I loved Gone Girl. I read the book in 2013, shortly after it came out, and just felt a pure and uncomplicated passion for it—I enjoyed seeing the doltish husband squirm, and I really admired the psychopathic wife, and the propulsive plotting made such a strong impression on me that I subsequently wrote about the novel
I generally like the framing here (Gone Girl vs. Yesteryear), and the basically pragmatic truth that Flynn's novel is probably better because she just "honed her plotting skills to a sharp point." I love Gone Girl (and Fincher's movie) because it encapsulates a kind of early 10's feeling so well. But to bring up another 2013 novel, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. was Adelle Waldman's debut, and I like it as much as Gone Girl! So maybe you're giving Caro Claire Burke too much sympathy. She could have written something that was somewhat ambivalent (Waldman) or actively critical (Flynn) of women in her own social milieu and instead she's giving people in that milieu (left-leaning professional women in urban areas) this fantasy about how other women are going to be punished for their choices. You don't have to write what you know, but if you write what you hate, your writing's going to be kind of flat, right?
When did they send out the memo that writers can’t hate what they’re writing about? This is honestly distressing to me, some of my favorite books are full of spite.
All those folks saying that the author of *Yesteryear* should show more Christian charity to the fictional protagonist of her novel and should be criticized for having bad stuff happen to her. Writing mean books about thinly disguised versions of real people is a time honored tradition!
People have also criticized her for writing a surface-level book that only satirizes the surface level of these tradwife influencers without really understanding the Christian underpinnings, and I can't speak to that.
Well, all the funny books by Evelyn Waugh, for example. When you read The Loved One, it’s impossible not to feel contempt for both the protagonist, his love interest, and the clients of the Happier Hunting Ground! And yet it’s a marvelous book that everyone should read with a strong moral message.
Did Flannery O’Connor, Henry Miller, Celine, Mishima, Kafka, Balzac all have deep and abiding warmth for their characters, or did they sometimes enjoy poking them with sticks and watching them freak out?
I think this review mostly confirms that I would not like the book (I'd probably respond more like the critics). But I enjoy reading a more positive take on it. Viewing it from the thriller genre lens definitely makes sense.
Enjoying a book is communion. Not enjoying one is alienation. That captures something most critics won’t admit: that our relationship to popular taste isn’t just aesthetic, it’s social. We want to be in the room with everyone else. When the book locks us out, it’s not the book we resent. It’s the distance.
Really enjoyed your thoughts on Yesteryear. I think the comparison with Gone Girl makes sense and Burke has mentioned it as an inspiration in interviews.
I felt the story was kind of torn between being Groundhog Day (terrible person forced to confront their flaws and learn better) or being a “rise and fall of a terrible social media influencer” story. So some people show up expecting a Groundhog Day-like fable and are disappointed by what they get.
Personally I wanted the Groundhog Day version of this story and I think that’s what makes best use of the premise. I even tried a content edit on my blog to tweak the story in this direction.
'it indulges in that desire to punish the woman from Instagram'
I don't see this as malicious at all, the author does not want us to enjoy what is happening to Natalie. This book takes influencers very seriously and constructs a plot that forces the character into that life and then shows how it finally destroys her. Natalie is failed by everyone around her; ultimately she fails herself but this basically comes about because of how she was raised and how that system could not account for someone like her.
The book does have a villain! It's not only social media but also the system of shallow, conservative Christian social religion and politics. Natalie and her mother-in-law need help, and that's obvious to everyone, but the supposedly Christian, caring men and society around her offer nothing.
I felt so deeply for Natalie by the end of this novel and I never hated her or wanted her to fail. The novel drips with empathy for her: a smart woman broken by the system, some of which we're responsible for (as viewers of social media) and some by the culture she was raised and lived in.
I heartily disliked this novel because I felt its attempt at social critique completely fell apart due to the lack of religious interiority (it may have been intentional, but I think the choice ultimately undermined the author's agenda) but I really appreciated your perspective and this well-thought-out review! Gone Girl is really a master class in the unreliable, unlikable narrator and it makes sense that other attempts don't measure up.
