Lena Dunham to publish new novel one chapter at a time on Vogue, and you can vote on what happens
Aux Features Books
One of the things about self-isolating is that there’s really only so much time you can fill by watching Netflix or playing the new Animal Crossing. It’s a good idea to try new activities that you might not otherwise have much time or desire to do because, well, it’s better than risking the further spread of the coronavirus. So, before you read the headline up above and turn your nose up at this, maybe give it a try and expand your horizons a little bit. Any time you spend doing something is time not spent getting sick or getting someone else sick.
So, with that established: Vogue is going to be publishing a new novel from Girls’ Lena Dunham one chapter a day, Monday through Friday, starting today. It’s called Verified Strangers, and it’s about a 30-something woman who is “addicted to dating” and starts only going out with “verified strangers” (a “friend of a friend” in less-buzzy terms). As it turns out, this works too good and she starts “juggling relationships like she’s Don Draper.”
In another wacky twist, Vogue says that every other chapter will end on a cliffhanger, with readers on Vogue’s Instagram being able to vote on what should happen next. Dunham says she will stick to whatever the voters decide, and it sounds like she’ll really be writing this on the fly and not banking alternate versions of what happens, adding that it’s a “modern choose-your-own-adventure romance novel, written exclusively for quarantined singletons and the people who love them.” Now, again, before you register any particular reaction to this news, just remember that you don’t necessarily have anything better to do. You can read the first chapter at this link, and make sure to keep an eye out for any yetis or sharks that might play into your voting options.
71 Comments
This is what we get for pretending Charles Dickens doesn’t suck.
The well known Dutch author?
He was the voice of his generation! Or at least a voice of a generation.
He did really capture the whole Dickensian aspect, though.
Everything started to get a little clearer when, three bites into her mushroom ragu, Ally’s date poked at it with his fork and asked, “You into this?”“Yeah, I like it” she replied, adjusting her too-tight baby-pink blouse over her tummy.
“I am DONE, Caz,” Ally shrieked, sucking down a black olive from the jar.
It’s the type of confused writing you see from people who just decide they must be competent to write a novel. Someone who actually understood what they were doing wouldn’t have someone shriek while simultaneously “sucking down” a piece of food – how does that even work? And what does “sucking down” food even mean? Did she not swallow it? It’s like she doesn’t want to use the colloquialism/idiom of inhaling food because its too familiar so she makes up her own colloquialism that sounds confused because it’s not something anyone says.
“Sucking down food,” idiom or not, brings to mind in this case the character choking on an olive they accidentally inhaled. Because sucking implies some form of vacuum pressure, and sucking an olive would certainly send it flying, unchewed, into the back of your throat — preventing you from talking, let alone shrieking.
Which would have made for a much better story, but hey.
I don’t think Dunham gets how eating works. She goes out of her way to describe an insane amount of food that the main character manages to consume in the time it takes to say about three lines, which is probably about ten seconds.Speaking of, the dialogue is atrocious. No one speaks like that, anywhere.
I take it that’s a direct quote from the chapter? I have to hand it to you, reasons to not read any further don’t come much more succinct than that.
https://cukurovaevdeneve.com
Oh this definitely won’t be hijacked by internet trolls.
I’m on it. Yumsh, recognitions, where you guys at?
Sorry, busy at your mom’s house. Spoiler: she ain’t isolating a damn thing.
You mad I spelled your name rong?
You say ‘hijacking’, I say ‘creatively appropriated.’
Alas, “Stop” is not an option.
Sadly neither is “Go Fuck Yourself, Lena”.
“You’re the Florence Foster Jenkins of our times” isn’t either.
I’m a big believer in the Suppressed Paganism theory of modern society’s relationship to celebrities: That we watch these people and are especially titillated by their downfall—especially of young women—because what we really want to do is no, not watch them in a rom-com or produce a new album of pop classic, but rather sacrifice them at the winter solstice to make the sun come back and propitiate the gods. And watching them implode from drugs or vax conspiracism or Scientology or ‘exhaustion’ is what we’re forced to accept as a consolation prize.
I’m too lazy to choose my own adventures. I don’t feel like choosing hers.
Hmmm, how to I make Lena’s character walk into the path of the oncoming train?
The train is hounded off of twitter amid accusations of fat-shaming.
Can we just vote for her to stop writing?
No, that’s in there with ‘wishing for a million more wishes’.
