“Last Week at Marienbad” (Granta, November 2023)
On the nineteenth-century German spa town, the movie, and German tourists
“I Really Didn’t Want to Go” (Harper’s, May 2023)
On the Goop cruise
“Desperately Seeking Sebald” (Harper’s, November 2021)
On my quest to appreciate the elusive German author
“The Case for Semicolons” (New York Times Magazine, February 2021)
On my favorite punctuation mark
“Reality Under My Skin” (Harper’s, December 2020)
On the Danish author Tove Ditlevsen and “sad girls in Europe,” my favorite genre
“For Goodness’ Sake” (Bookforum, June 2020)
On “good people” and the self-conscious drama of morality in contemporary fiction
“Ha Ha! Ha Ha!” (London Review of Books, January 2020)
On hysterical criticism, writing about oneself, and Jia Tolentino
“The Radical Style of Andrea Dworkin” (New Yorker, April 2019)
On the reconsideration of Dworkin’s radical politics in the #MeToo era
“Astrology Year Zero” (The Baffler, January 2019)
On the popularity of astrology and the creepiness of new New Age
“The Screwer and the Screwed” (The Baffler, May 2018)
On Helen DeWitt and the sorry state of contemporary fiction
“What Do We Mean When We Call Art ‘Necessary’?” (New York Times Magazine, May 2018)
On the tendency to politicize art via one very annoying word
“The Miseducation of Lady Bird” (The Baffler, November 2017)
On the culture’s disturbing return to high school
“Tudor’s Biscuit World Is the Best Thing About West Virginia” (Eater, June 2016)
On the history, significance, and sadness of a beloved regional biscuit sandwich chain