08 Aug / No One Is Talking about This by Patricia Lockwood [in Booklist]
Patricia Lockwood, who shocked and/or delighted with her memoir, Priestdaddy (2017), continues to disquiet with her new sort-of-in-the-end tragic (but uplifting, too) family drama. Kristen Sieh might be her ideal accomplice, as she oh-so-comfortably ciphers zingers and wisecracks most readers probably never expected to hear, like “a Chihuahua perched on a man’s erection” which is likely the mildest in just the first few pages.
There is a story here: a nameless woman (aren’t they all?) who made a viral post – “Can a dog be twins?” – is now an internationally peripatetic expert on “the portal,” something akin to a social media gateway. Her addiction is finally interrupted when she’s called home with news threatening the health of her sister’s pregnancy; the complications her new niece will face transform the extended family – and, of course, their lives online.
With unfaltering confidence (and perhaps an eyebrow quite cocked), Sieh channels Lockwood’s sublime storytelling into an intimate aural escape.
Review: “Media,” Booklist Online, July 30, 2021
Readers: Adult
Published: 2021