I Could Live Here Forever, by Hanna Halperin: The Many Faces of Addiction

Hanna Halperin's new novel I Could Live Here Forever is exactly as devastating as you'd expect any good novel about addiction to be. What makes this novel truly great, though, is how Halperin addresses different forms of addiction. Substance addiction, sure. But also emotional addiction, addiction to a certain feeling or a certain person that makes you feel that way. This feeling, this person can be just as toxic, just as dangerous as any drug. 

This book absolutely destroyed me. But I loved it an indecent amount -- it's so good. Soooo good.

Leah is a mid-20s woman working on her MFA  at the prestigious creative writing graduate program at the University of Wisconsin. On the first page of the novel, she meets Charlie -- a handsome, mysterious, affable fellow. She's smitten, he's smitten. They're smitten.

Charlie to his credit reveals very early in the relationship he's a recovering heroin addict. This of course gives Leah -- and her friends in her MFA cohort and her family, including her overprotective older brothers -- great pause. But she loves how he makes her feel -- like the most important, most beautiful, most loved person in the world. Ever since Leah's mother left when she was 13, Leah's developed some deep-seated psychological issues about being loved. So when Charlie DOES love her, she's addicted to how he makes her feel. Despite the red flags, of which they are an increasing number, despite the signs of relapse, and despite even breaking up with him a few times, their connection continues. But at what cost to each of them?

I absolutely loved this. I loved it for its fresh take and humanization of addiction -- this isn't Trainspotting, though, we're not watching needles go in arms -- and Charlie isn't your typical junkie. I also loved it for its "day-in-the-life" story of an MFA student.

Sure, there's a definite Sally Rooney vibe about this book, but if you're a Rooney skeptic, don't let that you stop you. Halperin, dare I say, is a more direct, easier-to-read writer than Rooney is. I actually read this 300-page novel in basically three sittings. And this will definitely be the 2023 novel I talk about way too much.

Best 3 Books of March

You know the meme: Being an adult is saying "next week things will slow down a little" over and over again until you die. That was March. That's to say, March was a blur. I traveled to Seattle for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference, I watched a butt-ton of basketball, but I did manage to find a few moments here and there to read some books -- five books, total. Here are my favorite three.

3. The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, by Megan Stielstra -- If "memoir in essays" is a thing, that's what this is, and it's soooooooo good. You know that Cecily Strong character on Saturday Night Live, Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With at a Party? These essays are the EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT. Reading Megan Stielstra is like sitting at a bar with a very cool new friend, and getting lost in her stories. 

2. Empty Theatre, by Jac Jemc -- This hilarious novel tells the intertwined stories of cousins King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) of Austria. Not at all your staid, stuffy historical fiction, this fantastic read is more like a satiric Victorian soap opera. It's light and funny, playful and provocative, and just a really fun rewarding reading experience. 

1. A Country You Can Leave, by Asale Angel-Ajani -- This book is about a 16-year-old Black, biracial girl named Lara and her fierce but deeply flawed Russian immigrant mother. The two live in a trailer park in California, and try to navigate the fraught divisions of culture, class, and race. Lara voice in this novel is completely engaging, and you feel for her immensely. It constantly seems like she's in a no-win situation, that forces beyond her control (whether privileged white people or violent men) will have an outsized impact on her life. It's not fair, of course it's not. And her mother, often drunk and spouting bullshit truisms at her, isn't much help to her.

Best 3 Books of February

It's been a slow reading month in terms of quantity, but not quality. I spent most of my month traversing the 900 pages of what will no-doubt be one of my favorite novels of the year, The Deluge, by Stephen Markley. 

It's a strange experience reading a novel about catastrophic climate change and sea level rise on a beach -- a little like reading a novel about a plane crash during a flight. But that's what I did -- I spent 9 days in Kauai reading and relaxing. And there were many mai tais. Many, many mai tais.

And but so, other than The Deluge, here are three other great books I read this month.

3. Running While Black, by Alison Desir Mariella -- You may know Alison from her much-read and discussed essay in Outside published not long after Ahmaud Arbery's murder. This is basically a book-length expansion of that essay, exploring how and why the distance running community is too white, and how she is working to change that. As a white distance runner, this is an uncomfortable read, for sure. But a vital one. 

2. The Rabbit Hutch, by Tess Gunty -- Sad, and weird. Weird, and sad. But maybe outright brilliant? This story of a dying Indiana town won the National Book Award last year. There are some serious Winesberg, Ohio vibes here. But Gunty's prose and imagination are the stars of this show. What a talent! This is her debut novel, and like everyone else, I'm very excited to see what she does next.  

