Hello! I wrote this a few weeks ago while I was re-reading Sweetbitter. I wasn’t going to send it because…I don’t send 95% of the things I write (ha ha). But whatever, here is something to read!
I have months and weeks when I seem to forget what actually lurks inside my brain, but it only takes a few bad days to remind me.
So when everything piles up, and I start to feel like I can’t function any longer, and all I seem able to do is stare at a wall (or read a book that I’ve read multiple times)…
There is only one thing that can comfort me when I’m feeling the visceral desperation of an impending depressive episode: Stephanie Danler’s novel Sweetbitter.
I read this book for the sensory details. I can taste, hear, feel, smell, everything so deeply my skin lights up. It makes me feel the way a robust glass of wine makes me feel: everything is more intense, and yet somehow softer. My limbs loosen, my skin prickles, my vision blurs, my heart races, but most notably, I am overcome with a sense of relief. I feel lighter.
Danler’s writing is melodramatic, perhaps, but so am I. Every time I read Sweetbitter, I am completely overtaken by the story. And I am reminded that it’s okay to feel things intensely. It’s okay to feel hungry. It’s okay to grasp for life, desperately.
There is no shame in passion, no reason to hide what you want.
Some readers find the writing in Sweetbitter to be overdone, purple, maybe a little cringe. I don’t disagree, necessarily, but I think that’s the point, in a way—an example of form supporting the message.
Everyone treats Tess (our protagonist) as if she is too girly, too feminine, too pretty, too naive, too young—i.e. not cool enough, not intelligent enough, not serious enough. And it’s easy to read about her and deem her behavior, at times, too much.
But I see this entire book as a reclamation—a chance for women to reclaim emotionality, intensity, and passion as power.
Tess often seems lost and confused, often seeking validation (from Simone, from Jake, from Howard, from anyone who will give it to her). But her moments of power and confidence, no matter how brazen or misguided they are in the moment, feel so good to read.
Small-but-cutting instances of misogyny abound in this world (it’s set in the restaurant industry in 2006-2007, after all), many of them internalized, and it plays such an important role here. The condescending comments, the girl-hating, the idea of a bitter woman (Simone), is all purposeful to this twenty-something coming-of-age story. Because coming-of-age is really difficult when everyone hates you (a young woman) but also wants to use you.
Finding the balance between getting what you want, and letting people take advantage of you…it’s a very fine line, one that Tess oversteps on at least one occasion. But by the end, even when Tess realizes she has fallen, she finds herself closer to the woman she wants to be.
This is a book that tells you to feel, to pay attention—a reminder that I need every once in a while.
And I do.
I am bursting at the seams with feelings, and it hurts, and it feels amazing (sometimes), and I won’t apologize for the intensity with which I live (or wallow).
(a playlist)
Thanks for reading today’s issue of Empty Head. I just needed to talk about this book since it is in fact my fave.
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