6 Things

Flotsam, jetsam, ate some, and more.

Here are six small things I’ve been reading, watching, eating, and dreading for the past six months. Small is good, right?

But first, a quick announcement:

THERE ARE STILL OPEN SLOTS IN MY SUMMER NOVEL-WRITING CLASS, which starts **WED., MAY 29**!! This class is for writers who are in the back half or revision phase of a novel draft and would benefit from craft instruction, exercises, and supportive feedback in a small workshop setting. (As you know “accountability” isn’t my favorite word, but it’s one of the things my students routinely say they get in my classes, so do with that what you will!) It’s a really small and special group, and we all end up super invested in each other’s work. Check out the my spiffy new teaching page or message me if you’re interested in “Act III: Endings” or other classes.

You, trying to finish your novel alone. [Fred Gardner, Poor Student, 1932, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum.]

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Now for the six things:

1. Old Filth by Jane Gardam (2006)

I bought this book based on the classy cover, the weird title, and the misconception that it must be a mean-spirited satire by a midcentury spinster (my favorite). Then I found out that it wasn’t any of those things, it’s a sympathetic portrait of a legendary ex-colonial British lawyer whose name stands for “Failed In London, Try Hong Kong.” After that it sat on my nightstand for ten years. Well guess what, I finally read it and it’s an absolute stunner.

Despite what I feared, Old Filth isn’t creepily nostalgic for pith helmets and elephant foot umbrella stands, or whatever the equivalent is for British-ruled Hong Kong. Old Filth’s years there with his wife are barely depicted. Instead, we see a man at the end of his life ruminating over the unfaced horrors of his childhood as a “raj orphan” (a child born in the colonies who was separated from their parents young and sent back to the UK to be raised by strangers), and the legacy of this ritual psychological wrenching across several generations of British men and women of a certain class. The prose is really phenomenal; I was reminded of the extremely dry humor and psychological acumen of Kate Atkinson, but Gardam’s prose is more subdued and quiet than Atkinson’s, and just breathtakingly effective. It’s a new favorite.

2. Le Divorce by Diane Johnson (1997)

   

So, lately I’ve been in search of the modern-day “comedy of manners.” This is a genre I only recently realized I’m obsessed with, although I feel pretty dumb for not realizing it before. Wharton! James! Keane! Brookner! Hadley! I’ve always loved them, but I didn’t really think of them all in the same genre—maybe because I’ve always been so focused on their dark sides that I forget that they’re also anthropological comedies about weird behavior. (You know, manners.) And lots of them are very dark! Bad Habits is more than half a comedy of manners, as a matter of fact.

So anyway, this book kept coming up on lists so I finally checked out the audiobook from the library. I remembered it as coming out during the “chick-lit” boom, and having an Eiffel tower on the front cover and a tepid Merchant-Ivory adaptation with Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts. (Let’s not get into the weeds on the fraught phrase “chick lit” right now, that’s another post unto itself.) So anyway, at first I was like “how dare she name-drop Portrait of a Lady” and then I was like “hmm, shallow but entertaining” and then I was like “the prose is really good, though” and THEN I was like “wow, this is going way way way darker than I thought” etc etc and by the end, I was rushing out to buy a print copy. I wouldn’t call it my favorite, but it is much weirder and more accomplished than I think it gets credit for. I would rate it in the same category but a little above Nora Ephron’s Heartburn. (Though, fair warning, rich Americans in Paris in 1997 apparently talked about race in ways that I found uncomfortable and gross. This didn’t come up a lot, but as in Heartburn, you should go in forewarned about dated elements.)

3. Ripley

All right, everyone has already told you to watch it. But—watch it! I was wary at first, as there are some strong choices that seemed a bit too mannered to me, but then I got to the end and loved it. Having reread The Talented Mr. Ripley, I will probably go back and watch it all over again. It is incredibly faithful to the book, and the few major changes have very strong justifications that I think make perfect sense for the story and are also ravishingly beautiful. I have a feeling it’s maybe perfect??? All I know is when I was getting a crown at the dentist’s the other day they asked me if I wanted to watch something on the ceiling TV and I asked them to put on Ripley. Make of that what you will.

4. Little Darlings (dir. Ronald F. Maxwell, written by Dalene Young and Kimi Peck, 1980)

You can see my whole Letterboxd review here, but here’s the shortened version: I’ve been wanting to see this forever and it was way better than I had imagined. A raunch comedy that is also a totally loving, realistic portrait of adolescent girls (REAL adolescent girls, not bikini babes), obsessed with sex but confused and a little scared about the real thing. You can tell it's from the girls' POV because all the boys are shot as mysterious, hot himbos in skin-tight cut-offs, while the girls (like the boys in a more trad raunch comedy) run the gamut from scrawny kids to almost-mature-teens (but even they still look like mall girls, not pin-ups). And…. no boobs! No girl has to strip down even a little bit! Probably this has to do with the age of the actresses, but it's nearly a shock to the system if you watch a lot of raunch from this era. Their sexuality is treated with so much respect. (Hurray for women screenwriters!)

But really, see this for Kristy McNichols. She owns this movie. Her performance is jawdropping. Everyone else is in a silly movie, she’s in an absolute heartbreaker. (Don’t miss a very very young Cynthia Nixon and a jawdroppingly gorgeous Matt Dillon!)

4. Just a bowl of white rice with butter and cheese and black pepper.

Reliving the ol’ college days, but with fancier butter.

And finally….drum roll…

5. This incredible review of Bad Habits on Goodreads.

   

   Whoever wrote this review, my hat is off to you. Because whether this is just a forgetful reader who accidentally subbed in my name for the main character’s, or the most intense drive-by trolling I’ve ever gotten in my life, I WILL LIE AWAKE THINKING ABOUT IT FOR THE REST OF MY DAYS. I am OBSESSED.

   And I don’t know about that first question, but the answer to the second is FUCK NO what are you even talking about? Have you even met writers???