Two excellent novels coming out this month

And tons - TONS - of reccs

A few work updates, before I get into the books. Because if you can’t self-promote on your own Substack, where can you? [Loads of places, the internet is literally geared towards promotion of the self.]

I interviewed Kate Winslet for Porter magazine. They say never met your heroes but I’m so glad I did, if only for how often she bellowed FUCKIN’ to make her point. Ubiquitous selfie, below.

I also interviewed Crystal Hefner, who has written a memoir about life in the Playboy Mansion, and I published a condensed version of our convo on Books+Bits last week. There’s been a lot of controversy around this one (never to do with the actual writing in the book, which is mostly good) and I think Hefner handles the criticism - you knew what you were getting into, you only did it for the money, etc - with honesty and grace.

Season 7 of The Missing has dropped and for the first time, we’ve gone beyond the UK and Ireland to the States and Canada, to find stories of long-term missing people. (For those unfamiliar with the term, ‘long-term missing’, it refers to the 1% of people who remain missing, indefinitely.)

I always think every series is better than the last, but this one really is a corker - it’s so moving, so infuriating, so twisty. We explore the disappearance of Charlene Downes in 2003, a teenage victim of the Blackpool ‘grooming gangs’; Marshal Iwaasa, who disappeared in rural Canada in 2019, leaving just a burnt out truck behind him; and the mystery of Sarm Hislop, who disappeared overnight from a luxury catamaran in the Caribbean in 2021. Making the show, it can feel like the answer is right there - but without evidence or confession, the courts hit a wall.

What we try to show in this series - with the tireless help of charities Locate and Missing People - is that these cases are not just true crime mysteries; they are real people with backstories and families that love and miss them. If you haven’t yet, please do give it a listen and a share - in every case, someone, somewhere, will hold the clue to what happened.

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I’m really excited for the books content in this letter and the next because I’ve read two novels and two memoirs (that will be the next newsletter) that I’ve loved this month and that’s a high percentage for one month! I like a lot of books, but I never love that many in one month.

First up, The Fetishist by Katherine Min, which comes out next Thursday. It’s a bit of a bittersweet read, because Min died in 2019 and this novel, which she had worked on for years, was posthumously published by her daughter. Min is an acclaimed writer - endowed with half a dozen fellowships and residences - but The Fetishist is only her second novel.

It’s about an American violinist, Daniel - the fetishist - and the women he has dated: Alma, a Korean American cello prodigy and the love of Daniel’s life; Kyoko, a punk-rock singer hell-bent on revenge; and Emi, a spurned girlfriend of Daniel’s and the mother of Kyoko, who took her own life. (Hence, Kyoko’s revenge.) I’m honestly scrambling to compare it to anything. It’s elegant and savage - in that part, it reminds me a little of Violet Kupersmith’s Build Your House Around My Body. As Susan Choi puts it, it’s “a merge of chamber music with the mosh pit”.

The Fetishist is a vivid and thorough probing of sex and desire. Cathy Park Hong writes that “in Western history, [the Asian woman’s] desires have remained largely unheard until recently.” Novels written by “unselfaware white authors” typically focus on a protagonist’s “desire for the ‘yellow woman’”. This book forces Daniel to reckon with his fetishisation and gives narrative control to those he cast aside.

But it’s also - especially when Kyoko and her boyfriend, Kornell try and execute their half-baked revenge plot - a bit of a caper. It’s exceptionally funny, frequently sexy and written with sly verve: it’s somehow both sneaky and confronting, winding around and around the point whilst also decking you in the face with it. I think this might be some of the best writing (or specifically, the writing I like the most) I’ve ever read. Here’s an excerpt, written from Alma’s POV:

I love the sound of Min - in her gorgeous afterword, her daughter Kayla says her mother referred to herself as a “word wanker” who lived for “moments of amplification” which is exactly my mantra in life, too. I hope this book gets all the amplification it deserves.

Next up, Green Dot by Madeleine Gray. A literary critic who decided to write her own “affair book” after reading dozens of them for work (she cites Luster by Raven Leilani as a favourite), Gray worked full-time in a bookshop, while also studying for a a PHD, when she wrote Green Dot. (She gave herself exactly one year, during the pandemic, to write a novel in her free time.)

I interviewed Gray a few weeks ago, as part of her UK book tour, and am one of the many people extolling the virtues of it across the back cover. It’s about Hera, a 24-year-old Australian woman who is bored sideways by life and working as an online moderator. She’s only ever dated women - until she meets Arthur, a bumbling tweedy type, 15 years her senior, who she finds unfathomably smart and sexy. Only problem is, Arthur’s married.

On paper - literally - this is another messy girl novel. (See: Sarah Manavis on sad girl lit.) But Green Dot is too wiser and more stylish to be just that. It’s sassy and internetty, sure, but Gray writes with emotional acuity - Hera somehow sees the whole of her life and the smallness of it, at the same time - and has, like Min, a truly individual style. Even when she’s writing about Hera’s ennui (which I can tire of, in books) it’s somehow rhythmic and compelling, rather than nihilistic and soporific. She also has an excellent relationship with her dad, which I appreciated, given the typical daddy issues: messy girlie through-line. Here’s an excellent bit to whet your appetite:

The slew of endorsement - The Times compared it (a little mystifyingly, I might add) to a combo of Annie Ernaux, Bridget Jones and Fleabag and it’s scored a rare endorsement from Caitlin Moran, who says “every sentence sparkles” - will possibly have a counter-effect, but don’t dismiss the book before you try it. See Bobby (off of Book Chat)’s Whatsapp’s below, as a lure.

