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2020 Book List

For 2020, I made a new years resolution to read 52 books by the end of the year.... which is one of the first new years resolutions I’ve actually kept!! Here are some of my favorites, and my thoughts about everything I read.

As a note: I know audiobooks // ebooks aren’t everyone’s thing, but I read most of these through the Brooklyn Public Library using Libby, and through HOOPLA, the LAPL app. HOOPLA has a ton of stuff, and all you need is to write down an LA address to get a virtual library card. (And just saying, they don’t do anything to confirm that’s your actual address...)

MY LIST with favorites bolded (in the order I read them)

The first bad man, Miranda July

Can’t we talk about something more pleasant, roz chast

Killing and Dying, Adrian Tomine

The Idiot, Elif Batuman

Bad Friends, Ancco

Fully coherent plan: for a better society, David Shrigley

Through a Life, Tom Haugomat

A Body Worth Defending, Ed Cohen

The Hospital Suite, John Porcellini

Excuse Me, Liana Finck

Ongoingness, Sarah Manguso

The Romance of Tristan, Beroul

Two Kinds of Decay, Sarah Manguso

Unfinished Business, Vivian Gornick

300 Arguments, Sarah Manguso

No one belongs here more than you, Miranda July

Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison

Women, Chloe Caldwell

Romance or the End, Elaine Kahn

How to Murder Your Life, Cat Marnell

Rubyfruit Jungle, Rita Mae Brown

A Body Undone, Christina Crosby

Delta of Venus, Anaïs Nin

Sick, Porochista Khakpour

Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson

Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson

Norma Jean Baker of Troy, Anne Carson

Hunger, Roxanne Gay

Grief Sequence, Prageeta Sharma

The Undying, Anne Boyer

Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag

Gut Feminism, Elizabeth A. Wilson

Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski

Practicalities, Marguerite Duras

The Soft Life, Bridgette Talone

Look at Me, Anita Brookner

The Cancer Diaries, Audre Lorde

Zami, Audre Lorde

Fearing the Black Body, Sabrina Strings

Unbearable lightness, Portia di Rossi

The Art of Cruelty, Maggie Nelson

The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides

The Red Parts, Maggie Nelson

Jazz, Toni Morrison

The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides

Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem

Pain Studies, Lisa Olstein

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula k. Le Guin

Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay

Coeur de Leon, Ariana Reines

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong

TOP 10 Books (in no order)

The Cancer Diaries, Audre Lorde

Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson

Unfinished Business, Vivian Gornick

The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides

Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson

Zami, Audre Lorde

Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay

Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski

Coeur de Lion, Ariana Reines

Favorite queer books

Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

Rubyfruit Jungle, Rita Mae Brown

The Cancer Diaries, Audre Lorde

Zami, Audre Lorde

Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong

Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay

Favorite books about illness

Sick, Porochista Khakpour

A Body Undone, Christina Crosby

The Cancer Diaries, Audre Lorde

The Undying, Anne Boyer

Gut Feminism, Elizabeth A. Wilson

Pain Studies, Lisa Olstein

Two Kinds of Decay, Sarah Manguso

Favorite graphic novels

Through a Life, Tom Haugomat

The Hospital Suite, John Porcellini

Excuse Me, Liana Finck

Can’t we talk about something more pleasant? Roz Chast

Killing and Dying, Adrian Tomin

Favorite nonfiction

Fearing the Black Body, Sabrina Strings

Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison

The Art of Cruelty, Maggie Nelson

Gut-Feminism, Elizabeth A. Wilson

Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski

A Body Worth Defending, Ed Cohen

AND..... if you’re interested in seeing my thoughts on each book.....

A Complete List of Every Book I Read in 2020 and My Thoughts (listed in the order read)

The first bad man, Miranda July

This book is absolutely wild, and I greatly enjoyed it – I don’t think it’s everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re looking for something very funny, surreal and visceral, I’d recommend. I described it to my friend as like if my psyche wrote a book, or like a very true dream. I enjoyed her collection of short stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, more - but they’re both excellent.

Killing and Dying, Adrian Tomine

This was the first graphic novel I read this year. Zadie Smith said about this book, “Adrian Tomine has more ideas in twenty panels than novelists have in a lifetime,” so I was very intrigued. It reminds me a lot of Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina which is one of my favorite (if not my favorite) graphic novels. I love the book’s minimalist style, and bits of it felt like getting punched emotionally – so I’d recommend if you’re looking for that!

Can’t we talk about something more pleasant? Roz Chast

Roz Chast’s memoir about her parent’s final years is incredibly funny and beautifully done. I think New York Jews will especially enjoy – but I’d recommend to anyone!

The Idiot, Elif Batuman

For whatever reason, this book really grated on my nerves and I was not a fan. Batuman writes about a freshman at Harvard studying linguistics and writing emails to this man I wanted to punch. A lot of people love this book, so I definitely wouldn’t say not to read it – perhaps it just triggered too much of my anxiety from freshman year of college to be pleasurable. I find it similar to Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot, but I liked The Marriage Plot significantly more.

Bad Friends, Ancco

Content warning for abuse/violence – this graphic novel is really dark, and the violence is quite graphic. But overall, I thought it was beautifully done – and I really love the author’s drawing style.

Fully coherent plan: for a better society, David Shrigley

I love David Shrigley – this book is really silly, and I honestly just picked it up from the library because the outside looks fun. It’s a quick read mostly made up of minimalist drawings – so if you want something not-too-serious that will make you laugh, I’d recommend.

Through a life, Tom Haugomat

I also grabbed this from the library because it looked pretty (oops). I absolutely love this illustrator (he’s worth following on Insta even if you don’t read this book). It’s a series of illustrations of a boy that wants to be an astronaut, and it’s one of the most astoundingly beautiful things I’ve read this year. There are no words, and I nearly cried at the end.

