Reading notes: 'Banal Nightmare'
By Halle Butler. I am surprised that the book itself does not have a Wikipedia page.
I've tried to read a bunch of books that broadly fit a certain description: A female Millennial narrator who is worried about climate change (inter alia) observes her friends posting on social media, navigates annoyances in entry-level-ish jobs for socially aware people, interacts with deficient men, and so on. Banal Nightmare is, by a long way, my favorite of these. It's intelligent and well-structured, and never takes cheap shots (although some of its characters do).1
Not coincidentally, Banal Nightmare takes art, moral growth, and the intersections between them much more seriously than a lot of other contemporary writing does. It's also unusually engaging (I read it in less than two days).
I'm looking forward to any future books Butler writes.
To be clear: I am, along many dimensions, not any kind of authority on this category of book. I found this novel because Jonathan Franzen recommended it, and although Franzen's praise seems to me quite perceptive and correct, adjust your priors accordingly given that I'm getting reading recommendations from Jonathan Franzen.↩