Author: Diane Garrett

You may cringe while reading ‘The Simp.’ That’s how sharp Roshan Sethi’s Hollywood satire is

Books, Words+Pixels, Writing
Cover of The Simp, a Hollywood satire by Roshan Sethi

After a bumpy start, I was able to cringe-enjoy “The Simp,” Roshan Sethi’s ambitious satire about an Indian actor willing to do whatever it takes to gain entrée into Hollywood’s inner sanctum during the industry’s peak DEI years.

Sethi, a doctor who bluffed his way into his own Hollywood career as a Harvard medical student, begins his debut novel with an exhaustively detailed job listing for an executive assistant to an unnamed Hollywood power couple. Inspired by a viral ad — Sethi dedicates “The Simp” to the anonymous family that placed it — the description’s basis in truth may explain why it didn’t grab me as an opener. To this long-time Hollywood observer, the absurdly long list of duties seems depressingly realistic rather than amusingly satirical.

Practiced prevaricator

Luckily, “The Simp” quickly moves into more interesting territory. Raj pursues the executive assistant job so avidly he turns off Ellen, the officious house manager conducting initial interviews for the couple. We soon learn about Raj’s backstory: While attending USC he came out to his wealthy parents in India and quickly learned the downside to telling the truth about himself.

By the time he applies for the assistant job, he has been bouncing around the fringes of the industry for a while: He has had some backers but lost a potential slot in a diversity showcase when he lashed out at the benefactor that took him under her wing after meeting him at a BLM rally.

Raj has issues, in other words, and lies to a remarkable degree. No executive assistant experience? No problem! Raj invents some, along with references he impersonates in unsolicited phone calls to Ellen.

Acting the part

Once he gets the job, he treats it as challenging acting role, sublimating his desires so abjectly the macho director husband bequeaths the titular nickname upon him. Jim’s wife Anna demands precision from Raj but grows increasingly secretive as a writing project occupies her time; their young child just likes the attention Raj gives him.

This arrangement was always going to end badly, and so it does. I will not spoil how it comes undone nor the book’s satisfying denouement.

Sethi invokes William Makepeace Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” throughout the tale, referencing it frequently as Raj’s favorite book. “The Simp” is even subtitled “A Novel Without a Hero” in an homage to the 1848 British classic about conniving Becky Sharp and obedient Amelia Sedley. Such is the novel’s ambition and Sethi’s clarity about his lead character’s flaws.

‘It’s all over Variety!’

Your appetite for “The Simp” may vary depending on your tolerance for humiliating behavior. I had to put it down several times while reading, but never for long: I wanted to see how it played out. “The Simp” is an ambitious debut novel that tackles thorny racial issues bedeviling Hollywood and contemporary society at large.

“Diversity is in now,” an encouraging acting coach advises Raj as the industry, and many outside it, reckoned with George Floyd’s 2020 death. “It’s all over Variety!” As someone who worked for Variety then, I can confirm it was. But indeed, that moment faded amid industry belt tightening leading up to and following brutal labor stoppages in 2023.

“I’m really afraid of the minority-victim story,” the author recently told Vogue. “I think I had an overly extreme reaction to that and wanted Raj to be as complex as possible.”

DEI roller-coaster

The multi-hyphenate, who works nine weeks a year as an oncologist in Boston, began serving as a TV consultant as a medical student, then became a staff writer on “Code Black” before creating “The Resident.” He also found time to move into film writing and directing — “7 Days,” “Call Jane” and “A Nice Indian Boy” are among his credits. Notably, his partner Karan Soni stars in “7 Days” and “A Nice Indian Boy.”

During his decade-plus in Hollywood, Sethi has watched the industry’s changing attitudes toward diversity and inclusion wax and wane.

“I started in the industry in 2015, so I have seen the pendulum swing from really racist to less racist back to somewhat racist, and I think going on that roller-coaster journey made me write the book,” he told Vogue, noting that early in his Hollywood career almost everything he wrote was for white characters.

