Health and Safety: A Breakdown
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Price: $27.00 - $24.30
(as of Oct 17, 2024 00:19:58 UTC – Details)
“Haunting . . . [Witt] writes with such cool precision.”—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
“The first great book about what it was like to live through the Trump presidency”—Emily Gould, The Cut
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF 2024 (SO FAR) • From the New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed author of Future Sex comesa memoir about drugs, techno, and New York City
In the summer of 2016, a divisive presidential election was underway, and a new breed of right-wing rage was on the rise. Emily Witt, who would soon publish her first book on sex in the digital age, had recently quit antidepressants for a more expansive world of psychedelic experimentation. From her apartment in Brooklyn, she began to catch glimpses of the clandestine nightlife scene thrumming around her.
In Health and Safety, Witt charts her immersion into New York City’s dance music underground. Emily would come to lead a double life. By day she worked as a journalist, covering gun violence, climate catastrophes, and the rallies of right-wing militias. And by night she pushed the limits of consciousness in hollowed-out office spaces and warehouses to music that sounded like the future. But no counterculture, no matter how utopian, could stave off the squalor of American politics and the cataclysm of 2020.
Affectionate yet never sentimental, Health and Safety is a lament for a broken relationship, for a changed nightlife scene, and for New York City just before the fall. Sparing no one—least of all herself—Witt offers her life as a lens onto an era of American delirium and dissolution.
From the Publisher
Publisher : Pantheon (September 17, 2024)
Language : English
Hardcover : 272 pages
ISBN-10 : 0593317645
ISBN-13 : 978-0593317648
Item Weight : 14 ounces
Dimensions : 5.8 x 0.99 x 8.52 inches
4 reviews for Health and Safety: A Breakdown
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Original price was: $27.00.$24.30Current price is: $24.30.
Alice –
Thoughtful and Well-Written Memoir
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would agree with many of the third party professional reviews to date that have referred to it as one of the finest post-Covid memoirs to date. Like her other books and articles, Emily Witt’s writing style is elegant, poignant and enthralling. I’m not sure there’s a readily available comparison, but I would say she’s somewhere in the mix of Chuck Klosterman, Bianca Bosker, Jia Tolentino and maybe a little Cat Marnell. The substance of the book is also great — a high-brow analysis of (arguably, although I would disagree) a low-brow subject, the Brooklyn rave scene, coupled with the author’s experience with Covid pandemic, the tumultuous politics of that time and a captivating, but ultimately toxic, relationship. In short, I would highly recommend this book. If I have any criticism about it (and I really don’t), I guess a little too much ink was dedicated to her failed relationship, as if the author felt compelled to justify herself to readers that are not as hard on her as she is on herself regarding it, and a perhaps implicit theme that the author is partially responsible of the gentrification of the Brooklyn scene she writes about, as I felt that partially detracted from the authenticity she clearly deserves.
No Sleep ’til Brooklyn –
Try to suspend some of your judgements if you’re going to read this
Our culture war climate produced many Gen Z that don’t like me because I’m Y, many women don’t like me because I’m a white guy, and libertarians who hate me. How very ironic that so many reviews of this book are negative because the reviewer comes from a different splinter of the left than their’s. I’m in my upper 50s. I remember when people’s first reaction was to try to avoid cynicism about very opinionated writing, to give it some breathing room.I disagree with some of the ideas in this book, but almost all have at least some merit. There’s no need to needle and discredit every author who is a very personal storyteller and outspoken.I missed most of the rave scene times, but I lived in Greenpoint 15 years ago. I’ve seen the EDM culture in Saigon, Vietnam, where I moved eight years ago, and “Safety” makes me want to vomit in my mouth a little if I compare the extreme shallowness of club life much of Asia.”Safety” is concerned with social justice. One thing I don’t get (my one, choice, small needling) is how Witt doesn’t call out those who choose coke as their regular nightlife drug of choice. In the more “aware” world of these underground clubs, they are pretty inauthentic. They cause more problems, via people’s live ruined by cartels, than a Trump supporter ranting on Twitter about his/her grievances.
JRscherer –
Evocative, poignant, and introspective
This is probably the best book ive read in the past year if not the past few years. It encapsulates the reader in a modern day and relatable kool aid acid test for the 21st century. It is a sort of synesticia between an underground techno scene, what its like to be an information funnel for modern culture, and the state of affairs we find ourselves in today. She demonstrates command over making a memoir come to life with raw honesty and clever metaphors between the seen and unseen worlds of the human psyche.
B –
Exploitative
I am uncomfortable with the writer’s exploitation of her boyfriend’s breakdown for financial gain in this book. She is making him the bad guy, painting herself as an abuse victim, when the reality appears to be something different. She admits that he was never violent, she admits to her own violence, and she minimizes her own responsibility in his mental breakdown after he was brutalized by the police when she abandoned him at a demonstration – to which she took him – by using her press pass while she knew he was mentally vulnerable and under the influence of mind-altering substances. She plays the victim while making no effort to understand the experience of a person undergoing psychosis.I know this may be hard to hear but when he called her a Karen, from what I have read, he may not be entirely wrong. I would hope that she could dig into his experience a little bit more, show some empathy, and write a better book in future. I think she is capable of it.