I've already reserved "Yesteryear" from the public library and will be picking it up tomorrow. The Guardian gave it a very scathing review, so I am interested in your more positive and nuanced approach.
Regarding "Where the Crawdads Sing" and "Lessons in Chemistry", do you like going for walks and ironing? I took both these bestsellers in as an audiobook, thus multi-tasking and making other essentially quite tedious experiences more palatable.
I have found that a book I would not consider taking the time to read in my hand slips by very well as audio. If read by a talented actor who can do multiple voices, it actually brings the novel to life.
Other books are so gripping and complex that I read them in tandem both audio and written page. Sarah Perry's "The Essex Serpent" is one, and another is Francis Spufford's new book "Nonesuch".
I intend to post on Substack at some point about audiobooks I have read (292 to date).
Now this approach makes sense. The book still wouldn’t work for me because I’m so far removed from influencer culture, and my perspective is such that I’d sooner take aim at the specifics of high-controlling religion and its impact on women.
Just finished Yesteryear and have marked it down in my reading diary as one of the best novels I have read in the last six years (since I started binge-reading during the pandemic).
I think it might well become a classic- it simply nails the hypocrisy of trying to live "my best life", trying to live "like the olden days" and living 80% of the time in an on-line meta-world.
Bang on, we don't like Natalie - she embodies everything we secretly admire but also hate about successful influencers. Bang on - other sideline comments about the state of modern life, modern feminism, modern presidential campaigns, the dishonesty of just about every character who appears in the book.
The sadness that shadows the success, the loss of actual personal relationships, all swiftly and accurately pinioned.
I think it will be hard for this author to follow up. Although she does say in the afterword that the novel took her a decade to write. So maybe it will be too hard to write another.
Madeline Cash did something very wonderful with Lost Lambs, which was to become more generous towards nearly every character over the course of the story. Yesteryear did the opposite. (I inhaled both, but I know which I’ll be re-reading in years to come.)
I went into Lost Lambs wanting to like it, but the sheer immaturity of the author and her try-hard forced quirkiness lost me. It was capably enough written to finish. I wanted to see if maybe it was going somewhere. But the characters all felt flat with little genuine motivation or depth, the marriage-gone-stale was just a collection of clichés with no real insight into the dynamics of a long relationship, the young characters were impossibly clever quip-machines, and the "mystery" was a paint-by-numbers evil rich people story. Franzen has genuine insight into how families work. Cash does not.
I had a similar reaction to Lost Lambs. I thought the novel had genuinely funny parts (riding her bike to the party at the end and getting all sweaty, 'War Crimes Wes') and some elements were well-done (e.g., where the title is derived from, the earnestness of the relationships that Bud and Catherine find themselves in + their conflict, the painfulness of high school love between Abigail and War Crimes Wes), but felt there were a lot of shortcuts taken in constructing the arcs. While I can see a case for an absurdist viewpoint, it was not consistently executed. The reader is just presumed to be in on the joke because we all live in these times, which wasn't sufficient enough for me. The whole cabal of tech billionaires was low hanging, albeit unripe fruit.
Re: Yesteryear, love your thoughts about it. The Substack criticism made me wonder if the issues were also about expectations and whether folks were expecting a commercial book or hoping for more depth and texture, i.e., more literary. Either way I really need to read it now.
I started getting angry at the protagonist and the book content very early into the story. The characters were idiotic and shallow. I made it a little more than half-way and was at my limit of tolerance and returned it. It was a total piece of crap. The premise, the characters, the writing, etc. I kind of liked the 1800’s daughters, but barely. I will not be reading anything else from this author in the future!
A lot of people reading Yesteryear don’t have any understanding of the authors politics. She has a whole podcast where she discusses her political views. There are dozens of episodes. Calling her out as if she is a white liberal woman doesn’t really acknowledge the fact that she was conservative for most of her life and had a personal awakening. I think Natalie is closer to her own life than people think.
