Day 390, Quasi-Quarantine: "Writers & Lovers" Details The Pursuit Of A Balance Between Loss And Fulfillment

"I tell them the truth. I tell them I am thirty-one years old and seventy-three thousand dollars in debt. I tell them that since college I've moved eleven times, had seventeen jobs and several relationships that didn't work out. I've been estranged from my father since twelfth grade, and earlier this year my mother died. My only sibling lives three thousand miles away. What I have had for the past six years, what has been constant and steady in my life is the novel I've been writing. This has been my home, the place I could always retreat to. The place I could sometimes even feel powerful, I tell them. The place where I am most myself. Maybe some of you, I tell them, have found this place already. Maybe some of you will find it years from now. My hope is that some of you will find it for the first time today by writing."

Roughly a third of the way through "Writers & Lovers," I noted that the book is kind of great.

Lily King has created a beautifully rendered work, which serves as an accessible and flowing depiction of angst and grief and depression and self doubt. She strikes the right chords in revealing how we can be our own worst enemies, never quite allowing ourselves to be fully prepared to open up to another person. 

"I'm in the mood to call my mother, that happy, shift in the wind mood. I calculate the time in Phoenix. Nearly noon. Perfect. The bolt retracts, and I remember she died."

"I'm both the sad person and the person wanting to comfort the sad person. And then I feel sad for that person who has so much compassion because she's clearly been through the same thing, too. And the cycle keeps repeating."

Though "Writers & Lovers" features some odd punctuation, it does not take away from some very moving scenes and vignettes. The book feels perhaps too neatly tied up at the end, but an argument could be made that it is earned.

Despite the ease with which King puts us in Casey's shoes and takes us through her struggles in an effortlessly casual way, the book is capable of inspiring rogue waves of emotion. Anyone who has ever lost someone suddenly will see themselves in this staggering, soulful novel, this breezy, immersive read that you don't quite want to end.

"There's a particular feeling in your body when something goes right after a long time of things going wrong. It feels warm and sweet and loose ... For a moment all my bees have turned to honey."