A Body Worth Defending, Ed Cohen

This book discusses the history/construction of autoimmunity, and how the idea of a body “attacking itself” is inherently biopolitical. As someone with an autoimmune disorder, I found this book fascinating, but it’s also really dense so I’d just recommend if you have a particular interest in autoimmunity.

The Hospital Suite, John Porcellini

Done by the author of King Cat, this graphic novel follows the protagonist through a series of different severe medical problems. I thought it was really well done and would recommend if you’re interested in art about chronic illness.

Excuse Me, Liana Finck

I’m obsessed with everything Liana Finck does – if you don’t follow her on Instagram you should! – and this book was no exception. It’s very funny and poignant – if you like her cartoons, you’d definitely enjoy!

Ongoingness, Sarah Manguso

My friend recommended this to me a few years ago, and I recently reread. Sarah Manguso writes about her lifelong pursuit of keeping a hyper-meticulous diary, which fascinated me as someone who used to do this, too. It’s a very quick read and made me think more deeply about the desire to constantly record ones’ life as a protection against passing time.

The Romance of Tristan, Beroul

This book is wild – I read it for a class. It’s a medieval book that doesn’t really make sense and I do not think you should read it unless you are also taking a class on Medieval Drugs.

Two Kinds of Decay, Sarah Manguso

Here, Manguso writes about her autoimmune blood disorder, and her suicidal depression, relating the experience of her first flare when she was in college. Big content warning for graphic depictions of hospitals/illness/needles etc., as well as depression. I found it interesting, but I cannot overstate how graphic and upsetting this book is.

Unfinished Business, Vivian Gornick

Absolutely one of the best books I read this year. I saw Vivian Gornick talk at Pomona and was floored. Here, Gornick writes about being a chronic-re reader, and discusses some of her favorite books and how her relationship changed with them throughout time. I found myself underlining everything, her prose is just so wonderful. I think everyone should read this.

300 Arguments, Sarah Manguso

I like Sarah Manguso, so I ordered this. It’s a set of interconnected aphorisms like “Bad art is from no one to no one.” Manguso is clearly brilliant and this book is very well written – it’s just a bit too minimalist for me. I would definitely recommend Ongoingness if you want to read something by her.

No one belongs here more than you, Miranda July

I am obsessed with this short story collection. Again, don’t think Miranda July is everyone’s cup of tea, but the stories were so viscerally weird in a way that really resonated with me.

Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison

I’ve listened to Christy Harrison’s podcast Food Psych for a while now, so was very excited when her book came out. The book focuses on (in Harrison’s words) “Reclaim[ing] your time, money, health, and happiness from our toxic diet culture.” As someone in ED recovery, this book/Harrison’s work in general have changed my life (which I do not say lightly!) – anyone who struggles with body image/their relationship with food should absolutely read this.

Women, Chloe Caldwell

I read this because a girl on Tinder told me too (lol) – it’s about a woman’s sexual awakening and relationship with this woman, Finn, who reminds me of a lot of hot women I follow on Tik Tok that wear suits and look mean. It takes a minute to get into. I overall enjoyed it, and was touched by the book at the end, but found a lot of the prose to be pretty clunky. So, would I recommend – I don’t know, maybe?

Romance or the End, Elaine Kahn

My friend recommended this book of poetry to me. Elaine Kahn is so talented and writes so beautifully – another book where I found myself underlining everything. Would definitely recommend!

How to Murder Your Life, Cat Marnell

Cat Marnell’s memoir recounts her struggles with bulimia and addiction while working as a beauty editor. I found it enthralling and hard to put down. I recommended it to a friend who had to put it down because it was too stressful. I think it’s a great book, but not for everyone.

Rubyfruit Jungle, Rita Mae Brown

If the meaning of the title intrigues you, I would definitely recommend. This coming-of-age story follows Brown’s childhood, and relationships with women. I thought I liked Women by Chloe Caldwell until I read this book. Very gay, very good!!!! I could not put it down!

A Body Undone, Christina Crosby

In this memoir, Crosby writes about queerness/disability through the lens of her experience after a bicycle accident that left her paralyzed. If you want something gay with lots of theory, this book is for you! Fun fact: Crosby is the friend Nelson writes about in The Argonauts. As a heads up, though, the descriptions of pain can be pretty graphic/triggering.

Delta of Venus, Anaïs Nin

I wanted to read something by Anaïs Nin and this is absolutely NOT what I should have read. Nin wrote this erotica for a man who didn’t like romance and wanted her to skip to the sex – the foreword is basically her ranting about the man who commissioned her to write this work. There’s a lot of (unsurprisingly) incest, as well as depictions of rape/assault. I do not recommend.

Sick, Porochista Khakpour

Sick is a memoir about Khakpour’s experience living with lyme disease, and her struggle to attain a diagnosis and proper treatment. I didn’t know anything about lyme, so found this book very enlightening. I’d add it to your list if you’re interested in memoirs of chronic illness.

Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson

I read this book because a character in the L Word talked about it (oops….). But wow, this is truly one of the best things I’ve ever read (thanks Marina!). Even Carson’s prose is breathtakingly poetic – she stitches together Sappho’s writing, Greek myths & critical theory so seamlessly. I felt like a different person when I finished.

Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson

I absolutely loved this book. Autobiography of Red is a love story between two men based on a Greek myth. It feels surprisingly epic, despite being a pretty short read. It feels a bit like the long-form-poem version of Song of Achilles. (If you read this book and enjoyed it, absolutely read Song of Achilles).

