Hello, creatures! My main newsletter today is a review of a novel which comes with a content warning (and a fierce little defense of putting content warnings on novels). I didn’t do a warning for the review, because I hoped that I could walk readers in slowly enough that they’d know if and when they wanted to tap out. But on reflection, I wish I’d said what the novelist says: “[T]he novel covers racism, antisemitism, transphobia, rape (both in abstract and graphic ways), self-harm and suicide.” And I wish I’d added that, like the novel, the review was going to handle those subjects with a pretty raw mix of analysis and gallows humor, sincerity and self-lacerating camp.
I loved Tell Me I’m Worthless in part because it gave me some insights and vivid images of forms of self-loathing I’ve experienced—and set those images in an arc that moved the characters toward reconciliation and hope. Saying it that way felt, idk, too neat and tidy; I wanted to discuss the book in a way that reflected its own ferocious, fearless, and sometimes self-abasing tone. But I could have set the newsletter up in a way that was more protective for you, my readers. Alison Rumfitt did that for her readers and I’m sorry that I didn’t do it for mine.
I hope that if you are a person who should read the review, you’ll do that, and if you’re a person who should read the novel (which some of you are, you know), you’ll do that too. If you read the review and it was painful for you in an unhelpful way, I am genuinely sorry. You guys should always feel free to let me know what you think of the stuff I’m doing here.