1. I'll Take Everything You Have, by James Klise -- Sorry, cheating a little here -- I read this back in December, but it comes out today, and if you're into great YA coming of age stories, this is it! 

ICYMI: Two Reviews Posted in Feb

1. The Deluge, by Stephen Markley -- Sure to be a favorite of 2023.

2. I Have Some Questions For You, by Rebecca Makkai -- Also, a leader in the clubhouse for a favorite of 2023 (though I read this last November).

The Deluge, by Stephen Markley: Truly, A Masterpiece

If you'd been feeling a little too optimistic about the state of things these days, let Stephen Markley's climate fiction (Cli-Fi, in the parlance of our times) The Deluge quickly (well, maybe not that quickly, it's 900 pages after all) disabuse you of that optimism. Yes, while The Deluge is anxiety-inducing, it's one of the best reading experiences I've had in a long time. It's nothing short of a masterpiece -- and I don't just mean that because it IS 900 pages. I would've gladly read 900 more. 

If I had infinite time, a plethora of patience, was a 98-fold better writer, and could trust myself not to descend into a pit of despair and rage, this is the novel I'd love to write.

The Deluge starts at present times and spends its considerable bulk moving 20 years into the future to examine the social, political, and cultural effects of the greatest threat humanity has even known: climate change.

Markley tells this story through the shifting perspectives of several different characters, though none is more fascinating than activist Kate Morris -- who is sort of a mix of Greta Thunberg and Megan Fox. Kate starts an organization called A Fierce Blue Fire, which I only mention that because I LOVE that name. But also, there's an enraged and un-PC scientist who is furious with everyone for not recognizing the severity of the threat, an eco-terrorist, an ad executive, a genius coder, an opioid addict living in rural Ohio, scores of politicians, rock stars, activists, and regular folks. 

The thrall of this novel is how real this invented future feels. From wacky religious politicians who somehow string a huge swath of followers along to industry interests continuing to maintain outsized influence on legislation to so many people just putting their heads in the sand and deciding climate change isn't even real, Markley is really adept at framing the problem. The problem itself is manmade, but the barriers to fixing the problem are self-inflicted as well.

And then there are the storms. Wild fires, hurricanes, earthquakes become more prevalent and destructive as the climate crisis worsens. Again, all this feels so real, I felt myself needing to google "Los Angeles fire of 2031" or "Hurricane Kate destruction," etc.

It's only February but I can confidently say this will be on my best of 2023 list. I loved this book. 

I Have Some Questions For You, by Rebecca Makkai: About The Murder Show

Few novels meet the current moment with the confidence and astuteness of Rebecca Makkai's new novel I Have Some Questions For You. This thrilling literary mystery centers on our disturbing obsession with crime (especially against women) as entertainment. Why are we so fascinated with violence? Does our fascination with violence interfere with real justice when a crime becomes part of the public consciousness?

Heady questions, for sure, and Makkai isn't done there. This novel also looks at the power (for both good and bad) of social media, how we remember the our individual histories, and what we can really do to right past wrongs. 

Yes, there's a lot going on here. But at 450 pages, there's plenty of room here to handle it all. The novel is about Bodie Kane, an early 40s podcaster and film professor who returns to her elite New England boarding school to teach a class. She becomes obsessed all over again with the murder -- a supposedly solved murder -- of one of her classmates when she was still in school back in the mid 1990s.

Even though the murderer was quickly apprehended, tried, and convicted, it's a case that has never really died. Internet sleuths have poured and re-poured over all evidence (real and imagined) and unleashed multiple theories ranging from crackpot conspiracy to "hmm, that may actually make some sense." As she returns to the haunts of her youth, Bodie begins to believe something may not quite be right about that supposedly open-and-shut case, as well. Was justice miscarried for reasons of convenience? Is there more to this story?

Though it's almost too easy, comparisons to Donna Tartt's The Secret History are inevitable -- but that's a good thing, because this novel proudly stands on its shoulders as a terrific entry in the "slow-burn boarding school murder mystery" genre. Like good fiction should be, this novel is terrifically entertaining, but also may leave you with some uncomfortable questions for yourself.

(And now for some levity... As evidence that the "murder show" has -- or had, at the time of this skit in late 2021 -- reached the peak of the zeitgeist, here's Saturday Night Live's Murder Show song. This just absolutely slayed me. Pun intended and I'm not apologizing.)