Cancel Me (story) (2020)And, you have to wonder just how hard it is to gain such recognition in a generation that supposedly doesn’t even read, nevermind write. But this opening to Honor Levy’s story Cancel Me, kind of reminded my of Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities: Max is canceled. Oliver is canceled. Kian is canceled. Evelyn is canceled. Gideon is canceled. Rob is canceled. Bryce is canceled. Carter is canceled. These are names of people I have met. Names of people who have been canceled and stayed1 canceled. Here are some names you have heard: Roman, Louis, Woody, Kanye, Lana, Jia, Mario, Avital, Richard, Lorin, Luc with a “C”. I could go on. Some of them are rapists, some of them are racists, some of them used slurs, some of them did other things we wish they hadn’t done2. I could go on. You could go on. We could go on together. We could write articles and fill out Excel spreadsheets and make a thousand tweets. I’m not in the mood, but I’ll leave a blank space here if you’d like to go on _________________________. If that blank space is not long enough, feel free to use the margins or to whisper the name or even yell it. Sometimes it feels good to yell. Let me tell you about the last time I yelled.If Warhol once posited that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, we do seem to live in a present where everyone is notorious for at least 5. It is hard not to sympathize with this cohort of kids who have grown up having to watch their every word, lest they get themselves at cross purposes with the politically correct police. The Internet has obviously super-charged the issue because someone will surely screenshot your misstep and preserve it for all time. Adding to the danger is that what is acceptable today may be anathema tomorrow or you may offend a group you didn’t even know existed the day before. In this story, the narrator and two male friends–who are so obnoxious there seems to have been ample reason to cancel them–are trying to get into a party hosted by the former’s cancelled ex-boyfriend. This leads her to consider the whole phenomenon: “I should be able to play any person, tree, or animal,” says Scarlett Johannsen. That was yesterday or the day before. By the time you read this she will have issued a formal apology. I think. It seems like everyone is apologizing these days. When someone is canceled it means we are done with them. They can yell and scream and share their opinions as much as they want, but we are done hearing them. We will close our pre-war windows and leave them in the rain. If they want to be heard again they need to apologize. We will crack open our windows and listen.Truthfully, one does often wonder whether the apologies are sincere at all. Sure, someone may sometime say something offensive out of genuine ignorance, but more often it seems that they have merely expressed an anodyne personal belief, which is generally forgivable, or deliberately sought attention by provoking. From what I’ve read by and about Ms Levy, she would appear to be more prone to the latter. Her schtick apparently relies on being at least alt-right adjacent. One can understand the desire to kick against the intellectual boundaries her generation has had to grow up in, but, as our current political climate demonstrates, it’s a terrifyingly short step from this innocent fun to normalizing the kinds of speech that any decent society ought not tolerate. A Kanye who called for moving past a slave mentality is only a step away from the Ye who praises Hitler. What we really need is a Gen Z writer–or any writer–who will reckon with cancel culture in a way that differentiates differences of opinion from actual expressions of hatred, especially those intended to lead to action. (Reviewed:) Grade: (B-) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Honor Levy -PUBLISHER PAGE: Honor Levy (Penguin Random House) -AUTHOR SITE: Perfectly Imperfect -AUTHOR PODCAST: Wet Brain (Walter Pearce and Honor Levy) -TWITTER: @mimpathy -TIKTOK: Honor Levy -SOUNDCLOUD: Honor Levy -SUBSTACK: My Blog (Honor Levy) -ENTRY: Honor Levy (BookBrowse) -ENTRY: Honor Levy (Good Reads) -ENTRY: My First Book by Honor Levy (Good Reads) -ENTRY: Honor Levy (Fantastic Fiction) -INDEX: Honor Levy (Elle) -INDEX: Honor Levy (NY Tyrant) -INDEX: Honor Levy (LitHub) -INDEX: Honor Levy (Granta) - - -VIDEO ARCHIVES: “honor levy” (YouTube) - - -STORY: Cancel Me (Honor Levy, May 21, 2020, NY Tyrant) -STORY: Good Boys (Honor Levy, Jul. 23rd, 2020, The New Yorker) -VIDEO: Dramatic Teen Monologue: Monologue written and performed by Honor Levy. (YoungActorsStudio, Jul 3, 2014) -VIDEO: Heavy Traffic LA: Rachel Kushner & Honor Levy (Heavy Traffic LA, 2/23/25) -STORY: Love Story (Honor Levy) -EXCERPT: Shoebox World : from My First Book (Honor Levy, Lit Hub) -ESSAY: Four Memories of Giancarlo DiTrapano (The Paris Review April 7, 2021) -STORY: Pillow Angels (Honor Levy, Heavy Traffic) -ESSAY: Honor Levy Says ‘Goodnight Meme’: Why a writer inextricably associated with online culture decided to log off. (Honor Levy, May 13, 2024, Elle) - - -PODCAST: Red Scare #381: Honor Roll (w/ Honor Levy) (Red Scare, Jan 6, 2025) -PODCAST: 107. Honor Levy (first 30 min) (1storypod) -PODCAST: 654: Honor Levy (How Long Gone, 6/07/24) -PODCAST: Ep. 54: Demons with Honor Levy (The Ion Pack, Jul 31, 2021) - -PROFILE: Her First Book: Six hours in Dimes Square with the 26-year-old author and niche icon Honor Levy. (Brock Colyar, May 3, 2024, New York: The Cut) -PROFILE: They Had a Fun Pandemic. You Can Read About It in Print. (Ben Smith, Mar. 7th, 2021, NY Times) -PROFILE: Honor Levy: the writer capturing the warp-speed mania of online: The New Yorker loved Honor Levy's writing so much that they published one of her short stories when she was only 21. Now she’s one of the most intriguing talents in the literary world. (Thomas Gorton, 14th June 2022, The Face) -PROFILE: Honor Levy cares more than you think she does (Isabelle Truman, 4 Dec 2024, Russh) -PROFILE: Honor Levy’s First Book Is the Ultimate Simulation of Life Online: “I’m not here to tell people how they should think”: The New York author speaks to Jenna Mahale about Adderall, identity politics, and her long-awaited debut novel (Jenna Mahale, 5/20/24, AnOther) -PROFILE: “Everybody’s Talking About Me”: (Annie Hamilton, June 18, 2024, Interview) -PROFILE: Honor Levy Doesn't Care If You've Read Her (patrick sproull, May 17, 2024, Paper) -INTERVIEW: Honor Levy Says She’s “Grown Up and Full of Shame”: The My First Book author is coming through a post-interview pile-on, and she’d like to clarify a few things on the other side. (Keziah Weir, 5/13/24, Vanity Fair) -PROFILE: Lost Vibes All Around: In her inaugural collection of short stories, aptly titled My First Book, Honor Levy is a cultural anthropologist with a wry wit who isn’t afraid to get personal. (Alina Cohen, May 13, 2024, Family Style) -INTERVIEW: The Life and Times of the Very Online (Natasha Stagg, AirMail) -INTERVIEW: Read Me to Filth: Honor Levy: The author of My First Book on the tattoos she regrets, retelling Shakespeare for Gen Z, and how long it takes for a cultural event to become a bouncy house. (Lydia Eliza Trail, 3 July 2024, Spike Art) -INTERVIEW: On struggling with criticism: Writer Honor Levy discusses curiosity, using AI, and being careful about what you parody. (Shy Watson, June 13, 2024, Creative Independent) -INTERVIEW: What Literary It Girl Honor Levy Watched & Listened To While Writing My First Book: And what she looked at (lots and lots of screenshots). (Sophia June, 3/14/24, Nylon) -INTERVIEW: Walt John Pearce and Honor Levy on Potties, Performance Art, and Gertrude Stein (Richard Turley, April 19, 2024, Interview) -INTERVIEW: Honor Levy on Her First Book (Anna Dorn, 5/14/24, Elizabeth Ellen’s Hobart) - - - - - - -ESSAY: Levy discourse, Is Milton any good!? lol, Nigerian lit crit, Luther, Bluestockings, Pompeii, Mothers, Liberty, prosody: The irregular review of reviews, vol. VI (Henry Oliver, May 07, 2024, The Common Reader) -ESSAY: Honor Levy at the end of the wor(l)d: Can we escape the clutches of twee adult baby memery? (Eris, Oct 24, 2024, Discordia Review) -ESSAY: TradCaths, astrologists, and spiritual bankruptcy: Honor Levy Part 1(b) *Erism, Nov 16, 2024, Discordia Review) -ESSAY: The Temporary License of Literary Bratdom: New works by the Zoomer and young millennial writers Gabriel Smith, Frankie Barnet, and Honor Levy share gonzo premises, bizarre imagery, exuberantly “unlikable” characters, and an eye-rolling contempt for the status quo. (Katy Waldman, September 4, 2024, The New Yorker) -ESSAY: On Honor Levy and the literary game (Alex Perez, July 5, 2024, Washington Examiner) -ESSAY: A Cancellation Trilogy: Jews take the lead in a new literary art form: The cancel-culture novel (Sheluyang Peng, September 22, 2024, Tablet) Mentioning that all three authors are of Jewish heritage may seem like an odd thing to point out. While the protagonists of all three books are also of Jewish heritage, only Davis’ book makes Jewish identity a central motif. Yet it’s no surprise that Jewish authors