Indeed. And his family also was already chronicled in the book Home Fires. This is another one of those portals to other books and stories that I like by Donald Katz, who happened to be the founder of Audible. There are all these connections. He had three older sisters. One was a celebrity journalist who also wrote a memoir. It's very sexually frank. He wrote a lot about his sexual initiation as a teenager, episodes that these days would be classified as abuse. But he remembers fondly. It's a messy book and a kind of put everything on the table kind of book. And I love that. And not every. I feel like some people want a little more tightness in their. In their literature.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Sounds like a messy book. This was not a messy podcast. Thank you all for joining. Dwight, as always, thank you.

[Dwight Garner]

Thanks, Gilbert.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Alexandra, thank you.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

You're welcome.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Jennifer.

[Jen Zalai]

Jennifer.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Jennifer. No, thank you.

[Jen Zalai]

Thanks, Gilbert.

[Gilbert Cruz]

That was my conversation with Jenzalai, Alexandra Jacobs and Dwight Garner about what they have read this year. Next week will be our monthly book club episode hosted by M.J. franklin. He and several other editors will be discussing the book Small Things like these by Claire Keegan. I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. Thanks for listening.

[Alexandra Jacobs]

Sa.