Headlines

+ factoids for a flooded zone

This post mostly contains important writing headlines, with a quick note about adrenaline and the actual headlines at the end:

A PRIZE (!)

Ghost Pains is one of three finalists for the The Story Prize. The winner will be announced (and live-streamed) from New York on March 25th. I’m extremely honored and excited. I’m sort of stressed about what to wear.

ICYMI: Ghost Pains was also chosen as a Best Book of 2024 by Kirkus Reviews, LitHub, and Review 31. It’s for sale in the UK & US.

Obligatory image of Ghost Pains.

LEFT-WING IRONY (The Point)

I also have a few new pieces out in other venues, starting with a sequel to my most popular post from last year, which was this breakdown of left- v. right-wing irony leading up to the EU parliamentary elections. I’ve since expanded those observations into an essay for The Point about the American left and its post-election struggles. It’s about what a new kind of left-wing irony might look like in the American context, as well as the limits of a politics of contempt under Trump’s second term.

CARBON MARKETS AND COMMODITY TRADERS (Foreign Policy)

I also returned to the climate beat over at Foreign Policy to look into the future of carbon markets and how activists and industry experts view commodity traders’ activities within them; commodity trading houses pull serious strings in key supply chains, so they wield a lot of power when it comes to decarbonizing industry. (And one way to think about carbon markets is as the commodification of carbon itself.) Also of note is what regulators and watchdogs can and should do to incentivize good behavior and minimize the chance and scale of mishaps. Given the current American administration’s position (utter denial), and Europe’s scramble to boost defense spending, if there’s any progress to be made, it’s sure to come quietly, from private-sector shifts, so I think it’s worth looking into what we ought to anticipate. As a bonus, if you’re interested in the darker history of commodity trading during the supercycle years, The World for Sale by Bloomberg journalists Javier Blas and Jack Farchy is a pretty good read.

Original art by Michael Milunovic for my essay in The Point.

ON HUNGARIAN WRITER ÁGOTA KRISTÓF (Bookforum)

I also wrote about Ágota Kristóf, who as a Hungarian refugee to Switzerland in 1956 taught herself French while working in a clock factory, and in that adopted language wrote a perfect novel (The Notebook). I reviewed her newly translated short stories, along with the rest of her oeuvre, for Bookforum. Returning to her work, I appreciated more than ever her unflinching, unsentimental strain of humanism, which she herself attributed to the influence of Thomas Bernhard, and which feels especially pertinent today. (See final paragraph, below.)

RARE NYC SIGHTINGS CONT. (Book launch with Nell Zink)

While in NYC, I’ll also be at Greenlight Bookstore @ Fulton St. on March 26th with Nell Zink to discuss her latest (and very funny) novel Sister Europe, which publishes just in time for the total collapse of transatlanticism. RSVP here.

Under the knife.

FACTOIDS FOR A FLOODED ZONE (On adrenaline and the actual news)

I’ve noticed a lot of writers have started using this platform to start quasi-advice columns: on writing, on how to live, what to wear, etc. I’m not big on advice, at least not my own; I’m better at essays. I think mostly through analogy, which has its own, but different, time and place.

I do, however, have a few factoids and personal maxims—maybe even convictions—that I’ve found helpful to keep front of mind lately. Sharing them here comes dangerously close to advice, but that’s for you to decide:

Factoid #1: A few years ago I was talking with an anesthesiologist friend of mine about his most dismal procedures. It turned into a conversation about how lucky we are to live in the age of medical miracles, etc., etc. Back in the day, for example, surgery patients used to die not only from infection, he said, but simply because undergoing an operation without anesthesia emptied their adrenal glands, which can be fatal.

There’s no shortage of popularly elected and unelected officials who currently wish to drain you of adrenaline until you sink to the floor, useless, your shattered phone slipping from your hand, your glands fluttering against your failing organs like plastic bags in the wind. That’s what American politics is now. It’s central to the strategy. It’s monstrous, and there are monstrous, revolting things going on, many of which are deliberately meant to blur the line between dictatorship and meme. The fact that so much is packaged precisely to seem deniable—"it’s not real, it’s just a meme"—does nothing to lessen its weight and danger. There are elements of this politics that really are unprecedented. On the one hand, we are regressing to norms and conspiracies dating to the era from before anesthesia was invented, and on the other hand, the president (Elon Musk) has a media arsenal of unprecedented speed, reach, and mind-warping capacities at his disposal. The moral—if there is a moral—is don’t allow your enemies to bleed you dry, or at least not just yet, because a comatose republic will die an even earlier collective death. The moral may be that it’s appropriate to feel sick and revolted, but a waste to go into shock, especially if you are one of those lucky enough not to have been directly targeted (yet). This operation is far from over. Pay attention. Plan to live.

Don’t end up like her. Also a nice climate parable in a single etching. (Max Ernst, 1934.)

…more factoids TBC? Send me your own survival facts! Really. I think we need them. And see you in New York.