The Week In Recommendations 3.29.23

An underrated Prime original, a cozy cardigan, a chic vase, and the Roy family's triumphant return.

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest podcast was about episodes 1-5 of “Love Is Blind” season 4. Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

We’ve been reading…

I had seen the headline floating around social media for a couple weeks, but I finally got around to actually reading Adrienne Matei’s piece in The Atlantic aptly titled and about why you should “Live Closer to Your Friends.” At the core of this article is an idea that I have considered for decades: the fact that we lose the efficacy and joy of both informal and formal community structures in a society that is obsessed with individualism. Perhaps this is one reason I feel particularly allergic to the idea of moving to the suburbs — in Brooklyn, I have a version of what Matei is describing. I can pop over to a friend’s apartment for dinner and spend time with her 1-year-old, or decide 15 minutes before a barre class to meet another friend for a workout, or pass a rug cleaner back and forth for months. These might seem like small things, but especially as I consider the possibility of a future adulthood that doesn’t include having children, I see the necessity for opening our minds to community structures that center on more than just the nuclear family. Plus, life is more joyful when you hold your friends close. -Emma

Catherine Lacey’s “Biography of X” — which is finally out, wherever books are sold! My multi-week reading journey concluded over the weekend. It’s a fictional biography of a made-up artist and American icon, written by the artist’s bereft wife; it’s an alternative history of the nation, in which the North and South were cleaved into two states (a progressive, socialist-friendly democracy and a punishing theocracy, respectively) for the latter half of the 20th century; it’s a collage of cultural references, with quotes from or about significant artists and writers repurposed as quotes from or about the subject, X. It’s peppered with the names of critics and journalists, to whom fictional articles and essays are attributed.

In short, there’s a lot going on. It’s a sprawling narrative, which attempts to refract the entirety of semi-recent American cultural and political history into an off-kilter, alternate image. As an examination of national politics, it seems a bit thin much of the time. The Northern states are presented as a bit of a leftist’s fairyland; the racial oppression in the South is depicted as a small subsidiary issue to the theocratic totalitarianism of the seceded nation, when surely an honest accounting of America’s intractable sociopolitical divisions would place race and racism at the center. Throughout the portions of the book that venture into the Southern Territory and engage with its history directly, I found this omission distracting, and these glossed-over bits made it seem more fantasy than chilling alternate reality.

As an absorbing journey into the slightly unsteady mind of its narrator, “Biography of X” is masterful. Lacey excels at inhabiting the consciousnesses of characters who are not only unreliable, but unmoored and casting about for purchase. Having given her life over to her charismatic and dominating wife, the narrator is left suddenly widowed and unsure where to find herself other than through voyaging deeper into her late wife’s shadow. The more she researches, hoping to discredit an unauthorized biography by a writer she despises, the more she discredits not only the loathed biography but her own close-held beliefs about her beloved and their relationship — and in her search for the true identity of a woman who strenuously rejected the idea of a single identity, she also comes up against her inability to define her own. -Claire

We’ve been listening to…

The latest episode of “If Books Could Kill” is a deep dive on J.D. Vance’s deeply harmful “Hillbilly Elegy,” a book that took off in popularity after the 2016 presidential election, when a certain subset of liberals decided that what we really needed to do is understand poor white people. This is a takedown I craved and needed, and I just love listening to our former colleague Michael Hobbes and co-host Peter Shamshiri. -Emma

I just finished the marathon “Know Your Enemy” episode on Whittaker Chambers, an ex-Communist conservative intellectual about whom I previously knew nothing. In the process, I learned all about Chambers’ childhood, his ideological journey from left to right, and his long friendship with and public testimony against accused Communist spy Alger Hiss. The Alger Hiss affair was, like Chambers himself, something I only knew about insofar as I’d heard the name, so this episode was a delightful way to rectify that gap. -Claire

We’ve been watching…

“Class Of ‘07,” a Prime original series which follows the former students of an all-girls high school after they are stranded at their old school when an apocalyptic flood occurs during their 10-year reunion. It deals with serious themes — childhood trauma, bullying, sexual abuse, the feeling that your adult life isn’t living up to the promise you once thought you had — but with a delightfully light touch. In shorthand, it’s sort of like if “Yellowjackets” was a 30-minute Aussie comedy. -Emma

“Succession” is back!!! I love this thing with prestige and/or streaming shows where there’s not so much an on- and off-season schedule as long, indefinite blocks of off-time, during which I almost forget the show exists, punctuated by occasional new seasons that completely take over my conscious life for a few weeks. A week ago, I barely remembered “Succession” as a concept; now it owns me. The Roy scions open the final season with a half-baked bid to start their own business, pitching investors on a clearly doomed-from-inception digital outlet called The Hundred — it’s “Substack meets Masterclass meets the Economist meets the New Yorker,” they explain — only to quickly pivot back to directly competing with their patriarch for control over an established media empire. Tom and Shiv are estranged; Cousin Greg is bringing Tinder dates to his great-uncle’s birthday party, while Logan’s actual children don’t bother to show up. The stage is set, and I’m ready for these rich, posturing morons to finally play out the endgame of this battle for all the billions. -Claire

We’ve been buying…

As the seasons change, and it properly becomes spring, I’ve had an itch to fill my home with flowers. Over the years, we’ve amassed a collection of various vases, but very few that I actually like the look of. After seeing this H&M Home ridged glass vase on Instagram a handful of times, I decided to purchase it as well as this taller matching one. I think they both are so chic and look far more expensive than the actual price tag, which always feels like a win. Something that always bothers me about non-textured clear glass vases is the way that the cut stems often detract from the visual effect of the blooms, especially after the flowers have been out for a few days. I feel like these vases will solve that issue for me. -Emma

I have a trusty brown cardigan from Tradlands that has become a year-round staple. It’s chunky-knit cotton, with a pleasing weight, slightly oversized. It walks the line between cozy and cool — always in season. Then I saw an influencer I follow on Instagram (I know) wearing the same cardigan in a dark green that I had suspected, from product photos, was too bright and even leprechaun-esque for my tastes. In fact, it was the perfect mossy shade! Also, it was on sale. And now I have one. -Claire

If you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack!

Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription