Writers & Lovers by Lily King
TL; DR - If you've ever been in love with a brooding poet or a guy who loves Murakami, if you've ever lost someone you love, or if you've ever felt like you don't know what to do with your life, read this book. You'll find yourself in it.
Writers & Lovers is the coming of age story I didn't know I needed. The novel follows Case, an aspiring writer barely gasping for air in a sea of debt, grief, and her own self-doubt. And at the ripe age of 31, she is freer than she's ever been. For the first time in her life, she can discover who she really is.
When her mother suddenly dies, Casey finds herself falling for a poet she meets in an artist residency. To characterize their whirlwind relationship as romantic feels wholly inaccurate, but as someone who fell for a guy simply because he asked me for book recommendations while I was processing a death in my family, I recognize a distraction where I see one. This distraction doesn't last long, however, as the residency ends and Casey has almost no writing to show for it.
So she does what any young, directionless artist might do: She moves to Boston. (I fear I will end up there sooner rather than later, once I decide its finally time to hunker down and write my novel.) She writes, she loves, and she works a food service job. In the mundane routine of this protagonist's life, Lily King guides the reader on a journey to finding beauty in the mundane and, if you're lucky, perhaps even some zest for life.
Paul Wonner - Dutch Still Life with Lemon Tart and Engagement Calendar
Courtesy of SFMOMA
What stuck with me most about this book is its approach to grief and trauma. Pure Color provided an extremely metaphorical lens for grief, and The Seven Year Slip missed the mark almost entirely. So when I picked up Writers & Lovers and started reading simply because I liked the painting on the cover (right), I had a hint of doubt. I didn't want grief to be this thing that held the character back until a man came to rescue her. I selfishly wanted this fictional character's grief to be as real as my own. And it was.
After I finish my yearly Vonnegut re-read, which you will hear all about in the next blog, I anticipate being on a Lily King kick for quite a while. Thanks to my dear friend Liv for recommending her. Not to sound cheesy, but this book gave me a fundamental attitude shift about my life as a writer.