The diversity years, as he calls the short-lived period, “gave us all a glimpse or a taste of something else before it snapped it away. That process left us all feeling a little bittersweet,” he continues, “but as you know from the book, my feelings about it are complex, because it was never so straightforward.”

“The Simp” by Roshan Sethi, Simon & Schuster, available now

First published on my Lititude substack

Justin Halpern’s debut novel is a real corker of a tale

Books, Words+Pixels, Writing
Get Lost by Justin Halpern book cover on a pale background'
The author of “Sh*t My Dad Says” started “Get Lost” during the 2023 WGA strike.

I’m always on the lookout for novels with Hollywood ties and I recently devoured two. Justin Halpern’s “Get Lost” and Roshan Sethi’s “The Simp” are both comedic fiction debuts from established screenwriters. Otherwise, they vary tremendously in scope and intent; each has much to recommend it.

I’ll start with “Get Lost” because I read it first. Halpern, an executive producer and co-showrunner of “Abbott Elementary,” spins a heartfelt yarn about a bristly baseball scout forced to team up with her deadbeat dad to find her missing mother in California’s Central Valley. Complicating matters: this isn’t the first time Lila’s mom has disappeared, and cops suspect her father Dix, long split from Mattie, killed her.

Halpern, whose name might ring a bell as the author of @ShitMyDadSays Twitter posts way back when, has fun unpacking Lila’s rocky relationship with her fun-loving father, a former baseball player who’s treated like a local hero despite past jail time. Much as she hates to admit it, Lila needs Dix’s charm to open doors as they trace her mom’s recent activities and the origins of a mysterious deposit in her bank account. Their sleuthing leads them into the big bucks world of almond farming in the Central Valley and shady charitable activities by Russian siblings. The reader learns about Mattie’s mental health struggles and affinity for collecting miniature lighthouses; Lila’s experiences in foster care facilities are also woven into the tale.

Inside baseball

“Get Lost” benefits from the author’s intimate familiarity with baseball and appreciation for irrepressible father figures. A college player before an injury crushed his dreams of going pro, Halpern parlayed his early social media success into a 2010 non-fiction book and TV series starring William Shatner. Befitting his professional experience — he has credits on “Harley Quinn” in addition to the Peabody Award-winning “Abbott Elementary” — Halpern knows how to deliver comedic beats and keep the plot moving. “Get Lost” unfolds at a brisk pace.

His description of the Central Valley and the ag business that fuels so many towns there is an added treat for anyone familiar with the region, as I happen to be thanks to in-laws residing there. “Get Lost” starts in Valencia, home to sprawling production studios north of Hollywood proper, but quickly moves north to the land of almond orchards and so many other crops.

Picket line inspiration

Halpern began “Get Lost” while sidelined from screenwriting during the 2023 WGA strike, and recently told Variety’s Mike Schneider he had completed “about a third or maybe even half of it” by the time it ended. Much work on “Abbott Elementary” with fellow showrunners Patrick Schumacker and creator-star Quinta Brunson later, he finished his July 7 book. He and Schumacker are also taking another stab at adapting his 2012 nonfiction book “I Suck at Girls,” this time with Netflix on board.

Halpern’s goal with “Get Lost”: to deliver laugh-out-loud moments and more emotion than you might expect from a thriller beach read. “It’s really a character piece,” he told Schneider, “about a father daughter relationship and how can you move past a parent who has let you down at every step of the way.”

Lest you’re wondering, Halpern heaps praise on his mother before thanking his dad, wife and well-known Hollywood scribes in the book’s acknowledgements. Note to self: it really has been that long since I covered digital media and Twitter began turning aspiring writers into professional ones.

“Get Lost” by Justin Halpern, Cardinal, available now. More on “The Simp” here.

This post was originally published on my Lititude substack.

