Exploring the complexities of love, this memoir-in-essays delves into the author's intimate experiences with obsession and heartbreak while offering sharp insights on modern life, feminism, art, and sexuality. Through a blend of personal narrative and thoughtful commentary, it celebrates the peculiar beauty of falling in love, whether with a person or a piece of art, revealing the profound connections that shape our lives.
Endlessly inventive and intimate, this memoir-in-essays celebrates the exquisite state of falling in love, whether with a painting or a person. It interweaves incisive commentary on modern life, feminism, art, and sex with the author's experiences of obsession, heartbreak, and past trauma. Capturing the imagination like a song written just for you, this debut work of nonfiction explores the joy and terror inherent in love. Pham delves into culture for insights on love and loss, drawing connections from Agnes Martin's abstract paintings to Frank Ocean's music. She reflects on her youthful attempts to find meaning in travel, sex, drugs, and art, ultimately realizing the need for self-examination. The narrative also addresses distances, both near and far, as she travels from Taos, New Mexico, to Shanghai, China, meditating on the lengths we go to escape ourselves or those who hurt us, and the gaps that can exist between two people sharing a bed. This work examines the various routes we take to evade our own needs before finding a way home. With heartache woven throughout, Pham's electric perspective offers a fractured portrait of modern intimacy, triumphant in its vulnerability and restlessness.