Norma Jean Baker of Troy, Anne Carson

I love Anne Carson, but I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the others. Maybe it’s because it’s a performance piece and I read it rather than watching it be performed, or maybe I just didn’t get it.

Hunger, Roxanne Gay

In this memoir, Roxanne Gay writes about her rape (so content warning for that, as there are very graphic descriptions), and her relationship with her body. This is one of the most brutally honest books I’ve encountered about food, body image and eating disorders – Gay does not sanitize her self-blame and self-hatred – and it’s an important counternarrative to how fatness is commonly represented in the media. I would not recommend it if you’re in the depths of an ED or early on in ED recovery because it’s pretty triggering. I think it’s an important read, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable just telling anyone to read it off the bat.

Grief Sequence, Prageeta Sharma

Prageeta Sharma is a Pomona professor who is wonderful, so I was very excited to read her book. Grief Sequence is an evocative, moving, and incredibly powerful story of Sharma losing her husband to cancer. It made me even more excited to work with her, and I would definitely recommend especially if you go to the 5cs!

The Undying, Anne Boyer

I’m not sure exactly what to call The Undying – maybe memoir, maybe autofiction? But Boyer combines narrative about her own experience with breast cancer with cultural criticism, drawing on both her experience as a poet and an essayist. This book was definitely one of my favorite works about illness I’ve read this year.

Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag

I found this book interesting, but not my favorite of what I’ve read about chronic illness. Sontag writes about how tuberculosis and cancer take on particular cultural symbolism – did you know that tuberculosis was associated with sexual desirability? I did not! Perhaps the piece wasn’t as interesting to me because people don’t tend to get tuberculosis anymore. If you’re particularly interested in TB/cancer, or if you’re writing your thesis about chronic illness I would read, but otherwise, not sure I I’d recommend.

Gut Feminism, Elizabeth A. Wilson

This book discusses depression through the lens of the gut, arguing for feminists to incorporate biological data into their analysis. It’s pretty dense, so I’d only recommend if depression, anti-depressants, and the politics of the gut are particularly interesting to you. But as someone interested in those things, great read!

Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski

Here, Nagoski discusses female sexuality and arousal in a way that made me realize I actually knew nothing about how female arousal works. For example, did you know wetness ≠ arousal? I didn’t! This book truly revolutionized how I think about sex/sexuality. The only caveat is that the book does center on the experiences of cis women (which the author does admit in a disclaimer at the beginning), so I hope that there are future works that touch on the same ideas in more inclusive ways.

Practicalities, Marguerite Duras

I really like Marguerite Duras – The Lover is one of my favorite books – but this book didn’t really do it for me. Duras is brilliant, but parts of it felt a bit mundane/dated. A lot of people love this book, though, so I feel like it’s just me!

The Soft Life, Bridgette Talone

I made a goal for myself to read more poetry this year, since I usually read mostly prose. This is an example of the kind of poetry I struggle reading – l am less drawn to poetry that completely strays away from narrative – and this book was a bit too abstract for me. There’s beautiful imagery, it just felt like it went over my head. But it was recommended by a friend whose taste I greatly respect, so maybe it’s for you and just no for me!

Look at Me, Anita Brookner

This book took me a while to finish. Look at Me follows a librarian and aspiring novelist in her friendship with a glamorous couple. It’s very dry, witty, observant, and brilliantly satirical. I’m very glad I finished it, but it took a while to get pulled in.

The Cancer Diaries, Audre Lorde

Lorde writes about loving women, and her experience with breast cancer. It’s a collection of entries from her journal, combined with meditations on these entries. So, so very beautiful! Also very heartbreaking. This might be my favorite book I’ve read about illness.

Zami, Audre Lorde

Lorde’s wonderful coming-of-age novel covers her life growing up in New York, and her relationships with different women. It took me a bit to get into it, but once I did it was addictive to read. Certain scenes are just so breathtakingly vivid, and I don’t think I’ve read anyone who writes as well as Lorde about loving women. Also, she went to my high school, so that part was very wild to read – definitely recommend in particular to fellow Hunterites!

Fearing the Black Body, Sabrina Strings

I’ve wanted to read this book ever since listening to Strings on one of my favorite podcasts (FoodPsych). This book discusses the historical construction of thinness as an ideal tied to whiteness – it’s very well written and illuminating. I feel like the idealization of thinness is something that is often really tolerated and encouraged in liberal spaces (*cough* Claremont colleges *cough*), so definitely recommend. If you don’t have time for the book, I’d definitely suggest checking out the podcast episode!

Unbearable Lightness, Portia di Rossi

This memoir discusses di Rossi’s experience with anorexia/bulimia, and her relationship with her queerness. I read it in a day, I was so engrossed. However, I wouldn’t recommend to anyone in early stages of ED recovery, or in the thrust of an eating disorder.

The Art of Cruelty, Maggie Nelson

If you have read other works by Maggie Nelson and enjoyed them, and are interested in literature about cruelty, I’d recommend! It’s more theoretical than her other works and it’s pretty dense – I’ll definitely have to read it again to fully ‘get’ it. But Nelson is such a brilliant cultural critic that it’s a pleasure to read anything she writes. Like “truth in art is but a feeling”?? Yes!! Go off!!

The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides

This is definitely top five of the books I’ve read this year. I was floored when I was finished. It’s set at Brown, but so many of the descriptions of campus life really resonated and amused me. The end was heart-wrenching. The prose is so evocative. I loved it.

The Red Parts, Maggie Nelson

This book focuses on the trial for the brutal murder of Nelson’s aunt by a stranger – it’s very gruesome but enthralling. I couldn’t put it down.

