Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
A few weeks ago I was eavesdropping on a group of teenagers at the beach.
You know how artificial banana flavor tastesnothinglike real banana?
The other teens received this news with interest.
One of them wondered if it was even possible to taste a Big Mike banana these days.
No, the alpha teen replied.
None of us will ever taste one.
The other teens agreed: It was sad.
My second instinct is to wonder: How is the system going to crush this book?
Like any good memoirist, Williams performs surgery on herself and holds up each organ for inspection.
(What does this one do?
What about this funny-looking one?)
There is no psychedelic bloviating.
She thinks Michael Pollan is a dork.
This is a book that requires you to go with the flow, but the flow is awfully inviting.
This subspecies of novel is also a superb antidote to the claustrophobia of quarantine.
If armchair traveling is your only option, why not go somewhere remote as hell?
Such as, for example, the hills of northern Thailand?
Fieldworkis a super-fun anthropological mystery about delusion on a grand scale.
A deluded person murders another deluded person.
A third person, also deluded, must figure out why.
(He does, and the answer is satisfying.)
And hey, you know who else was deluded?
Can we, the reading public, make up for it 13 years later?
Why not you, too?
So if humans are given a small Philadelphia-style soft pretzel, they will eat the whole pretzel.
And if they are given a gigantic Philadelphia-style soft pretzel, they will also eat the whole pretzel.
A novel simply struck me as a more satisfying unit of fiction to consume.
Many of the units are unconventional love stories spiked with acid moments.
It is a deep and gentle book.
Note: It was announced that Randall Kenan died suddenly at the age of 57.
Lets celebrate his life by reading his work.
Embrace the scent of Northern Californianoir: earthy and complex, with notes ofREDWOODandSHARK-INFESTEDocean?
Read thenew Lawrence Osborne novelaboutAMERICANDEGENERATESliving inforeign countries?
Youll feel like a saint in comparison!
ShimmyintoNIGHTSHADEif your ringtone is the ELO songEvil Woman?
Trip on the new Susanna Clarke book if you want to get yourmind bentbut dont much care forDRUGS?
AllowJaron Lanierto cure, or at least treat, yourSOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION?
No matter what you thinkthis bookmight be … it is, in fact, the opposite.
Every editorial product is independently selected.
If you buy something through our links,New Yorkmay earn an affiliate commission.
