A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
“Wow.
I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book. What
an inventive and startling writer…I’m so glad I read this. I really
think this book is remarkable.” —David Sedaris
From "a formidably gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review), a book that asks: Is there life after the internet?
As
this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been
elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the
world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new
language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she
grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is
now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate
change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator
and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper
into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references
accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony,
post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask
themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?"
Suddenly,
two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong,"
and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide
with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a
world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is
goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence
to the contrary.
Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This
is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern
meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice
in American literature.
