![]() We're all experiencing that loneliness right now. Everybody has this tragic thing, and I don't think we're capable of pretending anymore and answering, "Fine, how are you?" and moving on from the conversation. How are you? Well, my dog died last week. We're just unloading on random strangers. And I think that's becoming really apparent with the pandemic, because now people ask, "How are you?" and you get a world full of tragedy. Nobody who's ever asked, "How are you?" in America has actually meant the question or wanted an answer. ![]() They think they know everything there is to know about you. When you meet people, if you seem earnest - well, not earnest, I avoided that - but if you seem like an open book, and you have plenty of stories to tell, and you drop in, "Yeah, my parents were missionaries, f**king hippies, don't know what to tell you," and change the subject, people don't ask any questions. It's funny you said "chatty," because I figured out a long time ago if I talk a lot, I don't have to say anything. America is supposedly this obscenely chatty, gregarious country and people, but studies also show that we're also a really lonely country. It reaches an apex in the scenes when you're incarcerated in solitary confinement. One thing that I was really struck by in this book is how deeply it grapples with loneliness, particularly a specific kind of loneliness that occurs when a person is surrounded by others - first in living in group homes with the Children of God, and then with your family, and then with roommates in tiny spaces. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. I spoke with Hough by phone last week, shortly after the delightful news broke that Cate Blanchett would be joining her in narrating the audiobook. In that essay and 10 others, Hough writes about navigating her way through a multitude of identities, regions, and subcultures, daring to tell the truth about America from the inside and out. I Saw The Worst Of America," went viral in 2018. Hough's book has been hotly anticipated since her HuffPost essay, " I Was A Cable Guy. Those lies, people believe." The truth is she was raised all over the world in the infamous Children of God cult, a detail she kept secret for years until, with the help of the internet, she was able to connect with others like her. It turns out, as " Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing" (Vintage Books, out now) reveals in prose that crackles with dark wit, sharp observations and stunning revelations, surviving a childhood shaped by an abusive cult with her ambition intact may have uniquely positioned Hough to see not only authoritarian religions, but America itself - its military, its criminal justice system, its bigotries, the precarious edge upon which it positions its working class - through the clearest of eyes. ![]() "I'll tell you my parents were missionaries. "If you ask me where I'm from, I'll lie to you," Lauren Hough writes in the first line of her debut essay collection. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |