Tales of Writerly Obsession

Lizzie Buehler is a translator (The Disaster Tourist, Art On Fire, Table for One) and the author of The Obsessed, out today from Putnam. Below, she recommends three autobiographical tales of writerly obsession.

I Love Dick by Chris Kraus

This novelist’s protagonist (also named Chris) becomes infatuated with her husband’s friend, Dick, but instead of trying to suppress her feelings, she succumbs to them completely, talking at length about the fixation with her husband, beginning an epistolary correspondence with Dick, and ultimately turning her entire life into a sort of performance art centered on her obsession. I love how Kraus depicts obsession as a vehicle by which someone can discover and empower herself.

How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti

The object of obsession here isn’t a specific person, but rather the titular question. Heti’s protagonist is desperately searching for an answer. How does a young artist live their life without losing their creativity, curiosity, or sanity? The nebulous and meandering nature of her searching is what makes this book so satisfying. I think every lost twentysomething artist should read it.

An I-Novel by Minae Mizumura, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter

What does it mean to be a writer in a language other than English, especially as English’s influence creeps increasingly into global literary traditions? Mizumura’s novel follows a literature graduate student in the US who has decided to move home to Japan and become a writer in Japanese. Its thoughtful and brooding narrator can’t get the following questions out of her head: What makes a language distinct? And where do we draw the line between influence and contamination?

The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis, translated by Michael Lucey

Eddy’s obsession is getting out of his current circumstances. Poor, gay, and relentlessly bullied in the rural French town where he grows up, he seems incapable of embodying the masculine ideal portrayed by his family and neighbors. When he realizes that academic pursuits are a way out, he dives in wholeheartedly, but this creates another divide between Eddy and his origins. As Eddy becomes increasingly educated, the classist structure of French society separates him from his family in ways he hadn’t expected. This novel is sometimes uncomfortably dark, but simultaneously depicts both one person’s mind and a society’s ills with such beauty.

photo credit: Lizzie Buehler

For more like this, sign up for the Book Riot Newsletter!