Not quite summer, not quite fall!
Let’s get into it:
September Book Selections
Back-to-school vibes! We’re learning and soaking in the season! This month, I’ve picked two pairs of books that take on greater meaning when read alongside one another.
With that context in mind, suggestions for September include:
White Out: The Secret Life of Heroin by Michael Clune (2013) — This drug memoir from Michael Clune, the kind of nonfiction that reads like a novel, cultivates an immersive sensory experience. The narrative collapses all notions of linear time, conflating past, present, and future into a singular continuum. As I write in the October 2024 Book Review: “One of the most memorable sequences traces Clune’s childhood search for a real-life Candy Land, a pursuit lyrically wrenched into the memory of his first time using…Some images, some sequences, sharpen to a point of clarity, while others stay in a state of perpetual refraction.” This stylistic approach mimics the muddled sense of memory that comes with drug use and, in doing so, seeds a vicarious sense of empathy in the reader.
Pan by Michael Clune (2025) — After you finish White Out (2013), delve into Michael Clune’s new novel to see how his distinctive style translates to fiction. The story focuses on Nick, a 15-year-old boy plagued by panic attacks who becomes convinced that Greek god Pan lives in his brain. Narrated by an older iteration of Nick in the first person, it takes place over the course of 1990, opening in spring before stretching through summer, then closing in fall (“And as I sat in Ty’s passenger seat remembering the dream, I felt that now the warm apex of autumn, phantom lids had come down over my eyes.”).
As I write in the August Book Review: “Clune captures the feeling of consciousness made immediate by Modernists like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf…In…White Out…Clune reflects the rupture of memory that accompanies addiction through his prose. In Pan (2025), his fixation with the porous quality of consciousness emerges in the realm of anxiety. The notion of addiction as a “memory disease” recurs throughout White Out, while, in Pan, Nick and his friends fixate on what it means to have a “Sound Mind.” Across both books, small details like the quality of certain sounds and lights become uncanny through magnification. For instance, looking at his friend, Ty, Nick narrates: ‘The whites of his eyes seemed swallowed up by swelling color. His eyes looked like…like doors, I thought, the panic rising a little more now. Like stones. Like real stones.’ These sensory observations culminate to create a warped sense of the surrounding world, magnified fiction as true as fact.”
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes (1947) — Nothing says September in California quite like this noir novel from Dorothy B. Hughes (and its suggested pairing, but more on that in a minute). As I write in the May Book Review:
A perfect literary thriller, In a Lonely Place (1947) inhabits the headspace of World War II veteran Dix Steele from the remove of a third-person perspective. It captures the atmospheric chill of Southern California, the sense of danger lurking beneath the bougainvillea (“He was slightly chilled; there was a definite hint of autumn, if only in the mildness of California autumn, in the air tonight.”). The novel opens on the California Incline, with Dix surrounded by fog. He follows a woman down the slope of the hill, toward the beach, bewitched by her resemblance to someone he once knew. The aperture of Dix’s world then broadens to reveal the texture and scope of his Los Angeles.
A New Jersey native, Dix struggles to adjust to his new reality (“He didn’t get a chance to build a dream.”). His social world stays constricted, confined to his old war buddy-turned-detective, Brub Nicolai, and Brub’s wife, Sylvia. A series of strangulations, one woman per month, haunts Brub and casts a fear over the whole of the city…Hughes subverts the traditional tropes of the detective novel, a historically male-dominated genre. As crime writer Megan Abbott points out in her afterword to the NYRB edition, Sylvia occupies the genre’s “good girl” archetype, while Dix’s neighbor, Laurel Gray, emerges as the femme fatale. But their behavior cracks the confines of those categories as the narrative throttles toward its conclusion, a reversal fueled by Hughes’s female authorial gaze.
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis (2023) — My favorite novel ever, ever, which I feel inclined to re-read every Labor Day weekend, even with its 608-page count. I’ll echo Shawn Cremer of Scremes Report, who, in his July newsletter, writes: “The Shards (2023) is longer than most of Ellis’s other books, and I really prefer it. The length allows that simmer to roil far longer, bringing about that delicious skin-crawling feeling.” In a Lonely Place (1947) makes a perfect pairing with The Shards, as both novels get propelled forward by narrators whose sanity teeters just out of sight.