Jazz, Toni Morrison

I listened to the audiobook which Toni Morrison reads, which is great. Jazz is set in Harlem in the 1920s, and though it’s pretty short, it’s incredibly vivid and haunting. It’s one of the most original and intriguing narratives I’ve encountered (not even including the beauty of the prose), and unlike anything else I’ve read.

The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides

I read this because I loved The Marriage Plot so much. I didn’t like this as much as I liked The Marriage Plot or Middlesex. After I finished, I thought I didn’t like it, and then I listened to this podcast called Sentimental Garbage and decided I did like it after all. I was frustrated throughout the book at how obtuse the women are, but after getting over my sadness that we never figured out why the girls killed themselves, I have more appreciation for Eugenides’ vision.

Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem

Motherless Brooklyn is different from what I usually read – it’s the only detective novel on this list – but I loved it. It’s set in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, which is particularly exciting (and why my Dad is a big Lethem stan). It’s one of the most original books I’ve ever read, and the descriptions are astoundingly innovative and vivid. It’s also really funny! And he’s a Pomona professor! My mom is reading it too for the WNYC book club, which I believe you can still join if you want.

Pain Studies, Lisa Olstein

Another illness book! Olstein writes about her experience with migraines, and also theorizes about pain. I haven’t read any book exclusively focused on pain, so this was cool! It didn’t resonate with me as much as other stuff I’ve read, but still very good.

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula k. Le Guin

I was very excited for this book, which is a work of sci-fi written in 1969 about a world where everyone is gender-fluid and has no sexual prejudice. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had expected to – perhaps because the main drama of the book is finding out whether this world is going to trade with another world, and I am just not very interested in trade. Sci-fi is also not really a genre I read often, so I wouldn’t do much with the fact that this book didn’t resonate.

Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

I’ve cried maybe six times this year and finishing this book was one of them. It’s gay. It’s Greek. It’s epic. If you liked Percy Jackson and now, you’re part of the LGBTQ community you have to read it. This is the kind of book that made me worried it had ruined all other books. I think this is a perfect book, or at least the closest I can imagine.

Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay

This book is astoundingly beautiful. A friend recommended it and said it made his writing a lot happier - which was exactly what I needed! – and this description rings true. I definitely have more trouble reading poetry than prose but found this book very powerful and engaging. I read it in one sitting.

Coeur de Leon, Ariana Reines

Absolutely one of my favorite books of poetry! Coeur de Leon embodies the exact kind of poetry I really like – the language is accessible, it’s visceral, it has a narrative – and also made me feel seen. I feel like it’s also one of those books made for people that like to write, especially about love. Very much recommend.

On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong

It took me a while to get into this one, and I felt for a while that everything was too depressing to enjoy it. While I do definitely want to revisit in post-pandemic times, I still was deeply moved. Big content warning though for drug abuse, death, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting.

Lavender and Boy: a novel

For my RAISE project, I worked on writing a coming-of-age novel set in high school debate. Over the summer, I continued my work from an Independent Study with Professor Lethem to write a number of chapters of the book, and make substantial revisions, producing three drafts over the course of the summer. I anticipate sending the book out to publishers in the next few months.

My novel, Lavender and Boy, is told through the perspective of Charlie Shapiro, a viciously competitive 14-year-old primarily interested in winning competitions and creating absurdist cartoons. At debate camp, Charlie meets Peter, a brilliant, aloof, and wildly successful debater who lives 3,000 miles away. Amongst the turbulence of first love, college-applications and national debate championships, Charlie struggles to distinguish her own desires from others’ expectations, and ultimately finds herself.

I have included excerpts from some of my favorite parts of the book below. I hope that you enjoy!

You can also watch me reading the first chapter below!

Opening (excerpt)

We meet Charlie, our protagonist, a strong-willed novice debater from New York.

Kelly Jacobson arrived first, with her sweater-set festooned with pink whales, matching silk headband, and a briefcase stuffed with card stock and journal articles she’d probably marked up with a glitter pen. I liked to imagine sometimes that high school debate had a commentator like a real sport, someone who’d say in a plasticky voice: on the right is Kelly Jacobson, America’s sweetheart, the kind of girl that restores collective faith in the youth. Millions of Americans would gather around T.V. 's, eating nachos, inspecting the luminescence of Kelly’s skin on the darkened stage of novice nationals. I want to be like Kelly Jacobson when I grow up, a kid might whisper, and then their mom would agree, because Kelly looked like the kind of girl who had her first kiss at Jewish sleep away camp, that grandmothers could brag about to their friends at Bridge. Kelly Jacobson: the kind of person you’d never compare to a spider or a witch.

And then, as I marched onstage: the hush, clouds descending, lightning. The commentator would say something like: on the affirmative, Charlie Shapiro. Wearing (as always) black. Described by many as, “very mean.” Sometimes: gratuitous. Then the camera would pan over my body, my fishnet tights and my thrifted bomber jacket that had probably once belonged to a member of a motorcycle gang. I’d look straight into the camera, my eyes narrowed like a wrestler, biting hard into my G-2 pen. And hopefully, you’d be afraid.

Danish (excerpt)

Charlie wins novice nationals. She sees Peter for the first time.

It was snowing outside when I left, dad holding my suitcase, the weight now too much to bear on my own. He handed me a cheese Danish from Starbucks, and suggested: “you’ve barely eaten since the tournament began, you probably ought to start now.”

“Right,” I said. “Food.”

I sighed as I took a bite of the Danish, all the bees and adrenaline and fear released into the dirt-stained snow beneath me as I remembered my body. Depleted, fragile: a skeleton no longer inhabited by the ghost who likes to yell. I considered sometimes that speaking was a form of exorcism and wondered often at the end of the tournament what was left. It was strange to be there; to ever be anywhere, to only be in one place at once. Debate gathered around itself, and then you had thirteen minutes to speak, and then it no longer existed anywhere in space. Was all of life just anticipation and retrospection? What did it feel like to live inside something?

