Aram Zucker-Scharff

Stop Getting Mad About Emily Gould’s Novel:

You know what? F*ck the NYT book review and the ridiculous 11,000 word blog post that I can’t even start reading because it’s so terrible. I’m just going to buy Emily Gould’s novel; at least to spite the assholes, at most because hey, I might enjoy it.

She’s not the best writer in the world, but she’s not so bad as to deserve the vitriol. I enjoyed her essay I shared earlier this year.

And lets be freaking honest. If she started her career 20 years older (or, probably, 5-10 years older and male, or possibly just male), *none* of the pretty awful reactions to her or her writing would be around.

Stop Getting Mad About Emily Gould’s Novel:

You know what? F*ck the NYT book review and the ridiculous 11,000 word blog post that I can’t even start reading because it’s so terrible. I’m just going to buy Emily Gould’s novel; at least to spite the assholes, at most because hey, I might enjoy it.

She’s not the best writer in the world, but she’s not so bad as to deserve the vitriol. I enjoyed her essay I shared earlier this year.

And lets be freaking honest. If she started her career 20 years older (or, probably, 5-10 years older and male, or possibly just male), *none* of the pretty awful reactions to her or her writing would be around.

How much my novel cost me:

Writing my first book got me into debt. To finish the next one, I had to become solvent

This is an amazing read for a lot of reasons, 
for painting a reality to the insanity of Girls, who’s creator Gould sets up as sort of her foil; 
for being an honest and well-written argument both for and against novel writing (as opposed to the quasi-mystical crap you’ll usually find); 
and for being a sort of snapshot of the literate Millennial.

More than that, it’s fascinating as a sort of counter-narrative to the old stories from our parents: this is no fairy tale, you’re not special, sometimes getting by is more important than starving for the ideal.