Can I vote to stop publication after the first chapter?
what did we do to deserve this?
First self-quarantine, now this torture?
You were bad. Very bad.
JESUS CHRIST!
Yes, that is exactly who Lena Dunham thinks she is. Ten points to Gryffindor.
Did she get that outfit from RuPauls’s garage sale?
RuPaul’s fire sale. As in her garage was on fire.
yawn. i don’t get her appeal at all.
Ooh, is one of the verified strangers a black man who the main character assumes is mentally sexually denigrating her based on absolutely no evidence?
No, he’s not sexually anything her at all, which is even worse!
[ For USA ] ★My last month paycheck was for 1500 dollars… All i did was simple online work from comfort at home for 3-4 hours/day that I got from this agency I discovered over the internet and they paid me for it 95 bucks every hour………Lifestylesreview.com
Ugh, she is the quintessential “born on third but thinks she hit a third” AND the quintessential “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”I’d rather get COVID19
“born on third but thinks she hit a third”I see you’re an expert on baseball.Love it when those sport men hit a third!
Forget it, Dead_Elvis. It’s AVClub.
No thanks.
I’ll give this an emphatic “nah”.
i am still trying to get past the photo. What the hell is she wearing?
I can’t believe that is a real photo of her…. She looks like some dude at a dress like a Chav party.
Are you impugning the good name of Gareth Cattermole?
I believe it’s a glitter dress that was used to clean up a bird strike at the airport.
Damn it. I had actually successfully forgotten about her. Really. Then she haaaaaad to pop up again. Christ almighty…..
Yep. I also thought we had successfully Processed her; shifted her into her duly appointed role of Celebrity Unfunny Court Jester. Like Tia Tequila or Sarah Palin.
why does the world keep encouraging this awful person!?!??!?
I vote for Lena Dunham to go away!
Remember when she wrote about putting pebbles into her sister’s vagina when her sister was a fucking baby? That shit’s insane.
I’ve heard of a novel virus, but a novel book?
i wonder how long until she figures out a way to show off her gross naked body.
I know it’s really shitty to criticize women based on how they look, but with Dunham my mind just goes nowhere else. She’s so uniquely frumpy and oddly shaped and just generally unattractive. I swear I wouldn’t feel that way if she wasn’t also horrible but she just ends up being this universally repulsive package.
she’s a repulsive person. i think her getting naked as often as she does is because she knows she’s repulsive and knows people are going to say things like “i know it’s really shitty to criticize women based on how they look.”
it’s a total trap and she knows it. she’s trash.
I’m going to put this in the “These Are The End Times” evidence pile.
And it’s such a crummy, shitty empire compared to Rome, too. Even at the end, Rome had exquisite mosaics and statuary and fish oil and wine and nubile serving-girls. And nobody had to wear pants; pants were for barbarians. We? We have, well, all of this.
I hope she ends up with Boaty McBoatface.
Yandy.
Ah, the upward failure of the mediocre white people. Why can’t she just be awful in a normal way? She should just secretly support Trump like 99% of rich “liberals” (I’m not conservative, not libertarian, and NOT a Trump supporter).They all talk that feel good shit, show up to centrist Dem rallies, but monsters like Trump always protect the rich. At the end of the day, rich people only care about their wealth.
She’s only awful in “special” ways. I’m convinced that Jezebel alum Tracie is correct in including Lena in her list of celebs who have Munchausen syndrome. One of the many reasons she’s such a cringe factory.
I’d honestly rather have coronavirus than read this, but I did get a solid laugh out of “before you register any particular reaction to this news, just remember that you don’t necessarily have anything better to do.”
I look forward to Emily VanDerWurff’s review proclaiming this the greatest American novel and calling out the sexism of everyone who disagrees
Yep. Between that and what I hear about how members of The Wing treat the staff of The Wing and whatsername’s scream about everyone not seeing Charlie’s Angels, we’ve reached the Scold Them Into Compliance stage of pop-feminism.
Came here for the Lena Dunham ha I’mte. I am not disappointed.
Can I vote for whatever character she uses as a surrogate die?
https://cukurovaevdeneve.com
I vote that the vast majority of people will not give a shit, then Dunham will say it’s because we’re body-shaming her.
Someone needs to say it: Some bodies, sometimes, should be occasions for shame.
Does Anna Wintour thinks that this chick is relevant 9? Or it’s her only one option for “body positive not model”.