Illuminations

Patricia Lockwood's ability to capture the obscene, hilarious, and devastating— see her 2017 memoir, Priestdaddy, and Twitter feed—is on full display in her new novel, No One Is Talking About This (Riverhead), about social media, real life, and the overlap of that Venn diagram. Here, Lockwood's inspirations.

NO SHAPE

by Perfume Genius

"I listened continuously while writing the final draft, but especially to 'Wreath': 'I wanna hover with no shape /I wanna feel the days go by / Not stack up / Running up that hill / I'm gonna peel off every weight / Until my body gives away / And shuts up.' "

MRS. CALIBAN

by Rachel Ingalls

"The idea came to me while reading this. The protagonist begins hearing radio bulletins that seem aimed at her: Everything will be all right, you will have another baby, a lizard man has escaped from the Oceanographic Institute. "

MY PHOTO ROLL

"I maintained it as a fluid document of everything that was happening on the internet—news headlines, Kermit memes, Truth coming out of her well to shame mankind—and then the complete takeover of my real life, with almost no room for anything else."