“Good god, Charlie,” my dad said.

I looked down and realized the Danish was gone. I had no recollection of eating it: only the brief impression that it tasted like resurrection. I licked a piece of frosting off of my retainer and peered into the night, watching snow collect in glittering mounds on parked cars, a boy across the street with long hair, wrapped up like a mummy. It took me a moment before I realized who it was. Peter Cohen. The Peter Cohen. The one plastered across every online debate website and forum, his name overlaying granular images in which he clutched glittering trophies to his narrow chest. The one who, despite being a freshman, already competed in varsity, was not afraid to take on those with years of experience, to acknowledge how much he had left to learn. Had he really flown all the way from California? Did he notice I was watching? Was he so used to being watched it no longer felt like anything?

He did not look quite real, long golden hair peeking out from beneath his hat, the large puffer jacket, the trophy in his mittened hands. But then a bus rattled across the street, obscuring his body, and he was gone. I stared at the impression of footprints for a moment, wondering if I’d simply imagined him. Perhaps at my peak of sleep-deprivation, stress and over-caffeination, I had conjured a debate god.

“I’m so proud of you,” my dad whispered in the Amtrak back to New York. He gave me the sweater with the fur inside that he’d bought at Target. I thanked him, and let it subsume me. My breath condensed against the window, and I pressed my head against it, the cold on my skin an affirmation that I was really there. I drew stars in the steam left behind by my breath and listened to Lorde’s “Team,” the song I had listened to on repeat for most of the tournament. I hoped to imbue it with the feeling of this moment, like a jar I could reopen when I considered, as I did often, that I might quit. That the suspension of all other aspects of my life for debate might not be worth it.

I fell asleep somewhere in the wilderness of Massachusetts, snow softening the edges of trees, turning the world into a uniform blanket lit from within. And then I was in Penn Station, dad shaking me awake. I looked for my pillow, my duvet comforter with the rose-print, then remembered where I was, and smiled.

Top Sophomore Lab (excerpt)

Charlie and Peter meet for the first time in the top sophomore lab at debate camp.

Peter sat in the corner of the broiling classroom when we all filed in, twirling a pen between his fingers, a heavily worn copy of Nietzsche’s Antichrist on his desk. I tried to avoid staring as I made my way to his corner, vying for the only remaining seat next to a window.

“Hey,” he said, extending a hand as I sat down. “I’m Peter.” I was thankful that he introduced himself. Some people just expected you to know.

“Charlotte,” I said, taking his hand. “But I like Charlie.”

“Nice,” he said. He looked different from how I’d imagined him, with his chocolate-brown shirt featuring a picture of a horse, and the dimples imprinted on his cheeks. I’d expected that someone like Peter would already be fully formed, but he was soft around the edges.

“Thanks,” I nodded. God, what was I thanking him for? But it was too late to add anything else; he took out his computer and began adding paragraphs to a seemingly endless document about democracy promotion. A very pink boy leaned into the space between our desks, introduced himself to Peter as Sam from Scarsdale, and then clarified: no need to introduce yourself, I already know who you are. I could not tell if this comment made Peter uncomfortable or proud, his mouth twisting into a half-smile as he tilted his head to the side. He inspected Sam for a moment, nodded, let out a small laugh, then returned to his computer.

Peter and Charlie’s First Debate (excerpt)

Peter and Charlie debate for the first time at debate camp; he destroys her

“No wonder Charlie’s advocating for a nuclear weapons ban,” Peter began, laughter insurmountable. “Because she’s about to get nuked!”

A horrible joke, but an accurate explanation of the next six minutes. It was an easy speech; a dropped argument was a true argument, and the ground was littered with claims I’d failed to answer. Low probability, high magnitude impacts come first because the end of the world really is the end of the world. “Obviously an asteroid won’t come” was the kind of thing the dinosaurs would say and look where that got them. To prioritize freedom violations, I had to win my theory of personhood. Because if there was no self, there was no freedom.

Cut up the self into thousands of bits, hear answers resound from MRI machines, wills diverging, lines criss crossing. You think that you’re just you, but you contain otherness; you think you understand freedom, but it’s just another one of those things, those empty signifiers; power, humanity. You’re not a novice anymore, Charlie. Because who do you even think that is?

His hand running through his hair as he spoke, his foot tapping against the ground, the way he never, not once, looked over. I could see a triangle of skin right below the edge of his shirt, his underwear peeking out: light blue, sailboats. His skin looked soft. I wondered what it would be like to touch him, if his lips would turn up around the edges, the way he smiled at his jokes. If he’d look me in the eyes, or if they’d close from the intensity.

“Thus, I strongly urge a negative ballot.”

Peter was done. Long exhale. The exorcism of speech; he felt it too. His lips parted for a moment to release a small stream of air and he caught my eye, his flickering in the fading afternoon light. Peter was not lost on himself. He was excellent, and he knew. Because of course; how could something like that escape you?

Rap Battle (excerpt)

Peter wins a rap battle at debate camp.

Peter, victorious. Peter’s hand, running down his neck, pausing at his collarbone. His mouth agape like he’d forgotten something, like he found it funny he was here of all places. We were living in a hyperreality, didn’t I know? And what was better evidence than his victory? It was all a joke, so look at me. Look at me, Peter.

And so, he did. I caught his eye, blood shooting through my body, electric. He smiled, like we understood one another, like he knew I saw his victory differently than everyone else. I know you are watching me, he seemed to say. I am laughing at you watching me. For most of your life, people like me will escape you. Absorb me into your mind, create a miniature version you can carry home into perpetuity, so that when I’m gone you will remember.

