A final word

Subjects discussed: The last of the standalone novel updates

See Friendship is out today. Over the weekend, the New York Times Book Review ran a very lovely full-length review that referenced Dickinson, Fitzgerald, the Strokes, Forster, and High Fidelity. (I’m biased, but I think it’s a great piece.) Yesterday, the Cleveland Review of Books published an excerpt: the very beginning of the book. And this morning, Interview published a conversation between me and the writer Leah Abrams, which was a lot of fun.

I started writing what became this novel in the summer of 2019, which means nearly six years have passed since conception and publication—a chunk of time that makes people go “oh, wow” upon hearing it, since nobody thinks “alright, time to see how this pays off in nearly six years” when embarking on a new project. Yet it doesn’t feel like that long. The exciting thing, to be sincere, is the idea of writing more novels—that every attempt to do so will bring me toward writing yet another novel, which perhaps I’ll finish or even publish. It’s one thing to blab extemporaneously about how I see what I wrote—I understand why people have podcasts now, or streaming channels—but putting it into words makes me feel like I’m writing an awards speech for Adrien Brody. It is sort of mind blowing, the idea that people can read and form their own reactions—that this has happened already—so I will hope it keeps happening.

I am, actually, working on a second novel, but as always I hope to post more to this Substack, and use it for its intended purpose: as a repository of half-focused thoughts and conceptual swings, like all the best blogs. I’ll probably dump in a few more See Friendship things here in the coming months, but I’ll attach it to real posts so I’m not just using this Substack to spam people. This site’s pinpoint metrics allow me to see that a very small number of people unsubscribed after a prior novel update. On the one hand, it’s my blog, what else could you expect—but I get it, nobody wants more emails that says “buy my thing.” Some of you signed up to read freewheeling thoughts about going to Film Forum, or NBA media. But more soon.

Last thing—here is my current tour schedule, first including stops in San Francisco (March 12), Los Angeles (March 13), and Chicago (March 20). A Philadelphia event is in the works, also. Hope to see you there.