Nancy Lemann Is Moving Past the Doom
The writer reflects on her surprising resurgence thanks to chic New Yorkers and a new relationship with NYRB.
Photo by Eliza Cline
Early in our conversation, the brilliant novelist Nancy Lemann assures me she knows what I’m talking about. “…Now you’re talking about the doom,” she explains. The New York Times and The New Yorker both spoke with her about it. Most conversations surrounding Lemann’s return have included a discussion regarding that from which she is returning. The doom.
The doom is less of a moment than the general feeling that’s encompassed Lemann for the past two-and-a-half decades. Not entirely, of course. She’s a mother, has held satisfying jobs, immersed herself in enjoyable (and deplorable) hobbies. But her experience publishing books has been almost entirely negative since Malaise came out in 2002 because, well, she hasn’t published any.
Her debut—the inimitable The Lives of the Saints—came out in 1985, and two years later she released her nonfiction debut, The Ritz of the Bayou. Then came Sportsman’s Paradise in 1992, The Fiery Pantheon in 1998, and then Malaise. Since, she’s been unable to publish the three manuscripts she’s written. Lemann thinks some of this is her own fault. “I look back now and think that part of the culprit has to be their quality.” She’s since been given a chance by the New York Review of Books to test that hypothesis, and I think she’s wrong.
Lemann re-entered the cultural conversation thanks to the enterprising work of some cool New Yorkers who now happen to be part of the Substack literary mafia. From The New York Times profile on Lemann published in March: “Comebacks don’t come from nowhere. Ms. Lemann’s traces back to Kaitlin Phillips, an arbiter of taste for the literary set in New York. Ms. Phillips came across Lives of the Saints during her student days at Barnard. She was so taken with it that she made a convert of her then-boyfriend, the critic Christian Lorentzen.” Ever since, seemingly, Lives of the Saints has been an “if you know, you know” book, the sort of thing you could recommend to a friend and blow their mind.
Thankfully, NYRB reissued the book earlier this year, and Lemann negotiated to have it paired with the release of a new novel: The Oyster Diaries. This is the book that proves Nancy doesn’t know what she’s talking about…At least when it comes to the quality of her own work. If the manuscripts she tried to publish were this good? Well, shame on the publishers.
Seemingly out of nowhere, South Carolina’s Hub City Press contacted her about reissuing The Ritz of the Bayou. All of a sudden, it’s a Lemann summer. Few are more deserving.
Below, check out our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity. Buy Lives of the Saints here, The Oyster Diaries here, and The Ritz of the Bayou here. Use my links because then I get a penny or two from each referral. Thanks!