Imagine that I love you Charlie Shapiro, because what would that even mean?

Bitch (excerpt)

Charlie loses to Joseph, an aggressive male debater, in her first varsity round.

“Anyone not ready,” I said, pushing my voice past the crack. The tree outside the window was still, the sunlight seemed burnt. You could spend hours banging against the wall of your own limitations, but you would remain alone in your body your whole life. People were only exceptional at the expense of others. My greatest fear after having nothing to say was remaining a perpetual outsider, that the molecular space between people was unreachable, and something within me was unlovable. That everything, everything, everything came down to power.

“Let me read a new definition for death in my final speech,” I said. “His is frankly absurd.”

Because maybe that was why the boys laughed in the group chat, why Joseph pushed against me as I walked through the door. I was not the kind of person to strike fear. I was five feet nine inches of space, of meat, and I could make myself smaller or larger but that would never change what I was worth. Joseph was loved, embraced with open arms. And what was I?

Not special in my accumulation of disdain. Besides being a woman, and that a bitch, and for some period of time, I was good. The ugliness of my own ferocity refracted back towards me, the desire to win at all costs, to define yourself in the ability to make others feel small.

First Kiss (excerpt)

Peter visits family in New York; they go to Veselka and take the train home together.

Peter told me about his favorite book from childhood, When You Reach Me, which describes time like a diamond ring. Everything that’s ever happened is a stone, embedded in metal, existing somewhere in space. And we trudge along like ants in the first dimension because we cannot see outside ourselves, cannot see that somewhere we have already fallen in love, have had children, have died. And so, nothing goes anywhere, really.

Sometimes you can feel a thing before it happens.

The warmth of Peter’s skin up close, how his hand makes small circles along your thigh, and you are nowhere in space, floating along the water, shattering into pinpricks of light. You think things are done, you think things are coming, but everything’s already happened, if that word contains meaning anymore. All art, said Paul Theck, is about the feeling of time. And maybe that was right. Because all art was about surrender.

“You’re really beautiful,” he said.

“I think you’re beautiful too.”

I looked at him for a moment in the nakedness, soaking in the light of the before. How I had watched him rise on the stage, his hands twirling with the spell of language, not looking at anyone in particular: only the beyond. And now he was here, and it was too much. My body transforming into a star, collapsing under its own intensity: that I hadn’t kissed him yet; that I had wasted fifteen years of my life not kissing him. His lips, half open, like a greeting. My hand, propelled by a force beyond me, running through his hair, a thumb tracing the outline of his lips, his breath hot. Eyelashes, long, like a girl’s.

“Can I kiss you?” He said, moving closer to me, his hand on top of mine, making small figure eight with the point of his finger.

“Please do,” I whispered.

And I was no longer a piece of paper, a journal article. Nerves vibrating with the ecstasy of desire, his hand beneath my jacket, pressing into the small of my back. Let the Skype call extend into eternity, replace cool metal with the feeling of flesh, and the convulsion of pleasure as you wait for Peter Cohen to arrive. Life is decidedly not the debate round. And it is not enough to watch him from a distance. Peter Cohen sitting on the Q train, his reflection overlaid against the Brooklyn Bridge, soft lips, wet breath, pressing his nose against Charlie Shapiro’s, eyes still open as he watches her face soften. Peter Cohen’s hands wrapped around the smallness of her back, smelling the perfume she got for her Birthday, a deep hot sweetness and something he will later tell her is distinguishable only as girl.

Harvard (excerpt)

Charlie debates preliminary rounds at the Harvard Invitational, her last tournament of sophomore year.

Debate tournaments are an exercise in suspending time, modulating its intensity. Turn a chair upside-down, put it atop a desk made for elementary schoolers, open your Expando, grin, flashes of light fading behind snow, melting beneath words. This time, Resolved: just governments ought to provide citizens with a living wage. If we implement a living wage, robots are going to take all of our jobs, and artificial intelligence will accelerate to the point that robots take over the world, and we’re all going to die. Death comes first, in death there’s no freedom.

Next off.

Because correlation does not prove causation, the sample size of your study is like twelve, I might as well perform a study of the three of us in rounds. Ha, ha (some laughter). My name is Charlie Shapiro, transnational corporation, machine, and you have no solvency. Martin Luther King cannot save you in the absence of evidence.

Snow collects outside the window; the steam heater purrs in the corner. You build a fortress of Styrofoam puzzles in your mind, circle arguments in red on your flow paper, understand that you do not look over at your opponent in round because they are nothing. Only you, and the outer limits of your mind.

Thus, I strongly urge a negative ballot.

And you are alive.

The palm of his hand, sweating. His whisper, good round, I really do wish you luck. Keep winning. Dark stains beneath his armpits. Fear smell. Sharp smile. Release.

In between rounds, you sit in the dark red room with circular red cushions, a high ceiling, bodies splayed across couches, hum of voices. You don’t know when you last ate, your mouth bitter with the taste of iced coffee and terror. Headphones in, Kanye blasting above the chatter of debaters. 5 feet 9 inches of sheer hate, if you believe in bodies, believe there’s a place where you end. Maybe you are everywhere in space. Like a ghost. Like death.

(Sharp inhale).

When you speak, you can feel time get thinner and flow through you. The elementary school is a stage for your self-actualization, body shaking, hands pressed into a desk that comes up to your mid-thigh. And so, you carve a space in the world, a gem on a diamond ring, a place you can always return. You won’t speak forever, but you want to. And maybe that’s what it means to win. To fall in love.

