It’s raining in New Orleans. It doesn’t matter when I’m writing this or when you're reading it — it’s raining in New Orleans.
On July 19, our beloved TV weather queen Margaret Orr said we’d had 39 days of rain since June 1. That’s 10 out of 49 days with no rain but psychologically it feels like 0 out of 49. I just want to go to the pool. We’re hitting our annual average rainfall of about 63 inches seven months into the year. There are tadpoles living and thriving in the perma-puddles on my block. We are all Forrest Gump in Vietnam except our lives are (usually) not in danger.
You’d think this would give me more time to read, but in fact I spend most of my free time now squinting at the sky from different windows in my house, trying to determine if and when I can do outside things. I’m mastering the science of determining which clouds are wet-making. I’ve mastered the art of hearing rain on my window and whispering bitterly to no one, goddamnit.
— Ashley
let me tell you about this book
First of all, if you’re reading this and you’re in my book club and you want to wait to hear my Takes™️ in person, scroll on by. I’ll see you in a few hours.
For everyone else: Hi! Read this book!! It’s very good!!! I always recommend whatever book I write about here because that’s the whole point, but they’re not always for everyone. The Glass Hotel has the distinction of being universally enjoyable. Or at least I think so.
Things in The Glass Hotel I feel pretty confident you’ll love:
Scammers scamming
Scammers scamming and getting caught and suffering consequences
Just a little bit of ‘90s rave culture and Y2K nostalgia
Drama at sea
A posh, drunk older woman with an ax to grind
Ghosts (or, if you prefer, guilt hallucinations)
Feeling like you have some understanding of Canadian geography1
I know I’ve said it before, but I really am a sucker for when a story is told by shifting through different characters’ perspectives, giving us different threads to tug on and puzzle pieces to set in place. There are so many people in play across two countries and coasts in this story that their connective web might seem implausible to you. I felt a bit of that, but it’s actually not so crazy. You could create a web like that for so many human lives, particularly when the humans in question move around a lot. I tried to tease the idea out in my own (tired) mind and it made my head spin, so, credit to Emily St. John Mandel.
I don’t know why I’m trying to sell you on this book with lists, but here’s another. An incomplete cast of characters:
The odd, beautiful, young girl touched by tragedy
Her druggy, awkward, wrecking ball of a half-brother
The wildly wealthy man running a Ponzi scheme
An unnamed Ponzi scheme henchman speaking for the sort of comical cast of other Ponzi scheme henchmen and women.2
The mild-mannered remote luxury hotel manager
The doomed global shipping executive
I honestly don’t want to say more because I found the ways in which they get tangled up surprising and delightful. Not, like, big twists. Just fun little turns.
So I guess that’s my final word on this. Fun little mystery turns. Like running stoned through a maze.
let me tell you about these cats
I’m writing to you from the beyond because I am dead. It’s fine here. There’s good pizza but “Whoomp! (There It Is)” plays on loop.
Anyway, these cats killed me. They killed me because I stuck my nose and my camera where they did not belong, which is in their business.
Here’s what I remember before the end.
I was walking out of the Walgreens when I noticed something behind the parking lot fence. A light. It was the middle of a sunny day and yet this light shone. Glowed, really. Wouldn’t you walk toward it? As I got closer, the glow seemed to pulse. I noticed the kudzu growing on the abandoned home behind the fence had browned wherever the light touched it. From the pharmacy door, the security guard shook his head. A woman on the sidewalk let out a “tuh.” I kept moving closer and I could hear a soft but piercing wine. Some rustling. Glowing eyes. (Glowing in the daylight?) Purring. Claws. 🎶 Whoomp, there it is🎶
let me tell you about these earrings
In service to a look, I’ve been on the hunt for accessories on the lime green <—> chartreuse spectrum.
I’m renting this Solace London dress for a pretty formal wedding. I got these Nine West shoes, then Mango sold me this bag on sale before making me into Charlie Brown with the football and canceling the order3 because they ran out.4
Now I have these earrings.
Yes, earrings again in this electronic mail! Remember I said I would do what the hell I want?
But OK so they’re handmade and clay and very lightweight, though I’m vaguely nervous they might be kind of fragile. Thankfully I’m not usually banging my head and neck against anything hard. Mainly what they are though, I think, is deeply Millennial. They look like every single website, newsletter, or ad directed squarely at women who are currently ages 25 to 40. (If you’re thinking they should really be pink for this to work — keep up! We’re on to lavender and lime now.) As a woman born almost precisely at the halfway point of my generation5, I feel both entitled and obligated to lean into the aesthetic now and then. (See also: house plants.)
Details: They’re on Etsy from AshleeKayeDesigns. They’re called the Modern Arch Earring, but what my dumb brain thinks when I see them is “the boop and swoop earrings.” They’re $15 and right now it says there’s only one left, but there are so many other designs, you should just go look at all of them.
The Canada bit might be a stretch, I know, but I think we should all appreciate Canada more, as our future home when it gets too hot/flooded/fiery to live in these United States.
It’s possible I’m getting the identity of this person wrong? Maybe I didn’t make some kind of connection? At any rate I’m not going back to figure it out right now.
If you know of similar bags that aren’t too expensive, help a girl out.
wtf tho
Let me save you the math: I just turned 33.