Told in first person by a 57-year-old Bret, this thriller-meets-coming-of-age story recounts a fictional-ish version of the author’s senior year at Buckley, one of LA’s long-standing private schools. The nostalgia-laced narrative begins over Labor Day weekend when a new kid, Robert Mallory, arrives on the scene. His introduction coincides with a swell in serial killings by The Trawler, an unknown force that soon begins stalking a still-closeted teenage Bret and his friends. As the story moves through the fall of 1981, it interweaves together afternoons at Westwood Village and The Sherman Oaks Galleria, lunches at Trumps and The Polo Lounge, and evenings winding down Mulholland to distill the memory of a long-gone Los Angeles.
For the full effect, don’t forget to turn on the accompanying Spotify playlist while you read!
Upcoming Content to Consume
First things first, I’m ~thrilled~ to announce that Content Corner is now on Instagram! Follow @read.contentcorner for reminders of newsletter highlights in real time, as well as a more comprehensive cadence of recommendations throughout the month.
Second, as the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) reaches its 50th anniversary, September marks a big month for film in New York. Film Forum and IFC are celebrating big milestones — 35 years on Houston Street for Film Forum, two decades on Bleecker for IFC. To commemorate the occasion, Film Forum will replicate its opening weekend programming from 1990 starting on 9.5, while IFC started a series that screens a slate of 20 films, one for each year of the theater’s existence. Plus, the 63rd annual New York Film Festival opens at Lincoln Center on 9.26! You can check out the main slate here.
Finally, for subscribers ~everywhere~, The Criterion Channel has announced its September line-up. Two collections unsurprisingly stand out to me: Directed by Robert Altman and ‘70s Noir. Across both, favorites include The Long Goodbye (1973) (once again — we all agree that Elliot Gould is hot in this movie, right?), Chinatown (1974), Nashville (1975), and Winter Kills (1979), while my to-watch list includes Sisters (1973), California Split (1974), 3 Women (1977), and Gosford Park (2001).
Now, here are my top IRL picks for September:
Village East: The Shining (1980) (Date: 9.1) — New York-based subscribers stuck in the city over Labor Day weekend can start off September with a screening of the Stanley Kubrick classic tonight!
As I write in the October 2023 Movie Review: “The Shining follows depressed novelist Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson), as well as his wife, Wendy (played by Shelley Duvall), and son, psychic Pisces-coded king Danny (Danny Lloyd), as they take up residence in The Overlook Hotel. Situated in the Colorado wilderness, The Overlook requires a winter caretaker, and Jack volunteers for the job in hopes the isolation will afford him the opportunity to make progress on his novel. But under the influence of the hotel and its residents, Jack’s sanity famously starts to slip.”
Shelley Duvall gives an incredible performance that faced unfair criticism, as I see it, from Kubrick over the course of filming, with her final product yielding little to no mention in initial reviews. The Shining strikes me as primarily about domestic horror, with Duvall as the sponge who absorbs the full scope of her husband’s terror — and grounds the film through each emotional beat.
New Beverly Cinema: Lost in Translation (2003) (Dates: 9.2-9.4) — This week, LA-based subscribers can catch Sofia Coppola’s early aughts cult classic about an unlikely pair of Americans drawn together in Tokyo.
As I write in the August 2023 Movie Review, Lost in Translation (2003) “follows fading American actor Bob Harris (played by Bill Murray) as he travels to Tokyo to shoot a whisky commercial. He soon crosses paths with new Yale graduate and newlywed Charlotte (played by Scarlett Johansson). Having followed her celebrity photographer husband (played by Giovanni Ribisi) on his work trip, Charlotte finds herself more or less abandoned at the Park Hyatt Tokyo, spending her spare time listening to cassettes on how to find your purpose while her husband fawns over a Hollywood actress (played by Anna Faris). Bob and Charlotte come together at and beyond the hotel bar, finding a sense of safety in each other as they navigate a foreign city and an otherwise empty period in their lives.”
The film functions as a master class in mood, the purest encapsulation of romantic friendship. The New Bev will screen it for three nights in a double feature alongside Tokyo Pop (1988). You can check out details and book here!
Metrograph’s Ravishing Romy Series (Opening Date: 9.6) — This month, Metrograph will mount a series dedicated to iconic Austrian-born actress Romy Schneider.
