Review_NONFICTION
54 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 9, 2020
Review_NONFICTION
The Art of Showing Up: How to Be
There for Yourself and Your People
Rachel Wilkerson Miller. The Experiment, $16.95
trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-61519-661-6
Miller (Dot Journaling), deputy editor of
Vice’s Life vertical, provides digital
natives an easy, entertaining guide to
adult friendships. Her stance that “self-
knowledge is at the core of showing up”
forms the basis of her instructions—out-
lined in the first section, “Showing Up for
Yourself”—on identifying one’s own
values, preferences, emotions, needs, and
boundaries. Miller litters her advice with
exclamation marks and asides, creating a
sincere tone that feels like speaking with
a close confidante. Filled with many
spirited aphorisms (“You—yes, you!—
can do these things! They may feel hard,
but they are good and fine!”), the book’s
second section, “Showing Up for Others,”
is less charming but more instructional and
provides readers with scripts to navigate
a variety of social encounters, strategies
for making new friends, and advice for
“when they’re going through hard shit.”
Miller starts each section with brief gen-
eral principles, then relies heavily on
lists and action steps, which will make
for easy reference and perusal, and her
charismatic voice will appeal to any
reader of self-help. Those looking for
help braving the social unknown will
want to take a look. (May)Atomic Spy:
The Dark Lives of Klaus Fuchs
Nancy Thorndike Greenspan. Viking, $30
(416p) ISBN 978-0-593-08339-0
Biographer Greenspan (The End of the
Certain World) reconsiders Soviet spy Klaus
Fuchs (1911–1988) in this richly detailed
work. Born in Germany, Fuchs became a
member of the Communist party as a
university student in 1932, left the
country after the 1933 Reichstag fire, and
completed his PhD in theoretical physics
in England. Following the outbreak of
WWII, Fuchs’s commitment to commu-
nism was “reinforced,” Greenspan contends,
during his internment at a camp for “enemy
aliens” in Canada, where he befriended a
Soviet intelligence agent. Released in
1941, Fuchs contributed research to the
Manhattan Project and eventually became
a division head at Britain’s main nuclear-
research facility. At every step of the way,What’s the appeal of Scandinavian
noir to you? Does it differ appreciably
from other crime fiction?
I think it does differ. I read all kinds of
crime fiction. I love English and
French crime novels. Also Japanese
crime fiction. And American writers
like Michael Connelly, whose work is
very much like Scandinavian noir. A
distinct difference in
Nordic noir is how it
depicts the nature of
the police force and of
society at large. In these
books, crime is por-
trayed as a social
problem, not the work
of a malignant indi-
vidual. It’s a different
take on the subject.Where did the idea for
the book come from?
I started reading
Scandinavian noir fiction for pleasure.
I first read Maj Sjöwall and Per
Wahlöö’s 10-book Martin Beck series.
Then Henning Mankell’s Kurt
Wallander series. And then the dam
burst on the whole scene, with Stieg
Larsson’s Lisbeth novels. But they
opened up everything else for me. I
read Jo Nesbø for fun, too.
I had wanted to go to Sweden for
years, but I always thought it was too
expensive. But for my last book I
traveled to Estonia, where I was
practically looking across the sea at
Sweden. That experience made me
think, “Why not go and see what
Scandinavia is really like,” since
reading crime novels was a bizarreway to get to know these countries.What do you feel were the greatest
similarities and differences between
the Scandinavia of noir fiction and the
real Scandinavia that you encountered?
The great similarity between the
novels and the reality of the countries
is their social concerns. There’s a
strong sense that the
government is there to
take care of people. The
most amazing difference
is the proportion of
women in the police
force. Women account
for 50% or more of the
homicide divisions in
all three countries. In
the novels, the women
on the police force tend
to be these solitary,
beleaguered figures in
their departments. It’s
quite strange. Either the writers
haven’t checked in with the real police
force, or they’re relying too much on
genre history and on continuing a
tradition.What do you hope readers will come
away from your book with?
I hope that it will send readers to
these great crime series that I cover. I
also hope my book shows people that
escapist fiction often isn’t just escapist,
but that it offers sustenance and con-
solation as well. And I hope it may
inspire readers to travel to Scandinavia
and see a different culture and its way
of life.
—Stefan Dziemianowicz[Q&A]
PW Talks with Wendy Lesser
Noir Realities
In Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery (Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
May; reviewed on p. 56), critic Lesser contrasts the Scandinavia
depicted in Nordic noir to the real thing.