Adult Drama: And Other Essays

by Natalie Beach

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

If you loved Trick Mirror or Girlhood, this collection of essays from Natalie Beach is for you. Weaving deeply personal narratives and cultural commentary with sharpness and wit makes for a propulsive read that is delightfully hilarious and incisive.

Named a Most Anticipated Book in...
Harper’s Bazaar
Elle
Bookpage
Vulture’s “Into It”

From the writer whose New York Magazine piece "I Was Caroline Calloway" broke the internet comes a fresh, incisive, laugh-out-loud funny memoir-in-essays about the frenzied journey to adulthood.

Natalie Beach became an internet sensation when her essay on her toxic friendship with Instagram influencer Caroline Calloway went viral. Now, for the first time, and in her own indelible voice, Beach offers a revelatory glimpse into her own life alongside a broader cultural criticism of the world today. Through stories of heartbreak, odd jobs, political activism, existential crises and low-rise jeans, Natalie Beach explores the high stakes and absurdist comedy of coming of age in a world gone mad.

Effervescent, hilarious and unflinchingly self-aware, Adult Drama marks the arrival of an electrifying new literary voice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781335914026
Publisher:	Hanover Square Press
Publication date:	06/20/2023
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	186,689
Product dimensions:	5.43(w) x 8.44(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Natalie Beach is a writer and producer for film and television. She was raised in New Haven and studied at the Educational Center for the Arts and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. She lives with her husband in the shadow of Dodger Stadium.

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/08/2023

Beach, who is best known for her viral 2019 essay documenting her fraught relationship with social media starlet Caroline Calloway, debuts with an elegant memoir-in-essays that mixes gossipy anecdotes about that friendship with gorgeously rendered reflections on her own life. “Distressed Denim” explores the sexual politics of Abercrombie and Fitch’s low-rise jeans (“There are no atheists in an Abercrombie dressing room,” it begins, “so I prayed... please fit, please look good for one goddamn time”) from Beach’s perspective as an insecure 14-year-old; “Self-Centered” recounts Beach’s sophomore year in college, when she met Calloway, with whom she ghostwrote a book proposal and countless social media posts; “Abortion Abortion” deals with Beach’s experiences as a volunteer at an abortion clinic in spring 2017; “Wifeliness” examines in painful detail the swift death of Beach’s mother-in-law, Mary Ellen, due to pancreatic cancer. Throughout, Beach’s wide-eyed honesty and utter lack of pretense (“There’s no good way to end a memoir, short of elegantly dropping dead after you write the final sentence,” she muses at one point) contribute to the sense that she’s mined every inch of her experience for these pieces. Incisive and candid, this is a must-read. Agent: Cait Hoyt and Mollie Glick, CAA. (June)

Publishers Weekly

[A]n elegant memoir-in-essays... Incisive and candid, this is a must-read.”—Publishers Weekly STARRED review

"Beach’s voice is a synthesis of whip-smart cultural commentary and vulnerable self-reflection as she searches for an identity she can call hers — contractor, shopgirl, estate-sale junkie, memoirist. Adult Drama is an unflinching self portrait by an artist who’s done with telling any story that isn’t hers."—Booklist

"From existential crises to breakups to her time as an activist and in the workplace, Beach will captivate readers from beginning to end in this highly-anticipated debut."—The Messenger

"Natalie Beach is the main character now... [Adult Drama is] about the rest of her life: the many jobs she’s had, working as an abortion clinic escort, her New York roommates, estate sales, and marrying her husband as he was losing his mother, with, yes, a bit of Calloway thrown in for good measure."—Elle

"Eclectic essays about estate sales, abortion clinics and Abercrombie & Fitch are as trenchant as they are tender...Beach is sublime...a talented essayist with a promising career ahead of her."—Washington Post

"Beach's reflective tone belies the explosive topics in these essays."—New York Times Book Review

"Adult Drama is an auspicious debut, a captivating book about identity and coming-of-age."—Largehearted Boy

"Beach has a profile writer’s eye for comic specificity."—The New Yorker


“Natalie Beach is a writer whose work feels like it contains the force of a revelation. These essays both delighted and astonished me, often within the same sentence, for their ribald and vulnerable intimacy, the canny insight with which she examines how we shape ourselves within friendships, within clothes—from low-rise jeans to soccer shorts—within the various pressures and structures of modern life. This debut marks the arrival of a major new talent, a voice readers are going to deeply identify with and love, to read and re-read again and again.”—Mary South, author of You Will Never Be Forgotten

"From her intensely intelligent essays to her downright poetic text messages, Natalie Beach’s distinctive voice combines erudition, humor, and incisiveness in a way that I’ve admired for many years. There’s truly no one I’d rather read on the subject of existential dread and growing up. I’d devour Natalie’s grocery lists if she let me!"—Amanda Montell, author of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

From the Publisher

Listeners looking for an audiobook that is both relatable and hilarious will enjoy Natalie Beach's take on life. Beach, who is known for writing about her unhealthy friendship with Instagram influencer Caroline Calloway, shares more of her thoughts and signature narrative style in these essays on love, careers, activism, and culture. Playful and animated, she offers a fresh voice on interesting topics that showcase her depth and vulnerability. Each essay takes the listener on a quirky journey through Beach's life, expressing her perspective, emotions, and youth in a profound and intriguing way that is enjoyable and unique in every moment. D.Z. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2023 -- AudioFile