Ron Charles’ enthusiasm for this book is infectious. He says, “Please don’t do this. Don’t write a novel about trying to write a novel. It’s cliche and insular and lazy. Just don’t do it. Unless it’s this novel — this wonderful, witty, heartfelt novel by Lily King titled Writers and Lovers.” I strongly agree and also have an aversion to books about writing, but this is the exception.
And then there’s the discomfort with books that have unrealistically happy endings. I rejoiced with each piece of fantastical good news, and I noted that Ron Charles did too. He says, “Writers and Lovers is a funny book about grief, and worse, it’s dangerously romantic, bold enough and fearless enough to imagine the possibility of unbounded happiness.” I worried with each misfortune—that lump under her arm, a love interest who is grieving and has adorable children, her landlord putting the potting shed where she lives on the market—but kept listening. Oddly enough, these and her many other tribulations are disposed of in a satisfying, uplifting way. It would be churlish to be grumpy about a book this witty and good-hearted.
Lily King’s breakout book, Euphoria, is a novel about Margaret Mead, throughly enjoyable for the evocation of that endlessly fascinating historical figure, as well as its own fictional story. It was very different from this one. Now she has written a new one with Casey, the writer in Writers and Lovers, at the center again. And Ron Charles likes it too.
Lily King, Writers and Lovers, Grove Press, 2020, 324 pages (I listened to the audiobook). Available in the public library.