Loved reading your take on this having just recorded a podcast with Gabe & Cap on this (obligatory shill: https://www.youtube.com/@tookysmag/pod) that comes out Tuesday probably.
TL;DL though, we came to some very similar conclusions regarding a few standouts between long stretches of what I dubbed "standard MFA-lit with an internet drawl". I think there could have been a lot of addition by subtraction on this one OR by stitching many of the better stories into a more cohesive single narrative (which should be easy since it's all so similar). That said though, I think we were hotter and colder on the "mid" selections than you were.
I read “Cancel Me” and thought it was alright. The beginning was very funny and stylistic but the last few pages had the cloying sincerity of an artist trying to explain herself. I thought the book as a whole seemed promising but if that’s the collection’s high point, I might pass.
Haven't read it yet and not sure that I will (probably I won't catch 90% of the internet-centric humor or references), but it strikes me from what you write that this kind of persona-based, voice-instead-of-thesis writing is quite similar to what was going on in books like Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
As someone happily ignorant of whatever Dimes Square was (I see it referenced here and there in Substacks), and so even more specially qualified to comment, I think the only lasting impact of this book will be that in a few years you can reference back to that 24-hours-infamous excerpt from Love Story and have another cringe-laugh. Maybe someone in 2074 writing a deep history of the moment we're in will read parts of it as a way to capture the high-velocity e-brake turn we did from whatever was going on before into widespread popular near-fascism (and I agree she isn't an active promoter of this, but perhaps an unwitting carrier...)
Enjoyed your post on this though. (p.s. you may have an error in one of the quotes -- "lunch cancer")
All short story collections should have a graph like this. Very helpful.
I read "Love Story" and "Cancel Me" to see what all the fuss was about. I don't see what all the fuss is about.
Loved reading your take on this having just recorded a podcast with Gabe & Cap on this (obligatory shill: https://www.youtube.com/@tookysmag/pod) that comes out Tuesday probably.
TL;DL though, we came to some very similar conclusions regarding a few standouts between long stretches of what I dubbed "standard MFA-lit with an internet drawl". I think there could have been a lot of addition by subtraction on this one OR by stitching many of the better stories into a more cohesive single narrative (which should be easy since it's all so similar). That said though, I think we were hotter and colder on the "mid" selections than you were.
I think the Dimes Square quote you’re recalling came from Jack Antonoff
I read “Cancel Me” and thought it was alright. The beginning was very funny and stylistic but the last few pages had the cloying sincerity of an artist trying to explain herself. I thought the book as a whole seemed promising but if that’s the collection’s high point, I might pass.
I'd say it is, yes.
Haven't read it yet and not sure that I will (probably I won't catch 90% of the internet-centric humor or references), but it strikes me from what you write that this kind of persona-based, voice-instead-of-thesis writing is quite similar to what was going on in books like Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
As someone happily ignorant of whatever Dimes Square was (I see it referenced here and there in Substacks), and so even more specially qualified to comment, I think the only lasting impact of this book will be that in a few years you can reference back to that 24-hours-infamous excerpt from Love Story and have another cringe-laugh. Maybe someone in 2074 writing a deep history of the moment we're in will read parts of it as a way to capture the high-velocity e-brake turn we did from whatever was going on before into widespread popular near-fascism (and I agree she isn't an active promoter of this, but perhaps an unwitting carrier...)
Enjoyed your post on this though. (p.s. you may have an error in one of the quotes -- "lunch cancer")