would be particularly en garde against the encroachments of cancel culture. The history of world Jewry can be seen as a series of cyclical scapegoating and persecution, with Jews being blamed for everything from poisoning wells to the infamous blood libel, often suffering violent pogroms as a result. To be Jewish is to be perhaps uniquely aware of the human propensity for scapegoating and mob violence, and to see it a potential personal threat. - - -INDEX: Dimes Square (New York) -ESSAY: New York’s Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church (Julia Yost, Aug. 9th, 2022, NY Times) -ESSAY: ‘The Drunken Canal’: Where Privilege Roams Free: Ketamine and mediocrity on Canal Street (Arahi Fletcher, Mar 30, 2021, NYU Local) -ESSAY: The Drunken Canal is Making a Portable Version of Downtown New York (Patrick McGraw, March 1, 2021, Interview) -ESSAY: Alt lit memories: I was there, reader. Sort of. Kinda. (Adam Fleming Petty, Feb 13, 2025, Very Distant Lands Newsletter) -ESSAY: Alt Lit (Sam Kriss, Feb. 4th, 2025, The Point) -REVIEW: of Brat by Gabriel Smith: Extremely Online and Incredibly Tedious (Rhian Sasseen, The Baffler) -ESSAY: Do You Need to Care About Dimes Square? Probably Not (Serena Dai, Aug. 10th, 2022, Bon Apetit) -ESSAY: Escape from Dimes Square (Will Harrison, May. 24th, 2022, The Baffler) -ESSAY: Is Reading Over for Gen Z Students?: What happens when students come to college less willing and able to do the work? (Jack Stripling, September 10, 2024, The Chronicle Review) -ESSAY: The tyranny of signifiers (Ben Sixsmith, December 15, 2023, Washington Examiner) - - -PODCAST: 24: My First Book — ''My Ch-UwU-ngus Arc' (Tooky's Side Bar Book Club, 6/25/24) - - - - - -REVIEW INDEX: Honor Levy (Kirkus) - -REVIEW: of My First Book by Honor Levy (Dwight Garner, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Joshua Vigil, Chicago Review of Books) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Olivia Kan-Sperling, Paris Review) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Kieran Press-Reynolds, Alta) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Cold Healing) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Adam Wilson, BookForum) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Conor Truax, LA Review of Books) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Lelan Cheuk, NPR) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Arx-Hahn, Decentralized Fiction) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Manuel Marrero, Expat Press) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Anthony Cummins, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Cora Rolfes, Michigan Daily) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Greta Rainbow, Dirt) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Sharon Beriro, on the Seawall) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Finn McRedmond, New Statesman) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Martin Dolan, Cleveland Review of Books) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Leo Lasdun, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Ella Fox-Martnes, Literary Review) -REVIEW: of My First Book (OLIVIA WACHOWIAK, Era Journal)) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Justin Cantrell Harvey, Readings) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Pete Tosiello, Tosiello Review) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Arielle Isack, The Baffler) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Isabel Thomas, Buzz) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Matthew Gasda, Real Clear Books) -REVIEW: of My First Book (BookMarks) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Booklist) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Valerie O’Riordan, Bookmunch) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Rachel Ferguson, The Independent) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Publishers Weekly) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Valerie Stivers, Compact) -REVIEW: of My First Book (William Schwartz, Book and Film Globe) -REVIEW: of My First Book (Santiago Ramos, Wisdom of Crowds) -REVIEW: of My First Book (The Debut Digest) -REVIEW: of My First Book (BDM Clay, Notebook) -REVIEW: of My First Book (John Pistelli, Mars Review of Books) -REVIEW: of My First Book () -REVIEW: of My First Book () -REVIEW: of My First Book () -REVIEW: of My First Book () -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of Book-related and General Links: |
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