“When I think about the internet (which is impossible),” Natasha Stagg writes, “I feel similar to when I have a crush. I feel crushed.” The line comes from an essay, first published in her 2019 collection Sleeveless, titled “To Be Fucked,” and here in miniature are the thematic and stylistic signatures of Stagg’s writing. The title suggests at once a discourse on sex and an anatomy of despair, a punk aggression and a passive subject. If the internet is impossible to think about, what are we doing when we write and read about it—and on it? You try to think but are left with only a feeling: a mixture of desire and hopelessness, a sense of excitement and power that is also an emptiness and inertia. Something you thought that you were doing, that was under your control (your crush, your browsing) becomes something that is being done to you (you’re crushed). Everything is at once manifest and obscure, right there on the surface for the world to see and somehow enigmatic, unresolved and unresolvable: a link, only, to something else. This internet affect is, despite its novelty, now probably as universal a feeling as that of romantic desire, but like the latter, it is also private and hard to pin down. To catch this mood one can’t try too hard.
The service starts with a large wooden bowl and two wooden mixing pallets. Wood seems absolutely crucial to be successful in making a proper Caesar salad, though the reason for this isn’t entirely clear.
First, a rich anchovy paste is scooped in. This is followed by large dabs of Dijon mustard, minced garlic, a squeeze of lime juice, crushed black pepper and shaved Parmesan cheese. The mixture begins taking shape as the server elegantly adds an egg yolk. He holds the egg between two spoons and gives it a surgical crack to let out the white with another spoon. Here he stirs.
Engaging and wildly entertaining, Martyr! will undoubtedly be considered one of the best debut novels of the year because it focuses on very specific stories while discussing universal feelings. It celebrates language while delving deep into human darkness. It entertains while jumping around in time and space and between the real and the surreal like a fever dream. It brilliantly explores addiction, grief, guilt, sexuality, racism, martyrdom, biculturalism, the compulsion to create something that matters, and our endless quest for purpose in a world that can often be cruel and uncaring. Akbar was already known as a great poet, but now he must also be called a great, fearless novelist.
Despite that gossipy setup, Reid creates a story with real weight. Her ear for dialogue — honed, no doubt, by the dozens of actual interviews she conducted with college students for this book — is finely tuned. It feels like you’re reading great gossip, but the characters come across as genuine, with real problems.
Copiously clad with humor and astute observations, each turn is like a tiny gift you get to unwrap. Every triumph is an indulgence to savor and every unfavorable outcome a bitter but welcome vibe-check. Though part of me wanted this book to go on indefinitely, there’s an undeniable appeal and beauty to the story being only one day.