Hi, guys. This newsletter comes from Substack now. I decided to switch because I realized that Gmail sometimes shunts messages from Tinyletter into my “Promotions” folder, and I don’t know whether it does that for Substack but it hasn’t in my experience, and I am nothing if not an attention hound, right? I wouldn’t be writing this if I weren’t! Anyway, hello, new third-party system, same terrible Liz.
Once you expose yourself as insecure, it's easy to feel resentment if you're not immediately put back at ease. If there's even a flicker, a tiny recognition of your bad qualities, the resentment kicks in, the deal is broken, and suddenly you're both angry strangers, spending hours alone in a room together and completely unsure of why.
Halle Butler, The New Me
Today I want to talk about a book I read last weekend: Halle Butler’s The New Me. I picked it up after reading Jia Tolentino’s rave in the New Yorker, because I’m a sucker for anything that gets comped to Ottessa Moshfegh and the Amazon preview looked good. I like anything described as a “dark comedy of female rage.” The voice caught me off-guard. All signs pointed to me thoroughly enjoying this book.
Guys, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The New Me follows a short period, a couple months, in the life of Chicago temp worker Millie. She’s a piece of work: lazy, embittered, misanthropic, bad at her dead-end job, generally unfriendly and disinclined to put in effort for just about anything. Her narrative voice is shrewd and calculating, but insufferable in its superiority; she reminds me, oddly enough, of a grown-up version of the protagonists from Booksmart. She’s also, of course, incredibly clinically depressed.
There’s nothing revolutionary about seeing truthful depictions of depression on the page or the screen, but as a depressive, man, I love to see it done right. Millie reminded me uncomfortably of myself even though, realistically, we have very little in common. The circular thought patterns and tendency toward self-delusion to soothe the itch of consumerism - the idea that a new job, a new dress, a new pair of shoes, a new yoga class will turn us into the type of person who has and does and deserves all of those things - rang uncomfortably close to home. The inane conversations you have with “friends” who don’t really like you, who tolerate you because you flatter them, whose inner monologues you know are just as vicious as your own. Loading up an online shopping cart of stuff you can’t afford and “pulling the trigger” after a bottle of wine. The fact that sometimes, being a major depressive doesn’t come off as being depressed; it just makes you unlikable, unsympathetic, off-putting, weird.
Butler’s narration is tremendously mean and aggrieved in the best way. Reading Millie’s inner monologue is like getting a bitchy text from a friend that confirms all your suspicions about someone you both can’t stand. Reading this book feels like a conversation with what the film Frances Ha succinctly described as “a three-hour brunch friend.” Maybe you have similar lots in life, maybe you’re equally shitty in different ways, but as much as you enjoy bonding over your shared enemies - Karen in administration, your shitty mutual acquaintances, capitalism, burnout, ennui - you’re still left with an insufferable sense of superiority at the end. Your lot in life isn’t even that bad. At least your parents pay your rent. Grow up, Millie.
J’accuse, right?
Can’t recommend more.
(I bought the book, I read it, I’m not being paid or noticed for this in any way. Feels like the kind of fine print you have to add here.)