I am really excited to have found my way back into this. It's just a rambling conversation with a friend.

I admit I didn’t really feel drawn to Holly’s book and waited till I had finished the other Autofocus books before I got to hers. There was something in me, probably inherently misogynistic, that didn’t want to give space to this story of mothers and daughters even though I am a mother with daughters. I find myself looking for escape when I read, not in the form of sci-fi or fantasy usually, but in the debauched experience of someone young and inconsequential. Holly is me and I am Holly. We are not allowed to escape our lives. Our bad decisions are now our lifelong responsibilities. We were never carefree and it shows. For Holly, her heaviness was the claustrophobia of religious homeschooling and her first tentative flight away from that life quickly led to pregnancy and the adoption of her daughter. Her book, Cleave, is about facing that decision as an adult and living with the way it settled in her. It was not an escape to read Cleave (Autofocus Books, 2022) but it stayed with me like no other book in our indie-lit community gas. It made me proud and furious and so relieved to be in the company of another writer-mother who accepts womb-deep pain.

Caleb Caudell released his first book of autofiction, Hardly Working (Bonfire Press, 2024) detailing his daily struggles as a low-wage worker, and how the drudgery of that grind adds up to larger existential commentary. Caleb is chronically unhappy, pessimistic, and hopeless when it comes to the future. I don't want to sugar coat it. This book is hard to read. Unrelenting in its documentation of society crumbling before our very eyes, should we ever bother to look. But Caleb's acknowledgement of his own pain and baser instincts keeps Hardly Working from becoming a beatification of the writer in the face of ruthless capitalism. By focusing on his own failings – whether erectile dysfunction or a shitty resume – Caleb brings the reader so close to the magnifying glass, you can smell the ants fry.