5 Comments
Mar 26·edited Mar 26

Nice interview. I'm sympathetic to a lot of what she has to say.

"The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. was published in 2013. In the years after, the world caught on fire."

That's one way to put it. I read that last book when it was new. But looking back now I'd say it was sort of the last moment before blue-tribe culture was poisoned by we all know what (not Trump).

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"And yes, I know many people will point out that the U.S. economy did grow faster in the neoliberal era than it had in the sluggish 1970s."

Any change from an entrenched system will bring results, at least at first.

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Very cool Ross

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Thanks for this. I’ll order Help today. As an admirer of worker oriented writing Ehrenreich!), I’m eager to read it. But Ross already knows my refrain: American writers and readers have replaced internationalism with (American!) diversity. I was impressed with Adele’s use of Tolstoy, but just look at the nationality of the cited contemporary authors, who are all good, but Batuman or Gessen or Shteyngatt are that American specialty: the foreign born who bring their cultural property into the blend of American diversity: I would suggest that we would see our own culture differently if we read more international literature. For example Laila Slimani’s Perfect Nanny is a window both into the world of foreign nannies in France but more specifically into the native French petite bourgeoise, marginalized by the shifting world of precarious household help. We could understand ourselves better by entering the experience of the other, even of a French nanny who murders her charges.

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Great interview!

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