On binge watching and disappointing lit adaptations

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

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.

Treat yourself to ‘A Perfect Hand,’ Ayelet Waldman’s slyly subversive Jane Austen update

Books, Words+Pixels, Writing

Dearest reader, I have another book recommendation for you: “A Perfect Hand.” Ayelet Waldman’s latest novel is a slyly subversive tale about the constrained choices of unmarried women in 19^th century Britain and well worth diving into.

Written in a period style familiar to “Bridgerton” fans, “A Perfect Hand” centers on Alice Lockey, a lady’s maid who is reading Jane Austen’s “Emma” when she meets a visiting valet in the servants’ quarters of a country estate. Immediately smitten, Alice and Charlie become unlikely matchmakers, conspiring to bring his quirky boss and fun-loving Lady Jemima together and thereby remove obstacles to their own romance.

More than matchmaking

But while matchmaking figures prominently in Waldman’s plot, just as it does in “Emma,” the author of previous books including her “Bad Mother” memoir has more on her mind than marriage itself. That becomes clear with the introduction of Lady Jemima’s spinster aunt. Miss Sarah Bennett not so coincidentally shares a surname with the family that figures prominently in “Pride & Prejudice,” although hers is spelled with two t’s rather than one and she is decidedly plugged into Britain’s burgeoning feminist scene. Notably, “A Perfect Hand” begins in 1879, more than six decades after the publication of “Pride & Prejudice,” by which time the women’s suffrage movement was well underway in Victorian England.

Miss Bennett befriends Alice when she learns of her interest in a feminist pamphlet and encourages her to borrow her copies of books by the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. As the romance between Alice and Charlie progresses, we meet his independent older sister, along with her tenant farmer parents, who are eager for their daughter to find security through marriage.

Poor choices

But Alice begins to question all her options: As an abigail, as lady’s maids were then called, she is at the beck and call of her young mistress at all hours. And as an unmarried woman, her salary automatically goes to her father first; when she gets married, her earnings will become her husband’s property. Miss Bennett has more freedom as an unmarried woman living on her own due to a modest inheritance; amusingly, she dresses in colorful caftans at home but more subdued garb when visiting her sister, Lady Alderwick, at her estate. Even Lady Jemima, who has access to her father’s funds, feels pressure to make a match while she still commands the attention of desirable men.

Men have their struggles too

Charlie has endured his own struggles, spending years in the workhouse due to his alcoholic father’s penchant for drinking away any earnings. As an adult, he takes care of his mother and sister Mary, considering it his duty as the man of the family. Nor is he put off by Alice’s bookish ways; he delights in showing her parts of London she has never seen. Waldman portrays him affectionately, reserving her satire for his aristocrat counterparts.

Indeed, Waldman pokes fun at supposedly genteel folk of both genders. Lady Jemima, we quickly learn, has incredibly stinky feet along with questionable taste in men; Lord Wynstowe is gently lampooned for his obsession with measuring facial features. Fans of drawing room comedies will find much discourse about gowns, hairdos and jewels — along with so much more. Debates about the nature of servitude and the rights of women set the novel apart from traditional 19th century fare, with the future Emmeline Pankhurst among those making the case for equality within Alice’s earshot.

Surprise ending

The novel takes a turn toward the end that its witty narrator warns the audience is coming. Even so, it might surprise some readers: I felt compelled to immediately re-read “A Perfect Hand” to retrace its plot; happily, I enjoyed Waldman’s witty asides even more the second time. But as always, your mileage may vary.

Feminist appeal

My Quaker ancestors were suffragettes, so I have extra interest in the subject. Admittedly, however, I know less about suffrage battles in England than in America; reading about these figures in fictionalized settings just made me want to learn more about their work.

About that twist

I’m being deliberately vague about the book’s twist ending to avoid spoiling it for potential readers. But I will share this: Waldman apparently came up with it midway through writing “A Perfect Hand.” Originally, the author told NPR, she envisioned the book would be “my version of Jane Austen, my very favorite kind of book.” The author had mapped out its expected contours, she wrote in a recent Lit Hub essay, only to end up deviating from them when the unexpected twist “arrived on my imagination’s doorstep like a bouquet of perfect peonies on the first day of spring.”

Enjoy.

“A Perfect Hand,” Knopf, 304 pages, $28

Originally published on my Lititude substack.

Why reading ‘American Fantasy’ made me thank algorithms for once

Books, Words+Pixels

American Fantasy by Emma Straub book cover

Let me be honest with you: I avoided “American Fantasy” based on its premise. Emma Straub’s novel revolves around a ’90s boy band nostalgia cruise and a) I get extremely seasick and b) I am, ahem, not demographically appropriate for that boy band era. But my book apps kept recommending it, so I took the plunge. Once I started reading, I did not stop.

There are three alternating narrators in “American Fantasy”: Sarah, a no-nonsense cruise director just dumped by her galpal, 50-year-old Annie, recently divorced and making the best of a vacation she was supposed to take with her true believer sister, and reluctant Boy Talk vocalist Keith, strong-armed by his bandmate brother into participating. In sensibility, I fall closest to skeptical Annie, who observes rabid fandom on display all around her with anthropological amazement; she never forgets that her younger sister, laid up with a broken leg, is a member of that particular tribe.

Luckily for Annie, her replacement roommate is an old hand at Boy Talk cruises. Maira expertly guides Annie, reeling from a career setback as the cruise gets underway, through carefully choreographed activities. Non-judgmental and ready for a good time, she companionably orders one Sexy Sunrise refill after another for them both to enjoy.

Not so smooth sailing

Sure enough, just as Maira predicted, Annie quickly falls back under the sway of the band she once adored in her youth. Back then, she was “a Shawn girl,” fond of the older Fiore brother who in adulthood does all that he can to keep Boy Talk fans happy. Scotty, closeted during the band’s heyday, is painted as likable and desperate for cash, while Corey just wants to soak in the adulation and rehabilitate his Hollywood bad boy image. Pony-tailed libertarian Terrence spends the cruise pawing over his new wife; in a running joke, he is frequently referred to as the least liked member of the band.

Sarah, meanwhile, has her own challenges corralling the band and a hapless young employee. Shawn’s bearded guru further unsettles the band’s already tenuous equilibrium as we learn more about Keith’s chilly marriage.

Why I like it

At its heart, “American Fantasy” is a story about embracing change and breaking old habits that no longer fit. As someone who learned how to start over early, I’m a big believer in the power of change at any age. Yes, it can be messy and fraught, especially when forced upon you, but that does not mean it is not worthwhile. To her credit, Straub does not shy away from the turbulence her characters navigate on the giant vessel, emotional and otherwise. (Poor Keith suffers from sea sickness in addition to vexed feelings about his brother and spotlight-stealing Corey.)

At the same time, the author keeps the narrative lightly comedic; she has fun with the fan experience but avoids getting too pointed about it. She embraces the fantasy elements inherent in such ventures — the chance to see your childhood crush up close! — and incorporates wish fulfillment into a plot that keeps humming along, just like the cruise.

Inspired by New Kids on the Block

Unlike me, Straub comes by her affection for boy bands naturally. As a kid, she was crazy about New Kids on the Block and got the idea for “American Fantasy” after seeing an ad for a cruise with the band in 2022. At the time, she told Vogue, she was grieving her father’s death and had just finished “a sad book.”

One year later, “American Fantasy” already sketched out in her mind, she boarded a NKOTB cruise to get a better feel how these nostalgia-fueled boy-band ventures actually operate.

“I didn’t go on the cruise until 2023, and I had spent basically all of that year planning the book, so I already had all of the characters,” she told the Vogue interviewer, a self-proclaimed Backstreet Boys fan. “But observing how it all went down and imagining how the characters would interact with each other onboard was really helpful.”

The author knows there are people that have negative associations with fandom — I, for one, am highly ambivalent about the fanboy approach to entertainment journalism — but makes a case for its positive aspects.

“I think it’s meaningful to love something and to be a fan of something — to care and to talk about that thing with other people who love it,” Straub recently told Buzzfeed. “Fandom sometimes gets in trouble in the internet age for being toxic, and there are darker sides of it, but there’s also the beautiful, sweet heart of it.”

Algo world

Sometimes, like Annie, you just need to let go of your reservations and surrender to the experience. Given the array of novels that give me pause, I’m extra glad for the ones I speed through with nary a cringe, as was the case with Riverhead’s “American Fantasy.” Much as I hate to admit it, algorithms sometimes know me better than I know myself.

Pic of the week: Snails in the wind

Came across hundreds of snail blowing in the wind on a trail near my house.

Originally published on my Lititude substack.

June 13, 2026On binge watching and disappointing lit adaptations

June 4, 2026On ‘New Skin,’ L.A. and horrifying addiction to plastic surgery

May 30, 2026Treat yourself to ‘A Perfect Hand,’ Ayelet Waldman’s slyly subversive Jane Austen update

May 15, 2026Teens take charge in ‘Young World.’ Then things really get scary

Teens take charge in ‘Young World.’ Then things really get scary

Books, Words+Pixels

Young World by Soman Chainani book cover on asphalt background

When my good friend Phoebe started telling me about her latest editing project, I leaned forward in my chair. “Young World,” by the author of the School of Good and Evil series, revolves around a high school kid who stumbles into the presidency after instigating a youth revolt against older politicians unable or unwilling to fix problems enveloping us. As she spoke, visions of Zohran Mamdani, the youngest New York City mayor in more than a century, danced in my head. “Could you send me an advance copy?,” I queried. (More on the current occupant of Gracie Mansion later.)

Thankfully, she did, and I dove right into “Young World,” marveling at how Soman Chainani captured the zeitgeist in a geopolitical thriller that manages to be exceedingly topical while also heartfelt: Readers never lose sight of the teen preoccupations bedeviling the narrator, a 17-year-old who lives with his basketball coach father in St. Louis before his fateful victory and has a strained relationship with his mother, now remarried, along with a secret crush his pals deplore.

Arctic trouble

Benton Young is still getting his bearings at the White House when Sweden’s prime minister, one of 12 Revolting Youth leaders installed around the globe following the American election, calls a G-8 gathering to discuss the future of Dragontail, a fictional Arctic island rich with oils and metals that various countries are vying to exploit. If this scenario makes you think of Greenland, the Arctic country Donald Trump keeps threatening to annex, well, there’s good reason for that. The tussles over Dragontail expand to include India and China and power the remainder of neon-orange infused novel, which is interspersed with faux government documents, news articles, social media soundbites and illustrations.

One of the many colorful explainers in Soman Chainani’s “Young World,” a Random House YA book.

How did he do it?

Given how tricky it can be to stay ahead of current events for longer lead projects, be they books, TV shows or movies, “Young World” seems remarkably prescient. So how did Chainani do it? The answers lie in his weekly Diary of a Novel entries.

The author launched the Sustack initiative one year into writing “Young World,” pulling back the curtain on his creative process and personal life during the more than two-year lead-up to the book’s publication. Nowadays, he shares a lot of anecdotes about life on a Missouri farm with his partner, but Chainani came up with the basic premise for “Young World” while still living in New York City, dismissing it then as too difficult and outside his wheelhouse to tackle himself.

“I just knew in my gut that it would make an absolutely mind-boggling novel or movie or television show,” Chainani writes in his first entry, describing efforts to convince others to take the idea and run with it. “I just couldn’t be the one to do it.” Then, after finishing his School of Good and Evil fantasy series — six books and two prequels — he sat down to write another fairy tale book series he had been imagining, only to hammer out the first chapter in the book that would become “Young World.”

Mamdani connection

Moving to St. Louis for his then-new relationship further helped give him insight about the alienated youth that would help propel Trump to his second presidency and Mamdani to Gracie Mansion a year later. In a twist of fate, Chainani first met the future mayor while serving as an assistant to his filmmaker mother, Mira Nair, while waitlisted for Columbia Film School; Mamdani was then a mere 12 years old. After the relatively untested politician triumphed over former governor Andrew Cuomo in the primary last June, Chainani predicted similar victories ahead.

Once the author committed to his teen president premise, he needed to come up with a global conflict that might still be relevant when readers got their hands on the finished book several years later. He found his Arctic answer when a Washington University professor and a colleague both referenced potential border disputes in that region during a two-day period.

Years later, a screenwriter who had worked in the White House asked Chainani why he had picked the Arctic. “I have no clue,” Chainani confesses in diary entry published after Trump’s second inauguration. “It certainly wasn’t conscious.”

Instead, like a fisherman waiting on a calm, empty sea, he felt a tug on the line — and trusted his creative instinct. He and his colleague Jun discussed using the actual country of Greenland in the novel, but Chainani moved forward with a fictional option instead.

“There are many things like this in ‘Young World’ — stories and characters and twists I settled on years ago that are starting to pop up now,” he explains. “None of which I take credit for. Instead, I’m starting to understand the power of our unconscious processes to see what’s actually happening under the surface of things, rather than what we think is happening.”

Trumpian delay

Chainani was affected by our Disrupter in Chief in one way, however. The former filmmaker had begun shopping TV and film rights for the book shortly before the 2024 election and noticed an immediate reluctance to engage with political material after Trump won, so stopped those conversations until he finished the book. Chainani has since restarted the adaptation conversation, Variety reported in a story coinciding with the book’s publication.

I delayed writing this until I could re-read “Young World” in print, rather than digital form. Although I’ve gotten used to reading books in digital formats, “Young World” really benefits from a tactile reading experience. Digital screens can’t do justice to the neon orange on the cover or throughout the 480-page book, just as the author fretted in his diaries.

One teensy advisory: I clutched my oldster pearls at the strong language in Benton’s diary entries, but that may say more about my lack of familiarity with YA books these days than anything else.

“Young World” by Soman Chainani, Random House, 480 pages, $22

Originally published on my Lititude substack.

June 13, 2026On binge watching and disappointing lit adaptations

June 4, 2026On ‘New Skin,’ L.A. and horrifying addiction to plastic surgery

May 30, 2026Treat yourself to ‘A Perfect Hand,’ Ayelet Waldman’s slyly subversive Jane Austen update

May 24, 2026Why reading ‘American Fantasy’ made me thank algorithms for once

On Kelly green pants, ‘True Color’ and the ‘Preppy Handbook’

Books, Words+Pixels

Kory Stamper's True Color outlines battles over descriptions of Kelly green, begonia and more — Kelly green makes a few appearances in Stamper’s book.

Kelly green trousers were all the rage in my Connecticut high school, and I was among the many students who wore them, along with bone white and khaki versions. As was the fashion, I selected a grosgrain ribbon watch band1 and other accessories to complement each day’s outfit, delighting in subtle color interplay between my choices.

When we moved to a Philadelphia burb straight out of “The Official Preppy Handbook” midway through high school, I was surprised to discover that my new classmates favored less vibrant garb in late disco-era beiges and burgundies, but the dye was already cast for me: Decades later, I still favor pops of color in my outfits, and have long been attuned to amusing wordplay clothing companies sometimes employ to entice potential purchasers of their offerings.

Hooked on hues

Do I want to buy a sweater that is peppermint ice, jade mist or smoky thistle, or would I be more likely to choose one described as light pink, pale green or dark purple? I prefer lyrical options any day, though as someone with a smattering of experience mixing paints for artistic endeavors I have been known to wonder what type of color recipe designers used.

So, what I’m saying is: I’m hooked on hues. Kory Stamper’s “True Color,” subtitled “The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color — From Azure to Zinc Pink,” promised playful lexicology about a topic near and dear to my heart and it delivered. But it also gave me a deeper understanding of the science of color and the stakes involved in standardizing them — from determining the proper shade of margarine (there used to be laws prohibiting food companies from making butter-like spreads look too much like the real deal) to the paint on battleships (guess wrong and U-boats may sink them, military leaders fretted during World War I).

Beguiled by begonia

Stamper takes us along on her journey through the dusty New England archives of Merriam-Webster, where she began working in 1998, as she untangles the rich story behind the color definitions that appear in the company’s massive unabridged dictionary. Stamper’s own love affair with color began when she stumbled upon the entry for begonia while updating the Big Book. The first two definitions for begonia were botanical, as to be expected, followed by a third: “a deep pink that is bluer, lighter, and stronger than average coral (see CORAL 3b), bluer than fiesta, and bluer and stronger than sweet william — called also gaiety.”

From there, it was off to the races for Stamper, who uncovered pitched battles over the proper approach to defining color, pleas for additional color plates and blown deadlines, plus nervous breakdowns and unheralded women who picked up the slack for men incapacitated by mental health issues. Kelly green makes its first appearance in an early description of a hummingbird’s feather on a microscopic level and pops up a couple more times, along with too many other tones and tints to name or count.

Still waiting

The problem in defining colors, the lexicographer makes clear in her book, is their very mutability depending on light and shade. What’s more, we see colors reflected in objects around us, be they an orange or yellow banana, and form our own associations with them. Brutal production schedules — and Merriam-Webster’s reliance on outside experts who squeezed in dictionary work on the side — created their own challenges for editorial teams trying to keep the massive undertakings on track. The third edition of the unabridged international dictionary, dubbed W3 internally, was published two years late in 1961, Stamper notes, “a million dollars over budget, scads of editors crushed under its heavy, churning wheels.”

It was such a massive — and fraught — experience that Merriam-Webster would not begin work on a comprehensive new edition until nearly half a century later in 2010. It has yet to arrive.2

The Official Preppy Handbook cover — This copy of the “Preppy Handbook” has traveled with me back and forth across the country.

Prep talk

Because I was able to find my original copy of “The Official Preppy Handbook,” please allow me to circle back to it for a minute. Late in the book edited by Lisa Birnbach3, there’s a description of “go-to-hell-pants” that I don’t remember from my initial read. It’s a callback to a Tom Wolfe riff about vibrant trousers favored by Bostonians summering on Martha’s Vineyard: In a 1975 story for Esquire, Wolfe describes the “go-to-hell air” of pants in “checks and plaids of the loudest possible sort” or implausibly bright solid colors, further expounding on the types of checks and plaids in his signature style.4

Five years later, the “Preppy Handbook” picked up the satirical thread. “In casual wear, it is considered very spirited, very fun-loving, to wear one offbeat, loud item — usually the pants,” its authors state, tongues firmly in cheek. “The favored color is lime green,” the blurb continues, “but go-to-hell-pants come in other similar shocking colors.”

And yes, as travelers through certain quarters of New England know, such pants may have embroidered figures on them, be they ducks, whales or lobsters. But, as the book cautions: “Being fun-loving should never be confused with being nonconformist.”

“True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color — From Azure to Zinc Pink,” Knopf, $32

Footnotes

1 The Country Store of Concord outpost we patronized is long gone but Cable Car Clothiers still carries grosgrain ribbon watch bands similar to ones we wore, and belts as well.

2 In the meantime, a copy of the third edition boasting more than 460,000 entries can be yours for $129.

3 Birnbach revisited the territory with 2010’s “True Prep,” co-authored with Chip Kidd.

4 Wolfe’s full description, reprinted in the 1976 essay collection “Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine”: “…the pants had a go-to-hell air: checks and plaids of the loudest possible sort, madras plaids, yellow-on-orange windowpane checks, crazy-quilt plaids, giant houndstooth checks, or else they were a solid airmail red or taxi yellow or some other implausible go-to-hell color.”

First published on my Lititude Substack.

Hello, old friends: Reconnecting with Jay McInerney and other literary faves

Books, Words+Pixels

I can’t remember where I was when I first read “Bright Lights, Big City.” It may have been Denver, where I was desperately plotting a return to the East Coast, or soon after I unpacked my bags in greater NYC and landed a publishing gig there. In any case, I will forever associate Jay McInerney’s breakthrough novel with my early post-collegiate years and my own brief flirtation with a literary life in Manhattan.

Like many, I was captivated by McInerney’s literary picaresque through Manhattan’s demimonde and the halls of a storied magazine. I even liked that the book was released under the groovy Vintage Contemporaries paperback line created by his editor pal Gary Fisketjon, though the “Bright Lights” movie adaptation starring Michael J. Fox was of no interest whatsoever when it arrived on the big screen a few years later. My own adventures in Manhattan’s publishing world were tame and brief: I very quickly decamped for Philadelphia, where, as the fates would have it, I became a fact-checker just like the narrator of “Bright Lights, Big City” except it was for TV Guide rather than a stand-in for the New Yorker and there were no decadent nights on the town fueled by Bolivian Marching Powder for me.

Circling back

Over time, I stopped following the work of my favorite authors from that period, tabloid fixture McInerney included, and my connections to the publishing world faded. That all changed when I began editing book coverage for L.A. Times last year. First, a press release about an Isabel Allende novel beckoned in an email, then one heralding the upcoming arrival of “See You on the Other Side,” the fourth novel in McInerney’s Calloway tetralogy.

I immediately wanted to read “See You” but hesitated: Would I still like McInerney’s work? Should I dive into it without having read the previous three novels? I took a flier and am happy to report that the answer to both queries was yes: I quickly slipped into the rhythm of McInerney’s prose again, decades later.

Still tempted after all these years

“See You on the Other Side” revisits Russell and Corrinne Calloway, now in their 60s, at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Their children are young adults and Russell a boutique publisher; Corrinne serves as director of Nourish New York, a non-profit that relies on restaurant food donations. They are moneyed bourgeoisie of an artier sort, at the novel’s outset unpacking boxes in a freshly purchased Greenwich Village penthouse after a decade in gentrifying Harlem. They socialize with even richer folk that keep them relatively humble.

Over the course of the novel, the Calloways and pals weather various crises, emotional and corporeal. Russell, an alter ego of the author, faces temptation much like the narrator of “Bright Lights”; in an echo of that seminal book, the aging publisher narrowly avoids disaster during a dubious cocaine-laced rendezvous with a promising young writer late in the novel. McInerney weaves in enough backstory from earlier book installments to make it easy for the uninitiated to follow along. Does the prose seem overly baggy with characters verging on self-satisfied? Yes again, though to the latter point one could argue that might be McInerney’s intent as a gentle satirist with a fondness for the good life himself. (He was a wine columnist for the Wall Street Journal so he knows his way around a good vintage.)

How it all began

To make sure I wasn’t missing out on previously established details central to a rich appreciation of “See You,” I downloaded “Brightness Falls,” the 1992 novel that introduces us to Russell and Corrinne, a young married couple whose world is rocked by the AIDS epidemic and the brutal 1987 stock market crash. This gave me additional insight into Russell and Corrinne’s formative friendship with writer-to-be Jeff Pierce at Brown and the tetralogy itself, but didn’t answer my nagging question: How does the writing of these books really compare to “Bright Lights, Big City”? Was I misremembering my introduction to McInerney’s prose after so much time?

‘Bright Lights’ revisited

Dear reader, I was not. “Bright Lights, Big City,” a slim 182 pages to 304 for “See You on the Other Side” and 415 for “Brightness Falls,” is much tauter than its baggier successors; tellingly, it started as a short story for the Paris Review before McInerney turned it into a novel. Rereading it four decades later, I found myself less interested in the narrator’s misadventures in the Department of Factual Verification (maybe because I have worked in a magazine research department) and Gotham nightclubs (generally avoid such things) than the poignant revelations later in the book. That part I hadn’t remembered.

“Less Than Zero” arrived shortly after “Bright Lights, Big City,” and critics immediately lumped the two novels together, but Bret Easton Elllis’s novel never grabbed me the same way; I found it a chillier, name-dropping affair. In my view, McInerney’s distinctive second-person narration is key to the book’s enduring appeal: reproachful self-talk is hugely relatable even to those of us unlikely to ever unleash a ferret in a former boss’s office after hours. Russell’s first-person narration in “See You on the Other Side” can be similarly rueful; there’s grace to that humanity.

McInerney has always been open about considering Russell an alter ego from a counter life: His character has stayed married to his college sweetheart, unlike McInerney, whose fourth wife is Patty Hearst’s sister, and is an editor rather than a writer. Similarly, reading “See You on the Other Side” gives me a fictional glimpse of the New York publishing world I left behind so long ago. It’s a nice place to re-visit.

Now, excuse me while I listen to the Clapton song this missive is named for and go find a copy of “House of Spirits.”

