Page 105 of Bad Words

I can’t believe you feel rage about reading a bad book, but not about this.

She laugh-reacted to this. Well, the experience led me deeper into reading and writing, so, it was worth it. My journal entries back then were more like lists of observations than essays or reviews, though. I think they gave me a sense of control, like the world wasn’t just something happening to me but something I could catch on to, or observe deeply enough to understand it.

Participating without participation, I said.

Yes, exactly, she said. What about you?

I started writing in high school, too, I wrote. For fun. To explore. To hear how the words crashed into each other. To open up space.

Space for yourself?

Yeah.

She asked me how my family was, which was how I knew she understood what I’d meant, and one in the morning passed, and she told me how nighttime sounded in Minnesota, and it was with her crickets in my ears that I fell toward sleep, miserable and buzzing, imagining her somewhere across the city, pillow against her cheek, curve of cell phone light upon her dark eyes.

I woke up to learn that Selina had panned the book of the season.

The book—Next Time Lucky, by some Booker-shortlisted Brit named Martin MacEnroe—was a multigenerational family epic, which Selina described as “Tolstoyesque, if Tolstoy had assumed a readership with the attention span of fruit flies.” I read the review with an escalating sense of guilty amusement. This woman.

My social media had grown correspondingly loud.

3m ago @ParkerNavarroWrites I thought you’d be interested to see Chan yet again showing off how bad of a critic and person she is

4m ago @ParkerNavarroWrites @MartinMacEnroeBooks you two should be friends lol

6m ago @ParkerNavarroWrites Must be a day that ends in ‘y’.… Selina Chan is being an intolerable literary hipster again..…. .

I watched the posts unroll, realizing that I disagreed with every single one.

I hit Reply on the post calling her an intolerable literary hipster, but I remembered this user. She’d tagged me in the days after the video with her sympathy. I’m so sorry this is happening to you Parker! I preordered your book and I’m really really excited to read it!! It seemed so hypocritical to turn on this person now, to chastise a stranger, when not even a month ago, I’d thought the same things about Selina.

Even as I exited the app, my phone buzzed.

New Messages in Chan Pan Support Group

Aiden Linville

should we add Martin MacEnroe to this chat?? poor guy

Jenny House

I met Martin at a launch last year. He was lovely! Of course, that doesn’t mean anything to Selina Chan.

Carla Lew

I am FUMING

Carla Lew

Just picturing her stupid smug face in front of her laptop as she thinks ‘oh I’m REALLY going to torture somebody today, ha ha ha’

J.J. Purnell

It would be one thing if she were supposedly a nice person, but by all accounts, she’s even worse in real life. I heard from a couple of friends of mine that she iced them out at an event. Superiority complex.

Aiden Linville

in the immortal words of Maya Angelou, when someone shows you they’re a soulless bitch, believe them the first time