I generally like the framing here (Gone Girl vs. Yesteryear), and the basically pragmatic truth that Flynn's novel is probably better because she just "honed her plotting skills to a sharp point." I love Gone Girl (and Fincher's movie) because it encapsulates a kind of early 10's feeling so well. But to bring up another 2013 novel, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. was Adelle Waldman's debut, and I like it as much as Gone Girl! So maybe you're giving Caro Claire Burke too much sympathy. She could have written something that was somewhat ambivalent (Waldman) or actively critical (Flynn) of women in her own social milieu and instead she's giving people in that milieu (left-leaning professional women in urban areas) this fantasy about how other women are going to be punished for their choices. You don't have to write what you know, but if you write what you hate, your writing's going to be kind of flat, right?
Crazy that Gone Girl is old enough to feel like a period piece. It really does get the early 10's just right.
When did they send out the memo that writers can’t hate what they’re writing about? This is honestly distressing to me, some of my favorite books are full of spite.
Who is saying writers can’t hate the things they’re writing about?
All those folks saying that the author of *Yesteryear* should show more Christian charity to the fictional protagonist of her novel and should be criticized for having bad stuff happen to her. Writing mean books about thinly disguised versions of real people is a time honored tradition!
People have also criticized her for writing a surface-level book that only satirizes the surface level of these tradwife influencers without really understanding the Christian underpinnings, and I can't speak to that.
Which books?
Well, all the funny books by Evelyn Waugh, for example. When you read The Loved One, it’s impossible not to feel contempt for both the protagonist, his love interest, and the clients of the Happier Hunting Ground! And yet it’s a marvelous book that everyone should read with a strong moral message.
Did Flannery O’Connor, Henry Miller, Celine, Mishima, Kafka, Balzac all have deep and abiding warmth for their characters, or did they sometimes enjoy poking them with sticks and watching them freak out?
Excellent. O'Connor above all.
I think this review mostly confirms that I would not like the book (I'd probably respond more like the critics). But I enjoy reading a more positive take on it. Viewing it from the thriller genre lens definitely makes sense.
Enjoying a book is communion. Not enjoying one is alienation. That captures something most critics won’t admit: that our relationship to popular taste isn’t just aesthetic, it’s social. We want to be in the room with everyone else. When the book locks us out, it’s not the book we resent. It’s the distance.
Loved this piece!
Really enjoyed your thoughts on Yesteryear. I think the comparison with Gone Girl makes sense and Burke has mentioned it as an inspiration in interviews.
I felt the story was kind of torn between being Groundhog Day (terrible person forced to confront their flaws and learn better) or being a “rise and fall of a terrible social media influencer” story. So some people show up expecting a Groundhog Day-like fable and are disappointed by what they get.
Personally I wanted the Groundhog Day version of this story and I think that’s what makes best use of the premise. I even tried a content edit on my blog to tweak the story in this direction.
'it indulges in that desire to punish the woman from Instagram'
I don't see this as malicious at all, the author does not want us to enjoy what is happening to Natalie. This book takes influencers very seriously and constructs a plot that forces the character into that life and then shows how it finally destroys her. Natalie is failed by everyone around her; ultimately she fails herself but this basically comes about because of how she was raised and how that system could not account for someone like her.
The book does have a villain! It's not only social media but also the system of shallow, conservative Christian social religion and politics. Natalie and her mother-in-law need help, and that's obvious to everyone, but the supposedly Christian, caring men and society around her offer nothing.
I felt so deeply for Natalie by the end of this novel and I never hated her or wanted her to fail. The novel drips with empathy for her: a smart woman broken by the system, some of which we're responsible for (as viewers of social media) and some by the culture she was raised and lived in.
That’s interesting, I don’t see this book as empathetic towards her in anything but a superficial, conciliatory way.
I heartily disliked this novel because I felt its attempt at social critique completely fell apart due to the lack of religious interiority (it may have been intentional, but I think the choice ultimately undermined the author's agenda) but I really appreciated your perspective and this well-thought-out review! Gone Girl is really a master class in the unreliable, unlikable narrator and it makes sense that other attempts don't measure up.