Pity poor socialites whose lives turn upside down. Or don’t

Books, Words+Pixels
"Strangers" and "Someone Else's Husband" both revolve around socialite wives
“Strangers” and “Someone Else’s Husband” revolve around socialite wives — one fiction and one very human.

Gretchen Falk is privileged and doesn’t care who knows it. The socialite protagonist of “Someone Else’s Husband” lies to police about her husband’s need for medication and literally stamps her feet when she can’t take him home from the New York City precinct where he is being questioned as a potential murder suspect.

By this point, she has already called her Park Avenue life with Richard “as close to perfect as one could reasonably get.” Except, of course, it never really was. As Kimberly McCreight’s twisty murder mystery unfolds we learn more about Gretchen’s snooty upbringing, Richard’s rough childhood and her willful ignorance about her children’s problems. Frankie, a vibrant artist that Richard befriended on a Mt. Kilimanjaro hike with his Dartmouth buddies, serves as secondary narrator, and is dealing with her own past sexual trauma; various friends and family fill out the tale.

The story’s basic contours may seem familiar to viewers of prestige TV adaptations of books such as “Big Little Lies” and “The Perfect Couple.” “Someone Else’s Husband” also made me think of another literary socialite: Belle Burden. I had been avoiding her bestselling memoir about the sudden rupture of her outwardly perfect marriage but decided to read “Strangers” to compare the stories Gretchen and Burden told themselves about their marriages — one fictional and one very human.

‘Strangers’ dangers

Where fictional Gretchen is imperious, real Burden is timid and careful about appearances, compliant by nature. I found some of her behavior exasperating, but the book has clearly struck a chord with many women; a recent New Yorker story about apparent financial omissions in “Strangers” prompted a heated backlash from her supporters.

Her husband’s behavior was deplorable, no question about it: The day after his affair with another woman was exposed early in COVID lockdown, he walked away from their 20-year union and day-to-day parenting of their three children. Most galling to Burden: No matter how much she presses him about his decision to leave, he can’t or won’t give her a satisfactory explanation.

Financial ignorance is not bliss

So she replays their courtship and marriage for clues to its eventual demise she might have missed. One thing she didn’t do: protect herself financially. We learn that the Harvard grad with a NYU law degree, descended from the wealthy Vanderbilt family and famed socialite Babe Paley, didn’t read the joint tax returns she signed, so had no idea how much money her husband (called James in the book) was earning as a hedge fund executive. Earlier in their marriage, she financed two residences with her own trust funds and added him to the title, thereby entitling him to half of them under the terms of the prenup her family attorney advised her not to sign. Under it, Burden was not legally entitled to any monies her spouse earned while she was taking care of their children.

Surprising no one who has ever been involved in a messy estate battle, her husband’s attorney does make a play for his share of both properties during divorce proceedings. The very prospect of it sends Burden into an emotional tailspin. “I could not afford to buy James out of either home,” she flatly writes. “I would have to sell both.”

Here, we’ll have to take her word for it. As the New Yorker’s reporting indicates, Burden has a sizable inheritance, though she won’t have access to some of it until her stepmother dies. Her rep told the publication keeping either the New York City apartment or Martha’s Vineyard home would have been “neither feasible nor financially responsible.”

No emotion spared

Ultimately, the attorney drops the claim. But we don’t get to that revelation until Burden has spent page after page outlining her distress at the prospect of losing her homes; she describes her attempts to lobby his male friends to intercede on her behalf and outrage when mutual friends socialize with him while their homes hang in the balance. “Strangers” began as a Modern Love column for the New York Times that Burden expanded to a full-length book. Where the original essay was necessarily compact, “Strangers” plumbs the author’s fragile emotions in exhaustive detail.

You can be sympathetic to Burden’s plight while also wondering whether you’re getting the full picture about what was really going on at various moments. In “Someone Else’s Husband,” the reader learns that Gretchen isn’t the most reliable narrator, and it seems at times like the same might be said of Burden. Or maybe she just has tunnel vision about a very fraught period in her life.

