The Week In Recommendations 7.12.23
A former SATC writer's children's book, "The Big D," a chilling podcast about women's pain, and chic raffia slides.
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 parenthood and non-parenthood — and we tried our hand at giving advice! Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!
We’ve been reading…
“The Late Americans” by Brandon Taylor, which I finally finished this weekend. This is just another reminder that this book is out and it is excellent! Compared to his debut, “Real Life,” “The Late Americans” is more diffuse; rather than focusing on one protagonist, it interweaves the stories of a loosely linked handful of Iowa City art students and their friends and lovers. As the year goes on, different characters’ perspectives come to the fore and then fade into the background, as the steady hum of their lives goes on: workshops and rehearsals, house parties and bar outings, hookups and breakups. The garlanded narrative culminates in a tense group trip to a lake house in the Adirondacks. It’s a novel about people — their pretensions and cruelties and painful memories and half-understood desires — and the inescapable friction between them. At times I did wish for a bit more time with one character or plot thread, before being pulled a few steps over to another cluster of people. But it’s in this unhurried way that Taylor builds a rich collage of one corner of campus life, with all its minor dramas and private agonies.
On a different note, I’ve also been reading “We Waited for You” by Cindy Chupack, a picture book based on the “Sex and the City” writer and executive producer’s journey to parenthood — she adopted her daughter after years of struggling with infertility, and the book tells the story of how a family is made not in terms of a biological process but in terms of the patience, love, and longing of hopeful parents. My toddler has been asking to read it at bedtime every night, which raises only the problem that I usually end up choking up by the end; it’s a sweet and poignant book that also makes for a great opportunity to talk to Max about how he joined our family, and what it will mean for us all when his baby brother arrives. -Claire
I wrote a piece for MSNBC this week about therapy speak and the way that such language can be weaponized within relationships, tied to the alleged text exchanges between actor Jonah Hill and his ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady. (Brady released two series of exchanges between herself and Hill on her Instagram over the last week.) While I was wrapping my head around what I wanted to say, I read what other more brilliant writers had to say, which is how I found
’s newsletter. Conley’s writing focuses on the intersection of women, home, money, and care labor, and her beautiful essay on “A Certain Kind of Woman” really hit me. It was an immediate subscribe for me. -EmmaWe’ve been watching…
“The Big D,” the dating reality show that, thankfully, was resurrected from TBS’s discard pile by USA so that we could all watch JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers guide a motley crew of young, hot divorcés through the choppy waters of post-split dating. We’ll have more thoughts on this show in an upcoming LTSI bonus episode, but for now I’ll just say it’s fun, messy, and seems to have no idea what it’s trying to do. -Claire
In addition to watching “The Big D” — for research AND pleasure — I dove back into the new season of “Temptation Island,” because their dual marketing campaign did in fact work on me. I remain both fascinated and disturbed by “Temptation Island,” a show that operates as a what NOT to do guide if you want to have a healthy relationship. (Hetero couples head to Hawaii to live in separate villas with a bunch of sexy singles.) I feel the same way about “Temptation Island” as I do about “The Ultimatum.” If you are in a relationship and contemplating going on one of these shows, instead you should simply head right to a breakup. It would be much less traumatic. -Emma
We’ve been listening to…
“Who Shat on the Floor at My Wedding?”, a sort of real-life “American Vandal” in audio form. It’s not often you see a one-season, limited-run podcast go viral over two years after its initial release, but that is what brought “Who Shat” to my attention; suddenly it seemed to be in the ether. I’m not even sure where I first heard about it, but when I saw it surging in the Apple Podcast rankings, I felt sure that I’d already heard whispers about it on the breeze. And after blasting through it, I am here to endorse the viral craze. “Who Shat” follows an amateur detective’s investigation of a poo found on the bathroom floor at her friends’ elegant yacht wedding — an event that apparently did quite literally take place. The investigation is taken both seriously and not at all seriously by detective Lauren Kilby and brides Karen Whitehouse and Helen McLaughlin, and the result is a sort of nonfictional mockumentary presented in a deadpan tone (but liberally punctuated by laughter). As someone who enjoys true crime, but who struggles with guilt over the genre’s problematic implications for victims of crime and those dealing with the criminal justice system, this was a delightfully frivolous spin on it. -Claire
“The Retrievals,” the Serial team’s new podcast, produced in conjunction with the New York Times and hosted by seasoned “This American Life” staffer Susan Burton. The series dives into the stories of women who went to the Yale Fertility Clinic for treatment and ended up in excruciating, life-altering pain during their egg retrievals. They cried out, they alerted clinic staff, they talked to their friends and family about the experience. But it took months for the clinic to discover the truth: a nurse was stealing fentanyl, the pain medication given to patients during egg retrievals, and replacing it with saline. “The Retrievals” doesn’t just tell this harrowing story. It’s really an exploration of women’s pain — the ways it is processed, interpreted, ignored and explained away. I cannot recommend this show more wholeheartedly, even though just two chilling, beautifully-produced episodes have come out. -Emma
We’ve been buying…
A big fluffy rug for our bedroom! This will be our second baby in an apartment, and last time around I don’t think we were fully cognizant of how much noise the lil screamer would make at all hours. (Plus, our old building seemed to have pretty thick walls — we rarely heard the other residents at all.) This time, we wanted to be more prepared to mitigate sound for our downstairs neighbors; two years of wincing at our toddler thundering around on the hardwood floors (and fruitlessly reminding him to use walking feet inside) has made us extremely aware that a baby screaming at all hours will also be… trying. His room is double-rugged, but then we realized that the baby will be sleeping in our room, and we scrambled to order one from Rugs USA that seemed cozy and thick enough to dampen the noise. Plus, of course, we will very politely ask the baby to use his inside screaming voice. -Claire
My dear friend Liv snagged a pair of these raffia slides, and they were so cute that I had to get them too. They really just made me feel like I was ready to jet off on a chic European getaway, even though I’ll be solidly sticking to local travel this summer. I was honestly shocked when I learned they were DSW’s Crown Vintage brand (by Emma Roberts) and at such reasonable price point. (They don’t look cheap!) They feel on trend while still being pretty classic summer slides, and if you buy them during DSW’s sale, which I believe ends today, you can get an extra $15 off. -Emma
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Claire, thank you for the podcast rec - I love and miss American Vandal and this sounds like a mix of that and Normal Gossip.
Loved your MSNBC piece, Emma (& will share the link in my own monthly newsletter!). ❤️ Sending love to you both, & good vibes for the remaining live shows 💕