Adler is very much having a 'moment' thanks in large part to a recently published collection of her non-fiction, which I am desperate to own. I had never read anything of hers prior to picking up her very unconventional novel Speeboat, but now I'm addicted to her writing, which reminds me of Joan Didion, goddess.

I never would have predicted this, but Speedboat has turned out to be an excellent summer read, for several reasons: I always associate anything about gritty 1970s New York with summer (see also, The Flamethrowers), and the novel is written in distinct chunks of several paragraphs at a time, making it any easy novel to slip in and out of, so it doesn't require any extreme level of commitment or concentration, which I find helpful for beach or poolside reading, which is usually fraught with distractions. I got through the bulk of it on the shores of Lake Michigan, and finished the rest in a hammock at a campsite, so now it's inextricably linked to my summer vacation, which I love.