Sheila Heti has written a novel that has an odd relationship with reality, said John Williams in NYTimes.com. How Should a Person Be?, the Toronto writer’s fifth book, was assembled in part from email exchanges and recorded conversations that she had with some well-known friends— including painter Margaux Williamson and writer Misha Glouberman. Often raw in its language and episodic in structure, it’s essentially a portrait of life among a group of self-involved Toronto artists, and it did cause some stress in Heti’s friendships. “We had endless conversations about it,” she says. “That talking was very important. There were some bad reactions, in some moments, but not as many as you might think, and in the end we were all okay.”
Reality television and documentaries helped shape her approach, said Claire Cameron in TheMillions.com. “I was thinking about movies made by Werner Herzog and TV shows like The Hills,” the author says. But she didn’t want the trash drama of TV; she says she tried in earnest to address the question posed by the book’s title. To do so meant facing her doubts about her life and her writing. She showed an early draft of the book to Paris Review editor Lorin Stein, who told her a story about a famous writer who achieved success only after throwing out the first novel he completed. “He said, ‘Maybe this is that book for you,’” says Heti. Crushed, she put it in a drawer before finally committing to revising. “I couldn’t accept that a drawer was the fate of this book.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Today's political cartoons - May 5, 2024Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - annoying noises, gag orders, and more
-
5 highly educational cartoons about student protestsCartoons Artists take on apolitical camping, the National Guard, and more
-
French schools and the scourge of teenage violenceTalking Point Gabriel Attal announces 'bold' intervention to tackle rise in violent incidents
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”