EPISODE · Nov 5, 2025 · 53 MIN
Patricia Lockwood — Will There Ever Be Another You - with Emma Sarappo
from Politics and Prose Presents · host Politics and Prose
Amid a global pandemic, one young woman is trying to keep the pieces together - of her family, stunned by a devastating loss, and of her mind, left mangled and misfiring from a mystifying disease. She's afraid of her own floorboards, and "WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON'T HURT ME" plays over and over in her ears. She hates her friends, or more accurately, she doesn't know who they are.Has the illness stolen her old mind and given her a new one? Does it mean she'll get to start over from scratch, a chance afforded to very few people? The very weave of herself seems to have loosened: time and memories pass straight through her body. "I'm sorry not to respond to your email," she writes, "but I live completely in the present now."Will There Ever Be Another You is the brain-shredding, phosphorescent story of one woman's dissolution and her attempt to create a new way of thinking, as well as a profound investigation into what keeps us alive in times of unprecedented disorientation and loss, from one of our most original writers.Patricia Lockwood is the bestselling author of the Booker Prize finalist and Dylan Thomas Prize-winning novel No One Is Talking About This, named one of the 10 Best Books of 2021 by The New York Times Book Review and one of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the past 100 years. Her other books include the memoir Priestdaddy, named one of the 10 Best Books of 2017 by The New York Times Book Review as well as two poetry collections. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and the London Review of Books, where she is a contributing editor.Lockwood will be in conversation with Emma Sarappo, senior associate editor for The Atlantic, where she covers books and literary culture. Previously, she was the arts editor at Washington City Paper.
What this episode covers
Amid a global pandemic, one young woman is trying to keep the pieces together - of her family, stunned by a devastating loss, and of her mind, left mangled and misfiring from a mystifying disease. She's afraid of her own floorboards, and "WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON'T HURT ME" plays over and over in her ears. She hates her friends, or more accurately, she doesn't know who they are.Has the illness stolen her old mind and given her a new one? Does it mean she'll get to start over from scratch, a chance afforded to very few people? The very weave of herself seems to have loosened: time and memories pass straight through her body. "I'm sorry not to respond to your email," she writes, "but I live completely in the present now."Will There Ever Be Another You is the brain-shredding, phosphorescent story of one woman's dissolution and her attempt to create a new way of thinking, as well as a profound investigation into what keeps us alive in times of unprecedented disorientation and loss, from one of our most original writers.Patricia Lockwood is the bestselling author of the Booker Prize finalist and Dylan Thomas Prize-winning novel No One Is Talking About This, named one of the 10 Best Books of 2021 by The New York Times Book Review and one of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the past 100 years. Her other books include the memoir Priestdaddy, named one of the 10 Best Books of 2017 by The New York Times Book Review as well as two poetry collections. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and the London Review of Books, where she is a contributing editor.Lockwood will be in conversation with Emma Sarappo, senior associate editor for The Atlantic, where she covers books and literary culture. Previously, she was the arts editor at Washington City Paper.
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Patricia Lockwood — Will There Ever Be Another You - with Emma Sarappo
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