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<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/evening-mary-gaitskill-los-angeles-review-books/"></div><p>By <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/contributor/sophie-browner">Sophie Browner</a></p>
<p>Two weekends ago, the <em>Los Angeles Review of Books</em> hosted Mary Gaitskill at Editor-in-Chief Tom Lutz’s home for an evening of samosas, reading, and conversation. I first fell in love with Gaitskill in college when I read her debut collection of short stories, <em>Bad Behavior</em>. Reading Gaitskill for the first time was like the first puff of a cigarette. It felt illicit, invigorating. <a href="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/evening-mary-gaitskill-los-angeles-review-books/#more-4244" class="more-link">Read more</a></p>
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An Evening with Mary Gaitskill and the <em>Los Angeles Review of Books</em>

An Evening with Mary Gaitskill and the Los Angeles Review of Books

other-women

<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/interviews/youth-creativity-women-interview-nicola-maye-goldberg/"></div><p>By <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/contributor/sophie-browner">Sophie Browner</a></p>
<p><em>Nicola Maye Goldberg’s new book</em>, <a href="http://www.witchcraftmag.com/shop/other-women-by-nicola-maye-goldberg">Other Women</a><em>, is a delicate, feminine bildungsroman that follows a young woman from New York City to Berlin and back again. The protagonist — nameless, sensitive, brilliant — wanders in a ghostly fashion through the city streets, reflecting on her life and the decisions she has made. </em>Other Women<em> is a brilliant little novel (little in physicality and length at 164 pages), brimming with obsession, vulnerability, and heartbreak. It is at once dark and bright — morbid without being turgid, specific without being pretentious. </em> <a href="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/interviews/youth-creativity-women-interview-nicola-maye-goldberg/#more-3532" class="more-link">Read more</a></p>
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Youth, Creativity, and <em>Other Women</em>: An Interview with Nicola Maye Goldberg

Youth, Creativity, and Other Women: An Interview with Nicola Maye Goldberg

baldwin

<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/james-baldwin-prophet/"></div><p>By <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/contributor/sophie-browner">Sophie Browner</a></p>
<p>In one of the opening scenes of Raoul Peck’s <em>I Am Not Your Negro</em>, we are shown a clip of James Baldwin as a guest on The Dick Cavett Show. Cavett is asking Baldwin about whether he is hopeful or despairing for the future. Baldwin breaks into that dazzling gap-toothed smile of his and takes a breath before beginning. It is a particular skill of Baldwin’s that remains uniquely his own: to rain down thunderous truth with such measured grace. In <em>Notes of a Native Son</em>, Baldwin writes of living in a white world, “One is always in the position of having to decide between amputation and gangrene.” Neither option is particularly enticing: either one lives as a cripple or suffers the “equally unbearable…risk of swelling up slowly, in agony, with poison.” To throw a glass of water at the owner of a diner who refused to serve him — something Baldwin writes about in his book — is amputation. To smile through the ignorant questions of white folks, that’s surely gangrene. To tell the truth, Baldwin concedes to Cavett, he doesn’t have much hope. Does that make Baldwin a pessimist or a fortune-teller? <a href="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/james-baldwin-prophet/#more-3455" class="more-link">Read more</a></p>
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James Baldwin as Prophet

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<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/call-white-allies/"></div><p>By <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/contributor/sophie-browner/">Sophie Browner</a></p>
<p>A beautiful thing has happened. In the ten days since Donald Trump was elected as president, a new rhetoric has emerged to counter the neofascism that the people who voted him into office have seemingly normalized. On Wednesday of this week, I organized a <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/protesters-call-trump-fire-steve-bannon-la-dc-948237">protest</a> with several members of my community against Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon as chief strategist. For those not familiar with Bannon’s background, he is the executive chairman of Breitbart News, a conservative American commentary website. To give you a sense of Breitbart’s politics, previous headlines featured on the site: &#8220;Hoist it High and Proud: The Confederatre Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage&#8221;; &#8220;Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy&#8221;…You get the point. Bannon refers to himself as a member of the “alt-right,” which critics have rightfully picked up as a euphemism for white nationalism. <a href="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/call-white-allies/#more-2695" class="more-link">Read more</a></p>
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A Call to White Allies

Goodbye, Vitamin

Sophie Browner is a New York-born writer currently living in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in <em>Adult Mag, Not Mad</em>, and <em>All-In</em>, amongst others.

Sophie Browner

The Mind Plays Tricks: Memory Loss and Nostalgia in Rachel Khong’s “Goodbye, Vitamin”

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't." — Mark Twain

Fiction

There Are No Royalties in Porn: An Interview with Cindy Gallop, CEO of Make Love Not Porn

"Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors." — Simone Weil

Cultural Studies

"As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag." — Patti Smith