It’s a process

Whatever the case, I bristled at the way she portrayed her editor’s very reasonable disclosure that the New York Times would give her ex a chance to respond to her Modern Love essay before publication.

“When the editor first contacted me, he told me that James would receive a fact-check call. I hadn’t understood that he would need to approve the piece as a whole, or I had missed it, this critical step in the process,” she writes.

Except getting his reaction is not the same thing as seeking his approval — a distinction it might seem a trained lawyer could appreciate.

“Showing him the essay and considering his response would be the beginning of the process, not the end,” the editor tells Burden after she suggests the paper’s protocol would silence many women.

Again, that’s a reasonable response from a journalist point of view. But Burden felt doubted and proceeds to theorize that her ex would object to being written about and the Times would drop the piece. “They would not risk a lawsuit, especially when the subject was a wealthy man, a former lawyer,” she writes. So she sat on it for a spell.

In the end, she sent it to her ex. His anti-climactic response: “Your article is good, sad, hard to read, I’m supportive.”

No pity, please

Fictional Gretchen isn’t nearly as deferential to men or women; she doesn’t worry about seeming sweet and feminine — or likeable. And she flat out rejects the notion she should be pitied when cops come knocking on their door, search warrant in hand. “I can take care of myself!” she silently rages early on. “You have no idea what I’m capable of!”

By the end of “Someone Else’s Husband,” we have a clearer picture of what that might be. Gretchen is snobby, and her behavior can be maddening, but she’s far more interesting a narrator to me. It helps that we don’t have to solely rely on her interpretation of events; Gretchen’s family and friends challenge her views, while Frankie has her own perspective on events. In “Strangers,” we just have Burden’s take.

Fans of either book can look forward to a potential Hollywood adaptation. McCreight is co-writing an adaptation of “Someone Else’s Husband” for Lionsgate TV and 3Arts, while Netflix has optioned a film adaptation of “Strangers” with Gwyneth Paltrow set to star and executive produce; Heidi Schreck, the playwright who wrote the Tony Award-nominated play “What the Constitution Means to Me,” has inked a deal to pen the script.

Given the healthy appetite for stories about rich women whose supposedly perfect marriages are unexpectedly turned upside down overnight, we can surely expect more book to screen adaptations to follow.

“Someone Else’s Husband” by Kimberly McCreight, Knopf, available now

“Strangers” by Belle Burden, Dial Press, available now

Originally published on my Lititude substack

‘Alan Opts Out’ delivers, plus a look at Ellroy’s latest

Books, Words+Pixels

Just say no, Nancy Reagan urged us in the 1980s. But what if we apply her drug advice to status-chasing consumerism and always-on work connectivity?

In “Alan Opts Out,” a consummate adman begins to question his priorities after a pitch for a milk campaign goes horribly awry. He slowly withdraws from the agency he co-founded and attempts to curb his family’s extravagant spending habits. Predictably, those around Alan are perplexed. “You still have a job, don’t you?” take-charge wife Vivian queries after she finds him home on a weekday, while neighbors raise their eyebrows at his offbeat behavior, which includes washing his hair in a bird feeder and camping out in the family playhouse.

Alan lives with his family in Greenwich, Conn., a wealthy town famous for its New York City adjacent strivers, but he could just as easily reside in Brentwood or other moneyed enclaves around the country. And that is part of the appeal of Courtney Maum’s latest novel. Many a resident in these enclaves, I venture to guess, has at one time fantasized about opting out of the rat race like Alan does.

Why I liked it

The author satirizes consumerism and the suburbs in a gentle, yet affectionate way. We learn that Alan became fascinated with marketing campaigns at an early age in Michigan and why fellow Midwesterner Vivian is so frantic about gaining acceptance from their community’s popular crowd, no matter how mean girl their behavior can be. Vivian and Alan’s daughters have their own quirks, though their mother clearly wishes they didn’t for conformity’s sake.

As the novel unfolds, we also learn more about their neighbors, good and bad, while Alan begins to reckon with the discomforts that go hand in hand with living a simpler life. The narrative culminates in an elaborate party with a surprise ending that I will not spoil here. Throughout the novel, Maum weaves in neighbor exchanges on social media as amusing meta commentary on community activities.

Modern-day Bartleby

The story took a while to get going for my taste, and I briefly considered ditching the book, but am glad I did not: Once Alan begins to opt out the narrative comes alive. The modern-day Bartleby the scrivener would simply prefer not to engage in work and society conventions he no longer finds meaningful, but he’s never mean or pedantic about it. Even his exasperated wife can’t help but admire the way he sticks to his guns. Maum previously worked in advertising, and it shows in her depiction of Alan’s work and the stress involved his creative enterprises. Do yourself a favor and say yes to “Alan Opts Out.”

‘Red Sheet’ by James Ellroy

It’s been so long since I read an Ellroy novel that I forgot that I prefer my hard-boiled fiction on the minimalist rather than the maximalist side. And he’s a maximalist, albeit one with comic flair. There is much to enjoy in “Red Sheet” for fans of old L.A. and JFK era crime busting in the City of Angels: The action picks up just after the conclusion of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: Fred Otash is running an anti-red probe at Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s behest, keeping future police chief Daryl Gates apprised of his rule-skirting activities along the way. Gubernatorial candidate Dick Nixon, Playboy czar Hugh Hefner and future mayor Tom Bradley also figure prominently in this historical yarn replete with seedy businessmen attempting to cater to the so-called integration generation.

People are killed in lurid ways, pills are popped and much heroin is ingested. For me, the book is best read in small doses, but as always, your mileage may vary.

“Alan Opts Out” by Courtney Maum, Little, Brown, available now

“Red Sheet” by James Ellroy, Knopf, available now

Originally published on my Lititude substack

On binge watching and disappointing lit adaptations

Books, Words+Pixels

Taggie and Rupert gets close in Season 2 of Rivals
Taggie and Rupert gets close in Season 2 of Hulu’s bonkbuster “Rivals” adaptation.

Whenever possible, I watch TV shows the way I prefer to read books: All at once. Others may complain that binge watching is ruining the television business, but not me. Once I’m hooked on a narrative, I tend to devour one episode after another until I’ve exhausted all available options, just as I keep reading page turners regardless of the late hour or other pressing concerns. Even when I know the end is coming, I frequently feel bereft when it arrives.

Such was the case when I first stumbled across “Rivals” on Hulu. I wasn’t familiar with Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster 1988 book or the Rutshire Chronicles series it is part of, but quickly succumbed to the adaptation’s charms, chief among them a budding romance between tremulous Taggie O’Hara and rakish playboy Rupert Campbell-Black as performed by Bella Maclean and Alex Hassell, respectively. Most familiar to me, and likely other American viewers: former “Doctor Who” star David Tennant, who portrays ruthless British TV exec Tony Baddingham, and “Poldark” star Aidan Turner as Taggie’s father Declan, an Irish BBC journalist that Baddingham recruits to his station in the Cotswolds.

Season 2 of ‘Rivals” arrived last month, and it is one of three TV lit adaptations I have been watching recently, along with Apple TV’s “Imperfect Women” and “Margo’s Got Money Troubles.” Sadly, Hulu shifted its release strategy for this season of “Rivals,” doling out 12 episodes in two metered batches: The last episode of the first six began streaming June 5, then there will a break before the second six episodes arrive later in the year.

Like the original ‘Dynasty,’ but racier

If anything, Season 2 storylines are even more sexed up than the first, evoking memories of “Dynasty” and other racy nighttime sudsers of the 1980s, shoulder pads and all. The show’s R-rated storylines verge on campy — Episode 5’s medieval-themed Golden Gauntlet competition between Baddingham’s Corinium and upstart Venturer is a prime example of the season’s high-spirited ‘80s-style shenanigans thus far. But the best thing about “Rivals,” at least for me, is that the show, like the book it is based upon, never takes itself too seriously. Cooper was apparently heavily involved in the adaptation, signing off on Season 2 scripts until the week before her 2025 death at age 88, per various U.K. reports like this and this.

Heavy on melodrama

“Imperfect Women” could have used some of Cooper’s fun-loving spirit. Apple TV’s Emmy bait limited series is prestige melodrama of the starriest kind: It boasts high-octane performances by Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss and Kate Mara and lots of gorgeous L.A. scenery, but doesn’t make a lot of sense. The thriller, adapted from Araminta Hall’s 2020 book of the same name, unpeels the fractured friendship between three middle-aged friends from college after one of them is killed. Star and producer Washington lobbied for the adaptation to be shifted from Britain to L.A. in the wake of brutal fires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, and in some ways “Imperfect Women” plays as a SoCal version of “Big Little Lies.” It’s not as good but at least the locations are suitably luxe.

I caught up with “Imperfect Women” mid-run and stuck with it almost despite myself, rolling my eyes at some of the characters’ actions yet curious to see how the underlying mystery would resolve. Alas, I enjoyed creator Annie Weisman’s “Physical,” an Apple TV series centered on just one complicated woman, far more.

Meanwhile, in O.C….

Of these small-screen lit adaptations, I’m most mixed on “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” David E. Kelley’s adaptation of Rufi Thorpe’s 2024 novel. Tonally, it seems all over the map: jokey narration about Margot’s ill-considered affair with her college professor gives way to nuanced performances by a cast that includes Nick Offerman as Margo’s wrestler dad struggling with addiction and Nicole Kidman as a female wrestler turned lawyer. Elle Fanning, also one of the show’s producers, does a good job as the naïve student who turns to OnlyFans to support her unexpected family in a decidedly unglamorous portion of Orange County, while Michelle Pfeiffer digs into her role as Margo’s conflicted mother. I’ll be watching to see how “Margo” and “Imperfect Women” fare this Emmy season; the first round of voting began this week.

New books

As fun as it can be to get caught up in a narrative, sometimes you unexpectedly hit a wall and have a hard time picking up the book (or TV series) again. I experienced that with one of the trio highlighted below and I’ll get into that later. But first: two smoother reads.

‘Whistler’ by Ann Patchett

Daphne is browsing exhibits at the Met when her husband Jonathan notices someone following her. Turns out it is her stepfather Eddie, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a girl. The two reconnect and revisit a traumatic car accident that injured them both. As Eddie is integrated back into her family’s life, Daphne learns more about him — and the truth about his short marriage with her mom. Patchett’s novel, which takes its name from a story tells Daphne when they are stuck in the crashed car, deals with aging, grief and found family.

‘A Pair of Aces’ by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

The authors of “The Personal Librarian” and “The First Ladies” have reteamed on a book about the unlikely collaboration between Eunice Carter, Manhattan’s first Black female prosecutor, and brothel owner Polly Adler in the case that helped to bring down notorious mob boss Lucky Luciano. The narration sympathetically cuts back back and forth between both women, showing the battles and prejudice each had to face. It’s a fascinating look at two unheralded figures from our recent past that left me eager to learn more about both. Reese Witherspoon recently selected it for her book club

‘Land’ by Maggie O’Farrell

I’ve had so much success reading books outside my usual sweet spot lately that it was only a matter of time before my luck ran out. So it did with O’Farrell’s novel about a mapmaker in post-Famine Ireland circa 1865. I began it with high hopes, having recently visited relatives on the Emerald Isle, but put it down when the author ventured into mystical territory. Others have raved about it, however, so I will try again later before marking it as DNF. In the meantime, here is a link to some of those reviews by others.

