The book takes an abrupt turn when, having existed so long in the hellscape of twitter she isn’t sure how to interact as a normal human anymore and tragedy strikes her family. No One is Talking About This plays close to autofiction as it follows a twitter-celebrity as she speaks at social media conferences around the world and generally shitposts and laughs her way through the online community termed here as The Portal. Author of the much acclaimed 2017 memoir Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood has made a smash through social media, her poem Rape Joke having been a viral hit and even meeting her now-husband in a poetry chatroom. But how has this altered the way we engage with the world around us, especially in wake of tragedy? There are few people better equipped to tell a narrative of being Extremely Online than the Poet Laureate of Twitter herself, Patricia Lockwood. It’s a rapidly shifting world with a new main character everyday (the goal of twitter, of course, is to remain as active as possible but never BE the main character) and can be an utter minefield of social anxieties and attacks. ‘ A mind was merely something trying to make it in the world.’ĭoomscrolling, thirst traps, subtweets, chonky bois, stans, sliding into DMs, shouting YAS or saying a MOOD tbh… the landscape of social media has forever altered our lexicon, our politics, our social interactions and more. 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 evidence to the contrary.įragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.

'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. A book that asks: Is there life after the internet?Īs 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