zoë stagg

I’m afraid that I abhor grime too much to have ever had a life of artistic adventure; there is no bohemian sensibility in these veins.

That’s what struck me the most about this collection of essays – the omnipresent squalor. It was like a character, the on-going descriptions of sublet claptrap filth.

Which is not to say that I didn’t like it. I devoured it in two days, reminded that I’d wanted to by this Medium post on the cost of writing. Creating.

Emily Gould is a fascinating character to a slice of demographic, a totemic voice pioneering the onset of Generation Share. And since no one in said demographic doesn’t know the story of the epic book deal and supposed fall of Rome that happened afterward, curiosity is understandable.

It’s definitely worth a read. There’s a Pulp Fiction aspect to the chronology, dipping in and out of her 20s, jobs, beds, and affairs. I can’t say that I understand the selection of the last essay for an ending, but I probably didn’t spend enough time considering it off the grid, in a cabin upstate.

I dug the careful word choice, the rawness that wasn’t dully focused navelward, and as Book #2 in the 25 Book Challenge of Women Authors, it makes a strong argument for the value of memoirs considered from every stage of life.

• 03/07/14