

This - combined with Attenberg’s frequent references to being “alone” - is the language of a drug addict and, as Attenberg is so keen to remind us throughout her dreadful dirge, she did drugs, folks! And not only that. Such are the hard knock realities of living under late-stage capitalism while subtly participating in the “great resignation.”) A few hundred pages later - because self-aggrandizement is the Attenberg formula (and it works! she has the 38,000 followers on Twitter to prove it!) - she trots out her privilege by noting how she and her merry narcissists “leave our towels on the floor for someone to pick up after it is time for us to go.” I’m guessing that this amorphous “someone” is a hell of a lot more interesting than Attenberg. Most of us, of course, simply do our duties and never complain about it. Maybe because dogs are usually reliable at sniffing out leeches and sponges? The truly atrocious people who boast about their hollow lives and take take take from those who have earned their stature through hardscrabble years of real work? Maybe because even animals have an intuitive sense of sussing out human garbage complaining about being the “help”? (I’ll refrain from the obvious Kathryn Stockett parallel here, but I cannot help but be angered by Attenberg’s casual slide to white privilege as she boasts about traveling to Italy, Sicily, Portugal, England, and Australia without having anything particularly insightful to say.

I felt a little bit like I was the help, there to accomplish a designated task, even though no one actually made me feel that way.”

“I was allowed to stay there for free as long as I walked the dog, an enormous Tibetan mastiff, which I did, diligently, even though the dog didn’t like me all that much and sometimes snapped at me. There is so much conceited drivel to quote from in her latest book (of which more anon), but I’ll start here:

Should there come a time in which this insufferable solipsist is precluding from publishing any further books, I will write ruthlessly joyful ballads for the many trees that are spared from massacre to spew out her deranged and self-serving lexical offerings. She literally contributes nothing to literature other than wanton displays of privileged navel-gazing. Jami Attenberg is easily one the most narcissistic and least interesting writers of our time. I CAME ALL THIS WAY TO MEET YOU: WRITING MYSELF HOME
