RaveNew City LitDespentes reveals the epistolary as maybe the perfect form for the pandemic era. In those months and years spent distanced, maybe the only true form of storytelling is that of distant communication, of words sent over wires as our sole tool for empathy. Despentes captures a surprising amount of growth in these letters, revealing the odd truth that, for some, the pandemic was a catalyst and not just a pause or an end. In realizing that truth and the way she depicted it, Despentes may have written the first great pandemic novel—one that is funny, emphatic and real, as all great epistolary novels are.
Michel Houellebecq
RaveNew City LitI find little fault ... A novel that is brutally personal while having a larger political sweep ... Is Houellebecq good enough to love despite his politics? Even with the politics distracting on the page, Annihilation is a novel whose excellence I struggle to deny.
