The Washington Post - 18.03.2020

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WEDNESDAy, MARCH 18 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STyLE eZ re C

PERFORMING ARTS

local theater and dance

companies ponder the

lingering effects of the

extended closures. C2

BOOK WORLD

James McBride’s ‘deacon

King Kong’ is a rollicking

examination of a Brooklyn

community. C3

LIVE MUSIC

With venues closed, we

lose the affirmational

beauty of singalongs and

other rituals. C4

CAROLYN HAX

she’s in a perfectly fine

relationship, but she’s still

keeping contact with her

ex-boyfriend. C8

Pandemic,

panic and

toilet paper

mathematics

By now the
pandemic has
touched your own
little cubby of the
universe: your
own Costco,
bereft of hand
sanitizer; your
own gym, which
has closed until
further notice. It’s infiltrated
your to-do list. I stood near a
tired-looking mother Thursday
at the supermarket while her
small daughter asked whyyyy
they had to be there, and the
mother said, “I told you, to get
ready for the emergency,” and the
daughter said, “Is it tonight?”
and the mother said, “That’s a
good question,” and then,
“Remember, if you’re good, you
can have two oreos.”
Is the emergency happening
tonight? Is it happening now?
Your answers to those questions
will depend on how many pallets
of toilet paper you currently have
in your pantry. When
apocalypses seem imminent,
rolls of toilet paper unspool into
the yardage by which Americans
measure panic. We can imagine
no scenario worse than the world
ending while our pants are
around our ankles.
on Thursday, Walmart, Ta rget
and Amazon’s online
marketplaces were all out of
stock, or close to it, and brick-
and-mortar stores set limits of
packs per customer until they
ran out, too. An Australian
newspaper printed eight extra
blank pages, advertised as
“emergency toilet roll.”
see Hesse on c2

Monica
Hesse

BY RON CHARLES

Please d on’t d o this. Don’t write
a novel about trying to write a
novel. It’s cliche and insular and
lazy. Just don’t do it.
Unless it’s this novel — this
wonderful, witty, heartfelt novel
by Lily King titled “Writers & Lov-
ers.”
I’ve followed King’s c areer since
her debut two decades ago, when
she published “The Pleasing
Hour” about an American au pair
in Paris. With “The e nglish Teach-
er” (2005) and especially “Father
of the Rain” (2010), she estab-
lished a reputation for writing in-
sightful, emotionally piercing sto-
ries. But she never attracted the
audience she deserved until she
left the confines of domestic fic-
tion and published “euphoria”
(2014), a wry historical novel
about Margaret Mead in new
Guinea.
That change must have felt to
her l ike a risk, but it was n ot nearly
as reckless as what she’s u p to now.
“Writers & Lovers” i s a funny novel
about grief, and, worse, it’s dan-
gerously romantic, bold enough
and fearless enough to imagine
the possibility of unbounded hap-
piness. According to the penal
code of literary fiction, that’s a
violation of section 364, Prohibit-
ing Unlawful D eparture from Am-
biguity and Despair.
Run, Lily, run!
The narrator of “Writers & Lov-
ers” is Casey, a 31-year-old woman
clinging to her d ream of a creative
life after all her MFA friends have
settled d own, married u p and s old
out. one by one, they’ve suc-
cumbed to law or engineering
school. A promising writer she
used to room with has become a
real estate agent, but she tries to
see booK world on c3

BOOK WORLD

Finding

grace amid

a writer’s

despair

I

t was Wednesday afternoon and Jennifer

McCarthy had a lot of questions. Her col-

lege freshman son had j ust returned home

to Bethesda f rom Vanderbilt, unsure when

he would go back to school. “He loves it there

and is s o, s o happy, so this i s just especially s ad,”

she said of the university’s sudden news that it

would move studies online because of the

coronavirus. His return is not just a fun home-

coming. It’s complicated and confusing for

everyone, e specially for her.

“We just had him home f or spring b reak, a nd

that was so relaxing, nice and casual,” McCa-

rthy said. But now? “now I’m like, ‘What do we

do?’ This i sn’t a break.”

Like thousands of parents of college stu-

dents across the country, McCarthy isn’t sure

what comes next. Her son is suddenly home,

but he’s also still a student. He’s missing his

friends and h is freedom. He d oesn’t k now w hat

to expect from online courses or when he’ll

return. His things are still sitting in a dorm in

nashville. A nd maybe worst o f all: He’s here, in

his old house. With r ules and b oundaries.

so what’s a parent t o do? Does his m om make

sure he’s o ut o f bed before 1 1:30 in t he m orning,

his typical spring-break rising time? Does she

see college on c2

BY AMY JOYCE

Deferred decisions

What happens when college kids leave the nest — and the coronavirus sends them back

BY HANK STUEVER

“Little Fires everywhere,”

Hulu’s miniseries adaptation of

Celeste ng’s 2017 novel, is pure

metaphorical pyromania. It’s

compulsively satisfying to watch,

as two strikingly different women

melt a frosty politeness into poi-

son, interfering in each other’s

lives in a way that can’t help but

combust.

The mutual rage lies just be-

neath the old-growth privilege of

the fancy Cleveland suburb called

shaker Heights, in 1997, where an

itinerant artist, Mia Warren

(“scandal’s” Kerry Washington),

and her teenage daughter, Pearl

(Lexi Underwood), roll up in their

worn-out Chevy and decide to

make the town their latest home.

They answer an ad for a vacant

duplex apartment owned by ele-

na Richardson (“Big Little Lies’ ”

Reese Witherspoon), who has al-

ready taken note of their presence

— b y calling t he police earlier that

day and reporting them for sleep-

ing in their car. elena, however,

considers herself a benevolent

do-gooder, so she waives the de-

posit and welcomes them in.

A viewer already knows some-

thing about this arrangement will

go terribly wrong: “Little Fires

everywhere” (which premieres

Wednesday with the first three of

eight episodes) opens with a

flash-forward, as the Richardson

family’s impressive mansion goes

up in a full, five-alarm blaze. A

police officer asks elena and her

husband, Bill (“The Affair’s” Josh-

ua Jackson), if they suspect their

youngest daughter, a rebelliously

angsty 14-year-old named Izzy

(Megan stott), of deliberately set-

ting it. “There were little fires

everywhere,” he informs them.

Get it? Racism, classism, sex-

ism, homophobia, xenophobia,

maternal neuroses, adolescent

angst — it’s a whole aisle of

sociocultural lighter fluid, ready

and waiting.

elena insults Mia by asking her

if she wants to work afternoons as

her housekeeper. Mia is livid —

and then takes the job, as Pearl

navigates the hothouse environ-

ment of east shaker High school

and becomes increasingly in-

see tV reVIew on c4

TV REVIEW

Actresses add some spark to ‘Little Fires Everywhere’

alI goldsteIn/hulu

“little Fires everywhere,” Hulu’s miniseries adaptation of celeste Ng’s novel, stars Kerry washington

as a single mother who moves to t he affluent shaker Heights in cleveland’s suburbs.

BIll o'leary/the WashIngton Post

Maureen stiles sits with

her 19-year-old son,

drew, who is stuck at

home instead of school at

salisbury University

because of coronavirus

measures.