Rejection, by Tony Tulathimutte: Gives DFW Vibes

When Tony Tulathimutte found out his new novel-in-stories Rejectionhad been longlisted for the National Book Award, he tweeted, simply and succinctly, "holy shit dude." Given his expansive, brilliant, just-on-the-right-side-of-verbose prose, that reaction was extra funny.

After reading his book, my reaction is exactly the same. Holy shit dude! 

This book is CRAZY. CRAAAAZY. Crazy good. And even crazier smart. 

Honestly, my first thought after finishing this book (well, after "holy shit dude"), was "sure gives DFW vibes." If you've been with me for any amount of time, you know I don't make that comparison lightly. But the playfulness of the prose, the mixture of low- and high-brow humor, the meta-textual commentary, and so much more reminded me of the first time I read "Consider the Lobster" and felt like my reading world had been cracked wide open. This is THAT good. 

So yes, there is A LOT going on here. It's a satiric story broadly about identity, but also about authenticity, two topics which very much go hand in hand. 

Structure-wise, the book is five individual interconnected stories about a bunch of misfits who shouldn't be misfits but see themselves as misfits because they're not normal and boring. And they've been rejected by individual people specifically and society generally. These people have it hard; they they just don't fit. This hardens their hearts -- they become bitter, depressed, cope in other strange ways. 

For instance, in our first story "The Feminist," we follow a super annoying cishet white guy who just wants to be an ally and treads so carefully around identity issues, he annoys literally everyone with whom he comes in contact. But we're not even sure his intentions are pure: Appearing to care is not the same thing as actually caring, Tulathimutte writes. When you appear to care, you get to feel good about yourself -- like no philanthropic act is purely altruistic because you get a jolt of good feeling, too. But so, this "feminist" soon alienates all his friends. It doesn't help that he can't get laid. 

And we go from there. A woman named Alison who is rejected by a friend with whom she wants to be more-than-friends turns bitter and then depressed and adopts a raven, and then has an all-time blow-out in the group chat with her soon-to-be-ex friends. 

A shy Asian man named Kant comes out of the closet only to realize he can't find a partner to match his his sexual proclivities. So he tries to hire a porn star to make him a video. And the 20-page script he sends the porn star are 20 of the wildest pages I have literally ever read.

There's a tech bro who starts dating Alison, but has different expectations for the relationship that she does. And then the longest story in the book is about Bee, Kant's sister and a friend of The Feminist from from the first story. This story is where it all comes together in terms of the discussion of identity, but also the push and pull against authenticity of identity in an increasingly online world. And further, how rejection can stem from something so simple as identity, which shouldn't be the case, but is. You just have to read this story. It's bonkers. 

In total, this is one of the best, funniest, smartest, and most irreverent books I've read in a very long time. A definite favorite of 2024 for me.