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BITS

Journalism journalism journalism! Also movies, a podcast and a TV show to tug the sad strings

I’ve been listening to The Missing Cryptoqueen (which came out back in 2019) and enjoying the absolutely nutty story of OneChain fraudster Ruja Ignatova, who disappeared in 2017 and is an FBI most-wanted. The series turns into something of a live caper, as journalist Jamie Bartlett and producer Georgia Catt chase the story around Europe. That said, I still - STILL - do not understand cryptocurrencies and blockchains and I am not sure I ever will.

I was totally absorbed by this long-read in Vanity Fair on Jerzy Kosinki, who I’d never heard of before. Once feted in literary circles - a Guggenheim fellow, a president of PEN, a lecturer at YALE and a twice winner of the National Book Award - he died, mostly disgraced, after endless speculation about whether he wrote his own novels. Were his proof-readers in fact his authors? Was his most celebrated work, The Painted Bird, actually ghost-translated?

It’s a riveting long-read, in part because it’s written by someone who also worked for Kosinski (and who can’t quite decide where he lands) and in other part for the the journalistic-duelling that went on between the Village Voice (believed him guilty) and The New York Times (exonerated him fully.) It’s a sad story, given that Kosinski died by suicide aged 57, but the extremely 80s cover photo of that last NYT story - too blurry to embed here - is worth googling: feat. Kosinski, topless, wearing riding boots. Why can’t all mea culpas be this camp?

‘Some Fall Out of Vogue. She Walked’ is an excellent profile of Gabriella Karefa-Johnson by Vanessa Friedman for The New York Times. A former Vogue contributing editor, she Karefa-Johnson became pop-culture famous overnight after Kanye West’s misogynistic kantzenjammer on social media when she rightfully criticised those t-shirts.

“The only reason he thought that he could come for me is because he thought I was not someone who brokered power,” Ms. Karefa-Johnson said. “He thought a fat Black woman could not possibly be somebody who has any sway in this industry, and certainly not somebody who works at Vogue. It was humiliating. This super-famous person who I respected despite his shortcomings is validating my worst fear to a huge audience.”

Ph. by Lelanie Foster for The NYT

She’s currently writing a book called Not A Fashion Person. (Random aside: do I love or hate The NYT’s archaic house style of calling people Mr. and Ms.?)

Another interview I enjoyed was by Gabriella Paiella with Ben Mendelsohn going “the full Men-do” for GQ. This bit on “his process” (or deliberate lack thereof) made me laugh.

Calm down, you boundary freak.

And a third was Lorraine Kelly for The Sunday Times mag by Laura Pullman. I find Kelly so impressive, the way she treads the lines of compassionate and straight-talking, rarely falling foul of (groan) “the culture wars”. She also does high/ low culture so well. Kelly discusses the impact of reporting on the Lockerbie terrorist attack (and the lack of after-care), her thoughts on Philip Schofield, and the mad tax debacle, where her lawyer claimed that Lorraine Kelly is a “personality” not a person. I’m also very into the Mad Men vibe of this shoot by Sane Seven.

A great new books letter to check out: Extracurricular by Tembe Denton-Hurst, a writer at The Strategist and the author of Homebodies - a smart, internetty read about a Black beauty writer in digital media, which I recommend for those who enjoyed Such A Fun Age, The Other Black Girl and Queenie. Particularly liked her recent letter where stylish women share their favourite bags to fit books in.

Emily Gould’s viral essay Should I Leave My Husband? The Lure of Divorce made me shiver (it’s so personal) but it’s an excellent piece of writing and I recommend it. Of course, the comment section is mostly concerned with her likeability. One day the collective ‘we’ might judge a piece of writing for how good it is rather than the morality of the women in it/ writing it, buuuut today is not that day.

Even more eye-popping - as my friend said, The Cut’s personal essay editor is really working over-time rn - is this essay by financial writer Charlotte Cowles on how she was scammed out of $50,000. Brave for someone who writes about finance for a living, to admit to falling for a huge scam.

Continue to moon over One Day - “still chipping away at the marble, are you?” Yes, Tilly, I am - but am also now moping over Alice & Jack, too. Starring Domhnall Gleeson and Andrea Riseborough, it is the opposite of feel-good - really, I can’t stress this enough - but I found it unspeakably tender. Strangely (to me, at least) it has been absolutely dragged in the reviews. Riseborough, on excellent form in recent film Lee, upcoming HBO series The Regime and in conversation with Eva Wiseman in Sunday’s Observer, is truly in her prime.

Another glorious thing I watched this week is the BAFTA nominated comedy-drama Scrapper, about a 12 year old girl who is attempting to live on her own after her mum passes away, when her estranged dad turns up, to make amends. Lola Campbell and Harris Dickinson play their unfurling relationship so beautifully - and their trust-building was reflected in the filming process, too. Dickinson is able to shine much more in this than Triangle of Sadness.

Jessica DeFino has a new monthly Guardian column, Ask Ugly, and it’s great. If you also have more lip balms than friends, take a tentative step into this one. And I found this one on products for babies very helpful.

I obviously had to try the disgraced Domino cream egg cookie. And it's A Lot, in a good way. That said I do not recommend eating both in the same sitting. My stomach roiled all night. See here for how to make your own.

RIP the Body Shop, whose 200 stores have gone into administration. It’s been over a decade since I last went in, but like all millennial teens, I feel a forceful sense of nostalgia for its body butter. The high street of my youth - BHS, HMV, Woolworths, Gap, Topshop, Tammy Girl, now Body Shop - is but disappearing.

Ending on one of my favourite animal stories from last year, which resurfaced in my iPhone photos last weekend - that of Slim Shady, the Kiwi stallion, who locks his knees while sleeping which makes him look, in the words of his owner, “like, really, really extra-dead.” She was forced to post a PSA online requesting that people stop calling the local vet, when they walk past him napping.

will the real slim shady please stand up