Credit: Elena Seibert
Kate Elizabeth Russell released her debut novel two days before COVID-19 caused a nationwide shutdown. The pandemic has caused a host of complications for the publishing industry, but as complications go, that timing was, basically the worst. Now,
My Dark Vanessais releasing in paperback, offering the chance for readers who may have been a little preoccupied in March 2020 seriously, did
anyone get any reading done that month? to discover it anew.
The book alternates between two timelines: the year 2000, when a teenaged Vanessa Wye is seduced into a sexual relationship with her high school teacher, and 2017, as she grapples with her memories and the ways in which it wreaks havoc on her adult life. Despite its many similarities to the boon of post-#MeToo-era pop culture, Russell began work on
When Jenny Offill started writing her third novel,
Weather, in 2015, the concept of dread towards society, the world, your neighbor was, comparatively speaking, almost a novelty. Bad things were happening every day, to be certain. It s just that there were so many
other, non-society-threatening elements at play, too. Most of us didn t even know the term
doomscrolling, much less use it regularly to rehash our evenings. One could say, even, that Jenny Offill was a preeminent doomscroller.
The author, whose work includes the lauded 2014 novel
Dept. of Speculation, was halfway through
Weather when Donald Trump was elected, which caused the rest of the country to, essentially, get on her level. The singularly-named novel, which released in paperback this month, follows a New York librarian (Lizzie) as she grapples with stessors in her personal life (helping a recovering-addict brother, the raising of her young sons) and a quickly-expanding fascination with the climate cri
Credit: Sami Drasin for EW
Breakout Moment: Dublin s Gate Theatre can claim credit for discovering the actor, but the BBC/Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney s
Normal People streamed more than 62 million times in the U.K. alone made Paul Mescal, 25, a household heartthrob.
Lessons From Quarantine: Alone time, especially in Sydney, where he s prepping for a film shoot, tested Mescal I lost my mind a lot and offered the chance to deepen his résumé. Seeing everybody learning new skills, I was like, Jesus, I ve got to do something, says the actor. So I bought a nice guitar and I m learning now.
Anthony Doerr fans can appreciate a substantial plot. His most recent novel, 2014 s
All the Light We Cannot See, explored the destruction and trauma wreaked on Europe by World War II and German occupation through two competing story lines: one about a blind girl forced to flee with her family from Paris to the Brittany coast, the other about an orphaned boy who enters a military academy and becomes a tracker for the Resistance. The effort won him legions of new fans and the Pulitzer Prize, and now the author returns six years later with another Herculean effort.
EW is exclusively announcing that Doerr s next novel
In Gish Jen s
The Resisters, citizens of a futuristic America (now known as AutoAmerica) live among the after-effects of devastating climate change, are separated by class (some have jobs and live on literal higher ground, others are unemployed and relegated to swampland), and are lorded over by an AI Big Brother. The prolific author wrote the book which released in paperback this month three years ago but its themes and, more importantly, the warnings within, are more relevant than ever. Here, she talks to EW about what it feels like to have predicted the future.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: It s hard to talk about this book without spending the entire time in awe of how prescient it is to this exact moment in time. Could you ever have imagined this?