Endnotes

Some critics have a much harsher view of “See You on the Other Side” than I do: NYT critic Dwight Garner hated it, while Erin Somers dubbed it a compulsory finish lesser to both “Bright Lights, Big City” and “Brightness Falls” in her critique for the Nation. Mark Athitakis, a critic I had the pleasure of editing for LAT, takes a more complimentary view toward “See You on the Other Side” and McInerney’s work in his Bloomburg review, calling his Manhattan-centric novels underrated while comparing Russell to protagonists in novels by John Updike and Philip Roth. Perhaps the key to enjoyment is not to have read the quartet in publication order.
For more about Vintage Contemporaries, read this New Yorker story and note the mention of the World Trade Center towers on the cover of “Bright Lights” in this story from 2012. Last, NYT’s Gina Bellafante revisited “Bright Lights” for its 40^th anniversary in 2024.

This first appeared on my Lititude Substack.

Two new novels get real about Hollywood work woes for women

Books, Words+Pixels

book covers for The Midnight Show and The Take

“Just don’t make it about how hard it is for women in Hollywood,” a wonderfully bitchy editor advised me years ago when assigning a story tied to an organization whose very mission was improving showbiz opportunities for that gender. Then he repeated that guideline twice more for good measure.

I laughed to myself at the time — his directive was so unprompted! — but got the message loud and clear. In any case, it was easy to lead my story with a positive development, as Kathryn Bigelow had become the first woman to receive a directing Oscar a couple months earlier. I interviewed a bunch of women about their upcoming film projects and showcased those while briskly acknowledging challenges getting some of them funded.

Less happily, I ran into major resistance when I hatched a story about Hollywood’s progress toward gender equality five years after the starry formation of the Time’s Up organization dedicated to that goal. The idea was to run the story as part of a magazine package celebrating female entertainment industry accomplishments, and while I had developed newsy companion stories like this before without an issue, a top editor didn’t want this one anywhere near his glossy Power of Women feature stories. The fact that Anita Hill and other high-profile industry leaders spoke with me on the record did not sway him. My story mutated a few times to incorporate a colleague’s reporting on #MeToo survivors. It ended up online before that year’s Women’s History Month concluded.

A producer that wants her blood

I thought of both incidents when reading “The Take” and “The Midnight Show,” two new novels that engage with women’s workplace struggles in the entertainment industry rather than glossing over them. In “The Take,” author Kelly Yang sets up a blood-transfusion scenario similar to “The Substance,” except the two main protagonists are an aging Hollywood producer and an aspiring Asian American writer short on cash, while a fictional Rolling Stone culture writer hopes to make a splash with her investigation into the mysterious disappearance of a young female late-night star four decades earlier in “The Midnight Show.” Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne tale is bicoastal; characters move between New York and L.A.’s creative scenes as opportunities arise, just like real life.

Don’t forget about ageism

As disparate as the book setups are, they both enable the authors to channel generation spanning attitudes about and experiences in showbiz: We feel freshly minted MFA Maggie Wang’s desperation to gain a toehold in the industry as well as 53-year-old Ingrid Parker’s simultaneous entitlement and frustration with Hollywood ageism in Yang’s novel. Notably, it’s Yang’s first for an adult audience after a series of books geared toward kids.

Madeline Cohen, meanwhile, stands in for younger equality-minded women as she interrogates principals from “The Midnight Show” about breakthrough sketch comedy talent Lilian Martin and the pressures on her as a quirky female performer in the early 1980s. As the books unfold, more complex portraits of the main characters emerge, with Maggie’s immigrant background adding texture to “The Take.”

I could quibble with some of the writing choices — the supposedly compiled interviews for “The Midnight Show” read more scripted than spoken to this longtime entertainment journo while “The Take” skews a bit young in perspective for my taste — but the workplace interactions rang truthful enough for their fictional settings.

Their struggles are real

Mostly, I appreciate the authors’ desire to depict three-dimensional women navigating challenging showbiz careers along with romantic misadventures. The protagonists all contain multitudes: Their struggles are real. And so are their foibles.

This was first published on my Lititude Substack.

I like serial killer books and romantasy novels now?