Charlie Debates Joseph (excerpt)

Charlie debates Joseph, a top male debater, in the bid round. He reads a satire aff.

Everyone was cackling behind me, and I stared at the window, the layer of frost gathering on the glass. The room was getting hot, too hot, my skin crawling. If I was younger, it would have been easy to dismiss Joseph, say, you are wrong, your position is a joke, these are terrible arguments. You are the Hershey-kiss shaped physical embodiment of a terrible argument, and I hate you too and I want you to die. But I knew it was a trick. He was performing the age-old cop out of philosophers, of men. Socrates did it. Derrida did it. And now Joseph. To say: oh, you thought I meant that? You really thought I meant that? Gaslighting in its purest form: the ability to control what is real, what is performance. There was no truth in the world that corresponded to the image in your head, because you could only compare an image to an image, and if a tall boy with tournament wins under his belt says oh, you thought I MEANT that, who was I? Waif-like, swagless. Three cats, absolutely no power.

If I didn’t say yes, and, they would all hate me. The rules of improv, a form of discipline like any other. And what did an argument look like in a battle of rap? How could I read theory if he could just say it was a performance? How could I criticize his performance if I didn’t know if it was a performance? If he could just get up and say that is not irony, that is just who I am, Charlie Shapiro, and it is very mean of you to suggest my identity is a joke. The options splayed out like the rhizome, multiplicitous, bleeding into the fourth dimension. To win was to make the game in your image, and so what was I?

Eternity (excerpt)

Charlie receives her first bid to the Tournament of Champions; Megan loses her bid round. They meet outside together in the snow.

“Fuck,” Megan said. She shook her head a couple of times tears began to drip down her face in a steady stream.

“I’m really sorry it wasn’t you,” I said. “You really deserved it.”

“I’m not….” She said, her voice breaking through tears. “I’m not crying because I lost. I’m crying because I’m so proud of you. My motherfucking novice, Charlie. My motherfucking novice.”

She pulled me into her chest, my cheek wet with the snow that gathered on top of her jacket. Her breath was warm against my cheek, both of our bodies shaking, hands trembling. Most of the world was white now, not like New York. Cambridge was frozen, unmoving, a museum exhibition. Maybe eternity tasted like the snow outside of a debate tournament, waiting for elimination rounds, holding someone tightly in your arms because you are terrified. Because you don’t know if you can let go.

“I love you,” she whispered. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet.”

A funny feeling grew in my chest, a tightness. My cheeks were hot, and it occurred to me that I might cry. I might sit in the snow at a debate tournament, and cry because Megan was a bitch but definitely in the hot way, and I loved her bitterly with my whole heart. You could love people and watch them leave, over and over.

“I’m going to miss you next year,” I whispered.

“I’ll visit. I’ll coach you, if you want. Make you the baddest bitch on the circuit.t”

“I know. It just won’t be the same.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know.

We sat there for a minute, silently, watching the snow. Maybe because we both understood this was it. Our lives would grow, morph, intersect, commingle. There was something about hugging someone in the dark snow of a debate tournament, and we could never return, never in the same way.

Dear Peter (excerpt)

Charlie writes Peter a letter after receiving her first bid to the Tournament of Champions.

I wrote a letter to Peter on the bus ride back. I inspected my reflection in the bus window, then created a loose line drawing of him sitting on the bus next to me that I would fill in later with watercolors. There was something about the possibility that my feelings could be witnessed that made them feel more real, as if they wouldn’t dry up like everything else. He seemed to shatter the feeling that Monday was no different than Wednesday, that moments spent sitting alone in bed were not awfully different from the half-slumber in which I leaned on the subway pole, hoping I would not wake up in Queens.

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” I wrote in pencil, then erased it.

“I miss you,” I wrote instead. “Unbearably. With my whole heart. I have never before been this excited for debate camp.”

I fell asleep on the bus, clutching my trophy to my chest, listening to the hushed voices of my teammates fade into a foreign hum.

I am alive, I considered, as I fell asleep. I am alive, I am alive, I am alive.

The Skype Call

Peter and Charlie Skype.

We lay there for a while in silence, after, leaning on our pillows so that if you ignore peripheral vision, it looks like the other is there. Because the impulse to conversation is silly when there is so much more, when you stand at the brink, soaking in the light of sublimity. His lips, falling open in a way that suggests the taste of his breath. How I could put him wherever I want, always, and ask questions, like life was the debate round, and then like life wasn’t the debate round. Like nothing begins and ends in thirteen minutes

I wrap my purple fluffy blanket around the screen as if I’m keeping him warm. His eyes close as he approaches the boundary of sleep, and I smile, watching the placidity of smooth skin, the rise and fall of his chest. And I consider that you can feel nostalgic for a moment that is ongoing, anticipating its place in memory. Because everything is ongoing, really.

***

I drift off with my hand wrapped around the computer screen, fingers tracing figure eights along the backside, lulled by the knowledge that he is there, albeit distant. A guardian angel.

In the morning, he is still there, his room saturated with night, cheeks glittering beneath the moon and also probably light pollution.

Hi Peter, I say. Good morning.

I carry him with me as I brush my teeth, eat yogurt, feed the cats, pull on layers of sweaters, watching the tranquility of his room, listening to the quiet rhythm of his breath.

Goodbye, Peter, I whisper, before shutting my computer. And then he is gone.

Where I Want to Be

Peter visits Charlie; they say I love you for the first time.