In a piece for the Metrograph site, writer Colleen Kelsey observes: “Schneider suffered from perfection. She was simply too good. And too beautiful. The misperceptions between appearances and the genius of the woman behind them is too common a story. The eroticism Schneider suffused in many of her roles was often a prelude, or a companion, to perfectly calibrated detonations of emotion. How she owned the camera so completely, in such an unassuming fashion, remains a mystery of her technique. In films like La Piscine (1969) and The Things of Life (1970), she is remembered for being, to [Karl] Lagerfeld’s objection, ‘chic,’ an ideal incarnation of the liberated bourgeois. Her death at age 43 made her a cult object of tragedy. All she wanted was credibility.”
Now, Metrograph celebrates her legacy with a slate that includes The Trial (1962), La Piscine, The Things of Life, Ludwig (1972), That Most Important Thing: Love (1975), and more. You can check out the current line-up and available showtimes here!
Village East: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) in 35mm (Date: 9.8) — Catch the Elia Kazan adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s magnum opus at Village East! The film stars the same cast from its original Broadway run, with the notable replacement of Jessica Tandy with Vivien Leigh. It centers on fading Southern Belle Blanche DuBois (played by Leigh), who travels to New Orleans to visit her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski (played by Marlon Brando), and sister, Stella (Kim Hunter), unleashing an exploration of the dangers that come with unbridled attraction.
As Roger Ebert writes in a 1993 piece: “Marlon Brando didn’t win the Academy Award in 1951…But you could make a good case that no performance had more influence on modern film acting styles than Brando’s work as Stanley Kowalski, Tennessee Williams’ rough, smelly, sexually charged hero. Before this role, there was usually a certain restraint in American movie performances. Actors would portray violent emotions, but you could always sense to some degree a certain modesty that prevented them from displaying their feelings in raw nakedness. Brando held nothing back, and within a few years his was the style that dominated Hollywood movie acting. This movie led directly to work by Brando’s heirs such as Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Jack Nicholson, and Sean Penn.”
The New School: Reading and Conversation: Adam Ross (Date: 9.9) — If you’ve been here a while, you know Playworld (2025) has emerged as one of my favorite 2025 reads. The new novel from Sewanee Review editor Adam Ross follows a year in the life of 14-year-old Griffin Hurt, a child actor growing up on the Upper West Side. As I describe in the July newsletter:
Written from the perspective of Griffin as an adult, it opens with an arresting prologue that reads: “In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn’t seem strange at the time.” The narrative then loops backward to chronicle “a lifetime of damage and blind endurance crammed into one extremely long, harrowing year,” as Helen Schulman puts it in her Air Mail review…Without spoiling specifics, Playworld comes to a close on a late September afternoon with a bike ride across 72nd Street that encapsulates the waning freedom of an Upper West Side summer through the lens of a teenager. Griffin narrates: “I was nearing home…I stood on my petals to go faster. My spokes sang their propellered whirr. I felt light, as if my bones had filled with air. I passed the Dakota, ripping alongside its black iron rail, allowing myself to glide before I gently banked. I saw the Wise Man and Two Dragons, the Wise Man and Two Dragons. And then I turned toward the river and headed west.”
Ross will discuss Playworld, a perfect September read, at The New School with part-time lecturer Sidik Fofana at 6:00 PM on 9.9. You can register to attend for free here!
Books Are Magic: Lauren Morrow on Little Movements (2025) with Rob Franklin (Date: 9.9) — A few new fiction releases slated for this fall have caught my eye, primarily based on the authors moderating publicity discussions. I’m highlighting two such examples in this month’s newsletter, starting with Lauren Morrow’s Little Movements (2025).
A St. Louis native, Morrow studied dance and creative writing at Connecticut College before earning her MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan, with past pieces appearing in Ploughshares and The South Carolina Review. Her debut novel centers on 33-year-old Layla Smart, who leaves behind her husband, friends, and live in Brooklyn for a nine-month long residency in rural Vermont, culminating to create an exploration of Black artistry in one of the whitest parts of America. Kirkus Reviews praises it as “a thoughtful, engrossing first novel,” while Great Black Hope (2025) author Rob Franklin lauds how Morrow’s “words pulsing on the page…[as] every movement — like a moment, or a friendship, or a city — becomes as expensive and perilous as young love.”
You can catch Morrow in conversation with Franklin at Books Are Magic. The event begins at 7:00 PM on 9.9, with RSVP options available here.
The Academy Museum: Mildred Pierce (1945) in 35mm (Opening Date: 9.14) — The ideal way to spend a Sunday for LA-based subscribers! Before taking a spin through the new Jaws (1975) exhibition and maybe sticking around for a 6:30 PM screening of the film in 4K (more on that in a minute), see Mildred Pierce (1945) at 2:00 PM in the museum’s David Geffen Theater.