Books, Words+Pixels, Writing

You think you know your taste by now but you, by which I mean me, would be wrong. A year ago, I would have told you no, I’m not really into cozy murder mysteries, and I would have also reflexively stated that I am not a fantasy book fan or particularly interested in romantasy, a magic-drenched genre that also exploded in popularity when I wasn’t paying attention. But, you know, each to their own.

Books like “The Antiquarian’s Object of Desire” and “I’m Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home” made me realize how blinkered I was. The signs were all there, from my galloping read of the first Harry Potter book decades ago to more recent binge watches of Netflix’s “A Man on the Inside” and “Miss Scarlet and the Duke” via PBS’s streaming platform. I just wasn’t paying attention. Yes, I can enjoy serial killer and romantasy novels, especially if they are well crafted.

And “Antiquarian’s” and “I’m Not the Only Murderer” are that. Each is playfully written and unfolds at a brisk pace.

A cozy murder mystery about a killer?

“I’m Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home” starts with a premise that doesn’t sound very cozy: its chief protagonist is a serial killer freshly released from prison to a luxurious North London retirement community called Sheldon Oaks. Carol matter-of-factly cops to her murderous impulses, past and present, even as she befriends a small group of fellow retirees. When a fellow resident drops dead in a suspicious manner, naturally all eyes turn to her. She races to clear her name with the help of her elderly pals.

If you’ve seen “Man on the Inside,” led by Ted Danson as a charming widower, or White House mystery “The Residence,” starring Uzo Aduba as a bird-loving eccentric who is far more effective as a detective than might first appear, you’ll be familiar with the lightly comedic tone of Fergus Craig’s novel. The author, an actor-comedian and TV writer, credits his publisher with the book’s premise but deserves praise for executing it well. Amusingly, characters reference the popularity of the cozy murder mystery genre as the story heads toward its denouement.

Classic rom-com, yet steamy

India Holton’s “Antiquarian’s Object of Desire” romantasy, meanwhile, starts in classic rom-com style as a tale of bickering Victorian era academics that can’t be in the same room without sparks flying, and it gets progressively steamy over the course of the novel. Amelia Tarrant has known Caleb Sterling since boarding school, but they must disguise their bond lest she lose her job and reputation as an Oxford professor of antiquities. So they mock bicker and set fires while handling objects with magical properties; things really get screwy when they are dispatched to an old manor house filled with ghosts and items to catalog for the British Museum.

Like Eliza in similarly Victorian England-set “Miss Scarlet,” Amelia is constantly fighting slights based on her gender but is determined to pursue her passion; Caleb is a Byron-loving dandy with a hardscrabble past. This book is the third installment in Holton’s Love’s Academic series so clearly I have some catching up to do.

Would I have gravitated toward either of these novels in less turbulent times? Hard to say, but “I’m Not the Only Murderer” certainly made me think of the Agatha Christie mysteries filling my England-born grandmother’s bookcase. I do know that reading this pair of books was a pleasant diversion from political turmoil roiling the country — and it’s always nice to find new types of books to enjoy. There are so many worthy offerings yet to be perused.

“I’m Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home” by Fergus Craig, 272 pages, $30

“The Antiquarian’s Object of Desire” by India Holton, 368 pages, $19

Originally posted on my Lititude Substack, which you can visit here.

Hooked on hues: ‘True Color’ by Kory Stamper

book reviews, Books, Words+Pixels, Writing

I began reading “True Color” for the its promise of wordplay and ended up learning more about the science behind about all the hues, tints and shades around us than I ever expected to know, plus interesting factoids about margarine marketing restrictions of the past and the massive amount of work that went into creating Webster’s gargantuan unabridged dictionary in the pre-Internet age. Truth be told, I would have been happier with even more wordplay from Kory Stamper, who began working for Merriam-Webster in 1998, but she animates her research with playful prose. Reading her recently published book, subtitled “The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color — From Azure to Zinc Pink,” made me think of my own love affair with color and the Kelly green trousers from my Connecticut youth. For more about that, read this over at Lititude — and be sure to stay for peek at my vintage copy of the “Preppy Handbook” and its description of go-to-hell-pants.