pre-order my book

if you want to!

Hi all!

I am writing with a very exciting piece of news! My book has a cover. I specifically requested Bosch, and I got exactly what I wanted. I love it so much! Here it is!!!!

The book also has a publication date, April 2, and blurbs from two of my absolute favorite living authors:

“Becca Rothfeld, one of our finest critics, writes with the boldly sensuous lyricism of DH Lawrence and the pugnacious brilliance of Irving Howe. In All Things Are Too Small ideas sing, jostle, sweat and brawl. In no other writer is the life of the mind such a raucous, exhilarating joy.”

—Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment and Uncertain Ground

"It seemed at one time that the legendary New York intellectuals and the luminaries of Partisan Review were definitively matchless and could have no successors or replicas. Becca Rothfeld alone is refutation: she not only equals their prowess, she ventures beyond their boundaries into queries never before dared or dreamed. There is no aspect of contemporary civilization or literary engagement that eludes her eye and her voice — nor could Lionel Trilling have predicted so elastic a body of insights."

-Cynthia Ozick, NBCC- and PEN-award winning author of (most recently) Antiquities

 Here’s the publisher’s description: “All Things Are Too Small is brilliant cultural critic Becca Rothfeld’s soul cry for derangement: imbalance, obsession, gluttony, ravishment, ugliness, and unbound truth in aesthetics, whether we’re talking about literature, criticism, or design. In a healthy culture, Rothfeld argues, economic security allows for wild aesthetic experimentation and excess; alas, in the contemporary Anglophone West, we’ve got it flipped. The gap between rich and poor, privileged and oppressed, yawns hideously wide, while we stagnate in a cultural equality that imposes restraint.”

You can pre-order the book here, and I hope that you do! https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250849915/allthingsaretoosmall

On this happy note, I’d like to say that I’m about to make my best attempt to step back from the internet, and, by extension, this Substack. I will still write brief updates when I have pieces out, and I will probably occasionally write longer reflections that will be accessible to paid subscribers (of whom there are, understandably, not many; I really do not know how often I’ll be writing, if at all, for my paid audience, so I really wouldn’t advise subscribing unless you have the money to spare). I’ll also certainly send out updates about book-related talks and events as my publication date approaches. But in general, I’ll try to limit myself to posting updates about pieces I’ve published, probably not much more than once a month. 

One reason I’m going to dial it back is that I think I’m writing a touch too much for places that aren’t my primary place of work, namely The Washington Post. But the bigger reason is that, with the publication of my book looming, it is really high time for me to get into the habit of logging off. People are going to say mean things about my book; even well-received books—indeed, even the best books ever written—are hated by someone, somewhere. A commenter on Goodreads writes about Lolly Willowes, “This is quite possibly the worst book I've ever had the torturous experience of enduring.” About Henry Green’s Loving, an absolute masterwork of English prose, someone writes, “It was boring and absolutely flat. The setting might be descriptive and enchanting - an Irish castle. But, sadly, there wasn’t one word about the beauties of the castle and its interiors or its grounds.” If Sylvia Townsend Warner and Henry Green dissatisfy some people, then surely, so will I! There is simply no way to appease everyone, except by not writing anything at all.

But I’m still not the kind of person who can shrug criticism off. Even when I think the criticism in question is dumb or uncharitable, even when it’s coming from someone I don’t especially respect, I am not capable of simply not caring. Is anyone that kind of person? The kind of person who can shrug it off, I mean. They’re rumored to exist, and I hope to become one someday, but I don’t actually know any. I thought achieving a modicum of material security would help me achieve serenity about my haters, but it turns out that if you spend your formative years as a graduate student and freelancer, in a position in which you are actually at risk of plunging into destitution at practically every moment, it’s hard to shake a persistent feeling of vulnerability, even when it’s no longer merited. This is not a social justice issue—an issue of unjust cancellation—but an issue of mental and emotional hygiene.

In recent weeks, I’ve been especially on edge, because I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder called “pernicious anemia.” What this means is that my stomach cannot absorb vitamin B12, and, as a result, I have a severe vitamin B12 deficiency. (My levels of vitamin B12 are “undetectable.”) Despite its Victorian villain name, pernicious anemia is not actually that bad, as far as autoimmune disorders go. It’s easily treatable once you catch it; if you don’t catch it, your prospects can be dire. But I did catch it, thank goodness, so I will just get injections of B12 until I have normal levels. In the long term, the disease does ultimately make you likelier to contract stomach cancer, but in the short term it is not a very big deal (and your absolute probability of getting stomach cancer is still low). What has been exhausting and fraying is, first, the process of diagnosis (it is well documented how difficult it can be to get people to listen to you when you have a cluster of weird and indefinite symptoms, or even to take yourself seriously when you have a cluster of weird and indefinite symptoms) and, second, the symptoms of severe vitamin B deficiency (in my case, flooring fatigue, weird chest pains, and very bad gastrointestinal issues that I am still irrationally terrified are evidence stomach of cancer—and that I will probably remain half-convinced are signs of stomach until I actually get an endoscopy and come to my senses). All of which is to say: my skin is at its absolute thinnest these days, so it seems like a good time to begin to practice the fine art of logging the fuck off.

I would love to keep in touch in the DMs, that is, via email. I’m around, if sometimes slow, at ilikenabokov@gmail.com. And every week, generally speaking, you can find me in a purer form in print—in the books section of The Washington Post.

Much love,

Becca