I am soft and it rains, and I smell like the perfume I sprayed on his letters, LCD Soundsystem pulsing in the background. That song – Someone Great – that he told me is really about loss. And I have never heard something so beautiful. When he kisses me, soft, in multicolored lights with fingers on thighs rubbed clean with Trader Joe’s lavender soap and Cerave lotion. And then I turn towards him, head curled into his chest, languid limbs intertwined, in the way that says all the things the words will never say. When my eyes flit open for a moment, his are there, already open, and he smiles. And he looks at me for a moment, in the way that makes me know that he sees me. And so, he transforms me. And I wonder if I love you is a promise. I would spend the rest of my life loving him if I could. If he’d let me.

I love you, I say again. I love you with my goddamn heart.

I fall asleep in his arms. This is where I want to be, I decide. Where I always want to be. In his hands, curling open like a flower.

How as he touches me, I breathe in the world.

I cry at the airport three days later. Standing outside of JFK, watching him pull his green suitcase, his casual slouch, delicate fingers, the tender pink of the sunset. My mom holding my hand, asking if I’ve said I love you yet. If that’s why I’m crying.

And I say yes, maybe. But maybe I’m crying because of how we think we’re awfully strong people. But that’s the one thing we can’t control.

He will leave.

In the end, he will always leave.

Peter and Charlie Debate

Peter and Charlie debate in the bid round of the Yale Invitational. Peter reads arguments about moral skepticism.

My eyes burn as I sit down, scroll through the speech document, all the existentialists and nihilists that Peter loves because he can’t stand the idea of power beyond himself. Peter would not think the cataract was sublime. Peter would not think anything was sublime. Peter would laugh in the face of sublimity.

I stand. The sky is darkening, rain pattering outside the window, a chill spreading through the room.

Your discourse is violent, I say. To express utter ambivalence about whether another debater ought to die. And there is goodness in the world even if you can’t see it. It is try or die for the affirmative. There is no stake to moral skepticism. We should act as if the affirmative is true. We should act as if freedom is good. We should act as if life has some modicum of meaning, because consider the consequence if we do not. Because if there is any chance of feeling life with a capital L, vote affirmative.

Peter and I sit in silence when the round finishes, not looking at each other. The storm is ramping up, thunder cracking above the building, the trees darkened and blowing in tumultuous wind. Peter is curled over his desk, fiddling with a pen, eyes hollow, dark shadows.

Good round, I message him. Sorry if it got a bit intense.

I watch him click on the message, then ignore it. He closes his computer and leaves the room. I sit in silence, watching the thunder. My stomach aches, and I want to follow him, but I don’t. I feel the rumble in my stomach, the emptiness of my body. Desire as lack, as perpetual absence. Eros the bittersweet, says Anne Carson. Because who even desires what is not gone?

Charlie Loses (excerpt)

Charlie is knocked out of the Tournament of Champions. Peter comforts her.

I admired [those debaters] from afar, how they saw debate rounds as wholes, as a microcosm of life itself. That debate, like most things, wasn’t a game, really. The ones with guts. It was one thing to watch someone take a pickaxe to your delicately constructed tower of argumentation. It was another to watch them take a pickaxe to you.

But I didn’t lose to them.

They all lost by octafinals, anyway.

I lost to a rich white boy from a prep school in Massachusetts, who said his rejection of capitalism was going to change the world. A white kid from Blue Mountain who said criticizing the prison industrial complex was co-opted. And God, why was I still here? Children, cosplaying as our future, as the people that are going to change the world.

Gifted and talented. Who the fuck do you think you are?

Four months of preparation sucked into oblivion, sitting on a bench outside, knees pulled into my chest, sobbing. Peter, pushing wet hair out of my face, clutching my hand as it trembles. Anxiety, an attempt to give coherence to loss: what could have been different? Because it doesn’t matter. You’ll never know. You pour your life into something, and you expect to get yourself back, but what if you’re gone? What if you lost something irretrievable in the process?

I love you, he says. I still think you’re brilliant. You have one more year. It is okay. It is just debate. It doesn’t mean anything.

Holding my face in his hands, kissing tear-stained lips, tasting salt. An eyelash, soaked in water, attached to his fingertip. That look in his eyes, like maybe I can break him, too. Like we have gotten too far, and there is no turning back.

Charlie, I think you’re beautiful when you cry, he whispers. I hope that’s not fucked up to say. I wish I could just run away with you. Leave this whole goddamn thing, like Badlands. Take guns, shoot it all up, run away into the wilderness. It’s killing you; don’t you see that? That’s the point of the game, all the money, all the 40-year-olds screaming at kids like the arguments you make decide what kind of person you are. If you win it doesn’t mean you’re any better than anyone else. That’s not how you build a person. I’ll think you’re brilliant, always, forever, no matter what. Okay? This doesn’t change that.

The sun is coming down, casting golden light across our bodies. We lie in the grass, hands clasped together like the world ends at the peripheries of our skin, like we’ve figured it all out.

Kill them all, for me, I plead. Please.

He pulls me into his chest, and I lay there as I cry, breathing him in.

One day, he whispers. We’ll grow old together. We’ll have a dog, some sloppy golden retriever. A kid that stumbles around the house with your eyes, burning red hair. I’ll make you coffee in the morning, avocado toast. We’ll sit, read our books, look out at the world. Maybe we’ll be professors at some big-shot university, or I’ll write about movies, and you’ll be a novelist. We’ll look back at this time of our lives, how we thought, once, that everything was the debate round. Because you can never really see something when you’re inside, you know? We’ll look back, and we’ll laugh. And maybe we’ll be happy. Because maybe we don’t know, yet. What questions we’re supposed to ask.

And he is crying too, our faces pressed together, grass soaking through wrinkled debate clothes. His collared white shirt, nice slacks. I shiver as he lays his blazer over my naked arms. I love you, I whisper. I hate that words get all tired out. I wish I could say it, always, like the first time.

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