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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
No One Is Talking About This blew my mind when I read it a few years ago, so I was fully prepared for another strange, impassioned journey with Patricia Lockwood's latest book—and that's exactly what I got.
In a story about chronic illness and loss, ideas spill forward in a colorful, offbeat stream of consciousness that's mostly exciting and profound but sometimes frustrating and confusing.
As someone who often backtracks while reading to understand the nuances of everything that's going on, I knew that wouldn't be a sound strategy with this particular book. The author's writing feels intentionally cryptic and poetic, leaving you to connect the dots for yourself.
When connecting the dots paid off:
- Reading about her aftereffects from COVID while fighting off COVID myself helped me feel more connected to those parts of Lockwood's story. When she described her heart rate jumping to 150 BPM, difficulty standing for more than a few minutes, and breathlessness when raising her arms above her head, I couldn't help from assuming she shares a disorder I have called POTS.
- It hit close to home when she expressed that writing about illness feels self-indulgent, that even having the illness in the first place feels self-indulgent.
- I share the frustration that comes with having an uncooperative body while also thanking that same body for all the good it's done. Moments like this made my heart swell with appreciation.
When I failed to connect the dots:
- A chapter about Anna Karenina didn't offer enough explanation to be meaningful to someone who hasn't read the story (that's me!).
- There were times when Lockwood would suddenly take a sharp turn and describe a new scenario or idea without warning and my fragile comprehension would shatter.
So much of this book reads like a word salad. It's intentional, to illustrate the neurological effects of long covid, but it's a lot to ask a reader to spend time with, especially when there's very little to no narrative arc. The episodic form feels better suited to a collection of essays or stories. The whole thing feels like distant kin to Carmen Maria Machado's memoir, In The Dream House.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is a tricky one to review. There are sentences and whole passages that are things of pure beauty, there are images and metaphors that linger, but they surface and glimmer and bob away on a sea of mostly bewilderment.
Which is perfectly apt for a book about someone who loses their facility for language almost overnight. Why should we, the reader have it any easier? Is this a novel, or autofiction, or an extended prose poem? There are things that happen (that we know really happened) but how much of everything around them is real? I felt like I was floating six inches to the left of myself as I read, which had to be intentional. Lockwood mentions several times that she has given up on writing poetry, but much of this is poetry, snuck in under cover of prose and facts and the malapropisms that are emblematic of her illness.
I started to view this book as though it were a David Lynch movie while I was reading. Just let it all wash over me like a fever dream and let my brain sort it out later. I don't know if there is another, better, way to read it. I'm not sure I could have made it through any other way. And again, that harks back to the point of it all. It's recursive, it can be frustrating, it contains small "Aha!" moments like breadcrumbs or flecks of mica that keep you from feeling utterly lost and stupid as you read. I will hopefully never read Anna Karenina so hard that it almost kills me, but I will remember the coat of violets forever now, perhaps anachronistically coupled with hypebeast boots.
If the fractured nature of her previous book was emblematic of the internet and social media, then the fractured nature of this is that of a brain trying to keep hold of itself and restore its facility with language, which for Lockwood is both trade and identity. All of this (long covid, her husband's illness, still grieving her niece) must have been terrifying, it's a kindness to us that this book isn't.
Huge thanks to Net Galley and Bloomsbury UK for the chance to read this early in exchange for my honest review.
Which is perfectly apt for a book about someone who loses their facility for language almost overnight. Why should we, the reader have it any easier? Is this a novel, or autofiction, or an extended prose poem? There are things that happen (that we know really happened) but how much of everything around them is real? I felt like I was floating six inches to the left of myself as I read, which had to be intentional. Lockwood mentions several times that she has given up on writing poetry, but much of this is poetry, snuck in under cover of prose and facts and the malapropisms that are emblematic of her illness.
I started to view this book as though it were a David Lynch movie while I was reading. Just let it all wash over me like a fever dream and let my brain sort it out later. I don't know if there is another, better, way to read it. I'm not sure I could have made it through any other way. And again, that harks back to the point of it all. It's recursive, it can be frustrating, it contains small "Aha!" moments like breadcrumbs or flecks of mica that keep you from feeling utterly lost and stupid as you read. I will hopefully never read Anna Karenina so hard that it almost kills me, but I will remember the coat of violets forever now, perhaps anachronistically coupled with hypebeast boots.
If the fractured nature of her previous book was emblematic of the internet and social media, then the fractured nature of this is that of a brain trying to keep hold of itself and restore its facility with language, which for Lockwood is both trade and identity. All of this (long covid, her husband's illness, still grieving her niece) must have been terrifying, it's a kindness to us that this book isn't.
Huge thanks to Net Galley and Bloomsbury UK for the chance to read this early in exchange for my honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness
Moderate: Blood, Vomit, Grief, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death, Alcohol
I LOVED No One Is Talking About This and recommended it to everyone. I made it through more than half of this book and I just didn't get it, and it felt too scattered. I'm sure it's just me and I feel horrible about this, but because it hasn't hooked me I'm going to stop.
Diverse cast of characters:
No
My first foray into Patricia Lockwood’s fascinating mind, I don’t think I understood what this book was about until the very last sentence (and I love that about it). This autofictional novel reads almost like a memoir in essays, largely themed around the disorientation of chronic illness and the remaking of artistic identity. It’s funny and profound—I wrote down many quotes—and would do well in the hands of a reader in a tumultuous time.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Drug use, Medical trauma
Minor: Child death, Death, Sexual assault, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
To follow
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Will There Ever Be Another You is a new autofiction novel from Patricia Lockwood, focused around health and art, human connection and the connection between words in your brain. Written in sections that move rapidly between topics and ideas, it's almost impossible to describe this book in any normal summary, but it is densely packed with allusions and jokes alongside explorations of chronic illness, grief, and the line between fiction and reality.
I really wanted to get this book more than I did. When I did recognise who Lockwood was talking about (Susanna Clarke being one example) or when I got a joke (I loved the reference to her cat being carceral, after Lockwood's infamous tweet about her cat Miette), it was thrilling. I've read No One Is Talking About This, Priestdaddy, and also some of Lockwood's poetry, and I enjoyed those (especially her poetry), but I found Will There Ever Be Another You just so disparate that whilst there were parts I felt were engaging, other parts I struggled to get through. In that way, it is pretty effective to get across one of Lockwood's major themes, exploring the effects of illness on your brain and mental processes.
Some of the sections where I felt like I was getting into it were the first part with its hazy picture of grief and travel and the section about her husband's surgery and the idea of his 'Wound'. Other parts felt like I needed to know more of the references to get it (for example, there's a section about Anna Karenina which I've only read when I was 17, many years ago, and it felt like I needed to remember it better).
I feel like if I reread No One Is Talking About This and maybe her other works and articles about her, I could perhaps reread Will There Ever Be Another You and get it better. I liked that the different parts and sections meant that I didn't need to always follow a previous section to dive into another (again, interesting as an idea about mental processes). However, I just know that I missed a lot and I'm sure other people will be able to get a lot more from the book than I could. Regardless, I found it a fascinating example of writing yourself into fiction, and doing it in a way that really does not feel like straightforward memoir.