It’s possible we are reaching a limit on how much we can hear about the compounded crises of the past year. An ad for sweatshirts that read “Liquor: the glue holding this 2020 shitshow together” showed up in my feed right in sync with the internal fear that the fast approaching 2021 will be more of the same. My former professor’s advice to writers this year was not to feel obligated to write the current moment, a moment that is marked by so much uncertainty. “Instead,” he says, “try to write work that finds the beauty and explores the depth of uncertainty.”
This comfort with contradiction is what makes the book both frustrating and thrilling. There is no drive to tie a neat bow. Like Maggie Nelson and Annie Dillard, Biss is able to hold many different truths at the same time. Hypocrisy is called out not as a “gotcha” but to show that life is complicated. Even Marx educated his daughters in the trappings of aristocracy, she points out. He just wanted them to have a better life.