I've already reserved "Yesteryear" from the public library and will be picking it up tomorrow. The Guardian gave it a very scathing review, so I am interested in your more positive and nuanced approach.
Regarding "Where the Crawdads Sing" and "Lessons in Chemistry", do you like going for walks and ironing? I took both these bestsellers in as an audiobook, thus multi-tasking and making other essentially quite tedious experiences more palatable.
I have found that a book I would not consider taking the time to read in my hand slips by very well as audio. If read by a talented actor who can do multiple voices, it actually brings the novel to life.
Other books are so gripping and complex that I read them in tandem both audio and written page. Sarah Perry's "The Essex Serpent" is one, and another is Francis Spufford's new book "Nonesuch".
I intend to post on Substack at some point about audiobooks I have read (292 to date).
Now this approach makes sense. The book still wouldn’t work for me because I’m so far removed from influencer culture, and my perspective is such that I’d sooner take aim at the specifics of high-controlling religion and its impact on women.
Just finished Yesteryear and have marked it down in my reading diary as one of the best novels I have read in the last six years (since I started binge-reading during the pandemic).
I think it might well become a classic- it simply nails the hypocrisy of trying to live "my best life", trying to live "like the olden days" and living 80% of the time in an on-line meta-world.
Bang on, we don't like Natalie - she embodies everything we secretly admire but also hate about successful influencers. Bang on - other sideline comments about the state of modern life, modern feminism, modern presidential campaigns, the dishonesty of just about every character who appears in the book.
The sadness that shadows the success, the loss of actual personal relationships, all swiftly and accurately pinioned.
I think it will be hard for this author to follow up. Although she does say in the afterword that the novel took her a decade to write. So maybe it will be too hard to write another.
Madeline Cash did something very wonderful with Lost Lambs, which was to become more generous towards nearly every character over the course of the story. Yesteryear did the opposite. (I inhaled both, but I know which I’ll be re-reading in years to come.)
I went into Lost Lambs wanting to like it, but the sheer immaturity of the author and her try-hard forced quirkiness lost me. It was capably enough written to finish. I wanted to see if maybe it was going somewhere. But the characters all felt flat with little genuine motivation or depth, the marriage-gone-stale was just a collection of clichés with no real insight into the dynamics of a long relationship, the young characters were impossibly clever quip-machines, and the "mystery" was a paint-by-numbers evil rich people story. Franzen has genuine insight into how families work. Cash does not.
I had a similar reaction to Lost Lambs. I thought the novel had genuinely funny parts (riding her bike to the party at the end and getting all sweaty, 'War Crimes Wes') and some elements were well-done (e.g., where the title is derived from, the earnestness of the relationships that Bud and Catherine find themselves in + their conflict, the painfulness of high school love between Abigail and War Crimes Wes), but felt there were a lot of shortcuts taken in constructing the arcs. While I can see a case for an absurdist viewpoint, it was not consistently executed. The reader is just presumed to be in on the joke because we all live in these times, which wasn't sufficient enough for me. The whole cabal of tech billionaires was low hanging, albeit unripe fruit.
Re: Yesteryear, love your thoughts about it. The Substack criticism made me wonder if the issues were also about expectations and whether folks were expecting a commercial book or hoping for more depth and texture, i.e., more literary. Either way I really need to read it now.
I started getting angry at the protagonist and the book content very early into the story. The characters were idiotic and shallow. I made it a little more than half-way and was at my limit of tolerance and returned it. It was a total piece of crap. The premise, the characters, the writing, etc. I kind of liked the 1800’s daughters, but barely. I will not be reading anything else from this author in the future!
A lot of people reading Yesteryear don’t have any understanding of the authors politics. She has a whole podcast where she discusses her political views. There are dozens of episodes. Calling her out as if she is a white liberal woman doesn’t really acknowledge the fact that she was conservative for most of her life and had a personal awakening. I think Natalie is closer to her own life than people think.