The Joan Crawford classic, which notoriously won the actress her only Oscar, centers on a single mother struggling to care for her two daughters in Glendale. For a vibe check, please watch TCM host Ben Mankiewicz’s Gen Z-slang filled intro to the film from earlier this year, then book your tickets here.
The Academy Museum: Jaws (1975): The Exhibition (Opening Date: 9.14) — This month, The Academy Museum will mount its first-ever exhibition dedicated to a single film: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), which, as I mentioned in the August newsletter, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
The retrospective includes “over 200 original objects — including concept illustrations by production designer Joe Alves, a costume worn by Roy Scheider as Brody, original shark design schematics by design engineer Frank Wurmser, and a screen-used prop dorsal fin — plus behind-the-scenes revelations and interactive moments,” as described online.
While it opens to the public on 9.14, Academy Museum members can gain early access on 9.12 and 9.13. You can check out full details here! You can also catch a screening of the film in 4K on opening day starting at $5, with tickets reservable here. If you can’t wait until then, The Vista is screening Jaws today through 9.4.
The Center for Fiction: Angela Flournoy on The Wilderness (2025) with Brit Bennett and Raven Leilani (Date: 9.16) — National Book Award finalist Angela Flourney will join Brit Bennett and Raven Leilani, the writers behind The Vanishing Half (2020) and Luster (2020), respectively, to discuss her second novel at The Center for Fiction.
Per the site, The Wilderness (2025) “follows five Black women in their twenties — Desiree, Danielle, January, Monique, and Nakia — as they wrestle with profound questions reverberating through their lives: How do we reconcile the search for purpose and direction with the shifting stakes of maturity? How should friendship be prioritized in the face of these transformations? Set against the backdrops of New York and Los Angeles from the late 2000s through the 2020s, the novel navigates the uncertain metamorphosis of contemporary adulthood.”
The talk begins at 7:00 PM on 9.16, with a book signing scheduled for afterward. You can RSVP to attend virtually or in person here!
McNally Jackson Seaport: Year of the Infinite Jest (1996) Monthly Read-Along Bash (Date: 9.18) — Back-to-school vibes! McNally Jackson has created the perfect forum to make your way through David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus. Head to the bookstore’s Seaport location this month for drinks and a discussion of the first 95 pages, with follow-up events to come over the course of the next ten months.
The Center for Fiction: 2025 Day of Translation (Date: 9.18) — September means National Translation Month, a moment to celebrate the crucial role translators play in making literature accessible around the globe. On 9.18, The Center for the Art of Translation will present its annual Day of Translation at The Center for Fiction. The event includes a full day of programming designed to connect “readers of literary translation, literary translators at every stage of their careers, and anyone interested in the movement of ideas among languages, cultures, people, and places,” per the site.
The event will culminate with an unfortunately sold out conversation between authors Katie Kitamura and Jhumpa Lahiri. Translation theory shapes Kitamura’s novels, from A Separation (2017) to Intimacies (2021); this talk can give you a stronger sense of how related themes appear in her work. A Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Lahiri has an impressive record of translating work, including her own, between Italian and English; to get a sense of her thoughts on the subject, I recommend reading this piece in The New Yorker.
Albertine: Literary Fall Launch Event (Date: 9.19) — Join Villa Albertine for an event celebrating contemporary French literature!
Per the site: “Hear from experts and leaders in the French and American book industries as they share their favorite novels and insights. Join lively conversations with authors, publishers, booksellers, curators, and influencers as we explore the evolving concept of French literature and what American readers may look for in French novels today. The program features leading figures from the American literary scene, including Sarah McNally, founder and CEO of McNally Jackson, as well as publishers Michael Reynolds (Europa Editions), Barbara Epler (New Directions), Edwin Frank (NYRB), and Dan Simon (Seven Stories), Jillian Kravatz and Emma Raddatz (Archipelago), alongside other distinguished guests. Alyssa Reeder, co-founder of the popular book club Library Science, will deliver closing remarks.”
The program runs from 2:00 to 5:00 PM and closes out with a cocktail reception. You can RSVP for free here!
Greenlight Bookstore: Brooklyn Indie Party (9.19) — As part of the Brooklyn Book Festival (more on that in a minute) and in partnership with the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP), Fort Greene favorite Greenlight will host a party celebrating 22 of the independent presses that continue to enrich the contemporary literary community for the 15th year.
As the site explains, “partygoers are invited to have a drink, mingle with Brooklyn authors and publishers, discover new works, enjoy some excellently curated music, and enter for a chance to win a gift bag of featured books and magazines, to kick off the Brooklyn Book Festival weekend!” You can register for free here.
Brooklyn Book Festival: Festival Day & Literary Marketplace (Date: 9.21) — The Brooklyn Book Festival returns this fall with over a week’s worth of programming! The bulk of the action happens on 9.21, with more than two hundred local and international authors coming together for a day of discussion and book signings in Downtown Brooklyn. Favorite writers attending include Aria Aber, Marie-Helene Bertino, Katie Kitamura, and Catherine Lacey, to name a few.
McNally Jackson: Voices for Gaza (Date: 9.21) — This month, McNally Jackson will host an evening of readings and conversation centered on the power of storytelling in times of crisis, with proceeds going toward raising funds for the children of Gaza through INARA. Writers participating include Mosab Abu Toha (whose piece in The New Yorker, “The View from My Window in Gaza,” I discussed back in November of 2023), Viet Thanh Nguyen, Hala Alyan, Hannah Lillith Assadi, and Seema Jilani. Tickets go for $50, with the event taking place at The Town Hall on 43rd Street.
Miscellaneous Musings
Sister’s Uptown Faces Closure — Manhattan’s only Black-owned independent bookstore, Sister’s Uptown, has fallen on hard times as owner Janifer Wilson faces the challenge of making up a six-month rent backlog. Wilson first opened the shop in 2000 and since has expanded it into a cultural center and community space, hosting book clubs, workshops, readings, and more. Follow Sister’s on Instagram here and keep an eye out for opportunities to support by showing up for future fundraising parties!
New Patti Smith Book Cover Dropped — Patti Smith revealed the cover of her upcoming book, Bread of Angels (2025), on Substack. In a voiceover, she describes the photo as a conceptual collaboration between herself and Robert Mapplethorpe. Taken by Mapplethorpe as one of just a few shots, the image seeks to distill “the most beautiful aspects of surrender” for the inside flap of her final studio album, Wave (1979).
The new memoir drops on 11.4, a date of profound importance to Patti; as she explains: “The publishing date was chosen by my publisher, not realizing its significance…Robert’s birthday, and the passing day of my beloved husband Fred Sonic Smith.”
TCM’s The Plot Thickens — I’ve been very into Turner Classic Movies’s The Plot Thickens, a podcast that delves into iconic figures and films in Hollywood history. So far, I’ve finished the first season, which details the life of Peter Bogdanovich, the legendary director behind The Last Picture Show (1971), What’s Up, Doc? (1972), and Paper Moon (1973). The following seasons, which I’m planning to get to this month, focus on icons including Pam Grier, John Ford, and Lucille Ball, as well as the making of Cleopatra (1963) and Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).
The Paris Review’s “Personals” — Speaking of podcasts, The Paris Review has announced the launch of a new one! “Personals” features writers — including Ottessa Moshfegh, Mihret Sibhat, Joseph Earl Thomas, Lisa Carver, and J.D. Daniels — reading their first-person essays. The first episode drops on 9.8!
Supplemental Reading
As always, don’t forget to use archive.ph if you can’t access these pieces or any of the ones throughout my Substack!
Air Mail: Swimming Pools in Films and TV Shows: A Viewing Guide
IndieWire: Nancy Olson Looks Back at Sunset Boulevard and Billy Wilder, 75 Years After Her Oscar-Nominated Performance
The New Yorker: The Lives and Loves of James Baldwin
Vulture: In Conversation: Peter Bogdanovich
IndieWire: The 100 Best Movies of the 1970s
London Evening Standard: Quentin Tarantino to bring his first play to the West End
Social Media Round-Up
A section aggregating tweets, TikToks, Notes, etc. that made me laugh, smile, etc. in the past month:
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Cocktail of the Month
While you read In a Lonely Place and The Shards, make yourself a Southern California classic in the form of…
My great grandfather’s favorite restaurant! This Hollywood classic has withstood the test of time for the past century, thanks in large part to its timeless martini. To make it at home, stir three ounces of vodka or gin in an ice-filled shaker. Never shake. Then, strain the liquor over olives in a petite martini glass, and enjoy!
That’s all for now! Stay tuned for the August Movie Review.
xo,
Najet
September, let’s go!!! So many exciting things!!