What were your biggest challenges with writing this book? It was the dry sort of reportage of this novel where I thought I could do that and it could be interesting. I thought, “What would happen if I described my days just as they were?” They don’t feel like days of the past. She has this very interesting way of describing the character’s day in it, where she’s just going along about her day, doing the dishes, when she hears these supernatural radio broadcasts, and for some reason lightning struck me on that point. Caliban, a masterpiece by Rachel Ingalls. I’m happy that I have a really specific moment that happened on a really specific day so that when people ask me about this I can be like, “Yes! I have a moment! I know what it was!” We were moving apartments and I was hiding from my husband so I wouldn’t have to help him and I was in my room with all my cats reading Mrs. What was the first kernel of the idea for this book? What couldn’t you stop thinking about that led to creating this story?

As real life and its stakes collide with the antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary. In this genre-defying book, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts is already struggling to grapple with the absurdity of what she terms “the portal” in the face of looming existential threats, when a personal tragedy pierces the fray of her attempts to lose herself ever deeper into the void. Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: 'Something has gone wrong,' and 'How soon can you get here?' As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evide.Sandia Ashley, Bookseller, interviewed Patricia Lockwood, author of No One Is Talking About This, in celebration of being shortlisted for the 2021 First Novel Prize. 'Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?' 'Are we in hell?' the people of the portal ask themselves. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. When existential threats-from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness-begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms 'the portal,' where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans.

No one is talking about this book