Originally published on my Lititude substack

On ‘New Skin,’ L.A. and horrifying addiction to plastic surgery

Books, Words+Pixels, Writing
New Skin by Sarah Wang cover

I try to keep an open mind, really, I do. But like Fanny Feng’s visiting daughter in “New Skin,” I struggle to understand the allure of cosmetic surgery. Especially on a repeated basis.

But Fanny is determined — and a survivor. In quintessential L.A. fashion, the victim of multiple botched procedures ends up on a reality show about extreme beauty makeovers. The big prize: more plastic surgery.

Appropriately enough, Sarah Wang’s debut novel introduces us to 26-year-old Linli and her estranged mother during a post-surgery bandage reveal. Even though Linli has braced herself, she is horrified to see her mother’s deformed nose and witness the leech therapy her doctor prescribes to reduce pooled blood.

A Taiwanese immigrant who overstayed her student visa decades earlier, Fanny began her dalliance with plastic surgery when her daughter was young and never stopped. Linli tells the doctor Fanny has undergone hundreds of cosmetic procedures — that she knows about.

“How much work had she gotten since I’d seen her last,” wonders Linli, who moved away three years earlier. “I scanned her face, the entire thing immobile from years of Botox injections. Useless. It was impossible to take inventory in a landscape that was constantly shifting.”

Reluctant return

Linli is on the brink of moving from Washington state to New York for graduate school when she is summoned back to Fanny’s side. Soon she’s sucked into her mother’s medical dramas: She cooks for her and watches “America’s Beauty” with her. Before long, she is driving Fanny to shadowy San Gabriel Valley establishments that provide black market beauty treatments to Asian clientele. To pay the bills, Linli begins working for a nonprofit near La Brea Tar Pits.

Over the course of the novel, we learn more about her childhood and Fanny’s scrappy beginnings in America. When Fanny becomes a contestant on “America’s Beauty Extreme,” the drama escalates to a near fever dream. Linli makes a series of questionable choices; among other things, she ingests an unknown drug at a Laurel Canyon house party. I didn’t fully buy her behavior at times but did share her growing appreciation of Fanny’s resourcefulness.

L.A.’s horrors and charms

Linli’s descriptions of her mother’s macabre body horrors may remind you — as it did me — of “The Substance,” but Wang’s book is centered on a milieu freeways apart from Hollywood. At its heart “New Skin” is a story about immigration and the sometimes-fractured bonds between mothers and daughters. I ended the book with a smidge more understanding about Fanny’s addiction to cosmetic makeovers.

As for its setting, L.A. readers will surely appreciate Linli’s affection for speeding north on the Pasadena Freeway and visiting Little Dume beach in Malibu, not to mention omnipresent jacaranda trees and bountiful bougainvillea. The mother and daughter are deeply rooted in the San Gabriel Valley’s sprawling Asian diaspora; “New Skin” benefits from the author’s intimate knowledge of the area and what it’s like to be a second-generation immigrant raised by a single mom.

“Writing about Los Angeles always puts me back there in a way that’s embodied and visceral,” Wang, who teaches writing at Barnard College, recently told L.A. Review of Books. “My friends and family in L.A. know me in a way that I’ll never be known by anyone else.”

My caveat

Reader beware: “New Skin” is a compelling read but not for the faint hearted: Linli frequently describes her mother’s procedures in bracing ways. “Very gruesome, aren’t you?” the doctor remarked when she asked about the possibility of necrosis on Fanny’s infected nose. And the fraught relationship between mother and daughter may upset sensitive souls. But take heart: even while sparring, they are deep-down symbiotic, bonding over episodes of “America’s Beauty.”

Observes Linli: “My mother could still make me laugh harder than anyone else.”

“New Skin” by Sarah Wang, Little, Brown, available now.

Originally published on my Lititude substack.