I recently started writing the occasional event recommendation in the Critic’s Picks section of The Nashville Scene — this is an extended version of one that I pitched, but ultimately didn’t get picked up because, unsurprisingly, they decided to do a larger piece on Molly’s book that you can read here. I felt like publishing this anyways, so here it is, on my languishing Substack.
Molly McGhee’s accomplished a lot since she was a child growing up just outside Nashville — published a heart-wrenching essay in The Paris Review, began teaching undergraduate creative writing at Columbia University, stirred up Twitter when she publicly and eloquently quit her job, and, now, publishing her debut novel, Jonathan Abernathy Your Are Kind, to fast-gathering acclaim, including reviews from The New York Times and The Washington Post. But, just before all of this, she was a barista with me, in a tiny coffeehouse off eighth avenue south.
At this time, debt collectors were hounding me every day, sometimes twice a day, and, before long, began calling the coffee shop’s landline, asking after me. I warned my co-workers about it, trying to hide my embarrassment, and we all went on ignoring it. That is, until Molly picked up. I wasn’t there when it happened, but I’m told she lit up with rage and told the collector they had no right to be harassing me at my job. She properly chewed them out, and, you know what, they never called there, or any of my workplaces, again.
It’s impossible to write in such a small space how only Molly could write this novel, a trippy, tender, funny and devastating story about debt, dreams, and nightmares, filled to the brim with that same righteous, eloquent anger she once wielded in my defense. In short, Molly is the real fucking deal, and she’s coming back to town on Monday, November 20, signing and discussing her new book at East Nashville’s cozy, curated The Bookshop, co-hosted by The Porch. Be there or be square.
