Honor Levy

'I am not asking you to agree with me. In fact, I'd be happier if you didn't. I am afraid of self-censorship in a place of supposed radicalism like a liberal arts school because I am afraid that one day we will all be too afraid of being wrong.' We grew up on the internet, or the Internet, as it was originally known - a proper noun, a place to visit and explore, before we claimed it as everybody's, turning it into a place where we pay bills, shop, fall in love, where kids get past parental controls to come of age. Honor Levy lends her experience to the narrators of these propulsive, provocative and pill-fuelled dispatches, speaking to the malleable reality we all inhabit, where clicks, codes, unreliable words and memes shape identities, personas and reputations. In My First Book, Honor Levy endeavors to contextualize Gen-Z, a generation of young people desperate to discern what matters in a world that paints every event as a catastrophe. Irony is the salve of choice, and Levy deploys it masterfully. She paints the chasm in understanding between her parents' generation and the Zoomer reality overloaded with niche signs and meanings.

"We count on our best young fiction writers to bring us news from the digital nervous system. Honor Levy . . . does so with special bite and lan." --Dwight Garner, The New York TimesThe magnetic debut collection from author Honor Levy, now with an additional story for the paperback edition My First Book marked the arrival of an undeniable new talent, emerging from the chaos of Gen Z coming-of-age and written in what The Guardian called "a strange language for a strange epoch." As the collection shows, the short story may be the ideal form to process and reflect our current era. Each story is a mirrorball onto the world as it is: panicky, uncertain, often hilarious, and ultimately sincere. Honor Levy's protagonists discover the infinite nature of love and wonder at mystical linguistic creation processes, but they also stand defeated outside of parties, getting rained on, and fall into the black glass of screen after screen. To find and keep faith is the order of the day--but how?

"I am not asking you to agree with me. In fact, I'd be happier if you didn't. I am afraid of self-censorship in a place of supposed radicalism like a liberal arts school because I am afraid that one day we will all be too afraid of being wrong." We grew up on the internet, or the Internet, as it was originally known - a proper noun, a place to visit and explore, before we claimed it as everybody's, turning it into a place where we pay bills, shop, fall in love, where kids get past parental controls to come of age. Honor Levy lends her experience to the narrators of these propulsive, provocative and pill-fuelled dispatches, speaking to the malleable reality we all inhabit, where clicks, codes, unreliable words and memes shape identities, personas and reputations. In My First Book, Honor Levy endeavors to contextualize Gen-Z, a generation of young people desperate to discern what matters in a world that paints every event as a catastrophe. Irony is the salve of choice, and Levy deploys it masterfully. She paints the chasm in understanding between her parents' generation and the Zoomer reality overloaded with niche signs and meanings.