Patricia Lockwood wants you to admit the internet is real life

Patricia Lockwood thinks people are uncomfortable with the idea that the internet is real life. It’s why she believes novels about the internet — including her 2021 book, “No One Is Talking About This,” about a social media star whose online life gets upended by a family emergency — are often dismissed as frivolous.

“Honestly, it made people malfunction, like they didn’t know what to do,” Lockwood said about her debut novel at a recent Writers Speak event hosted by the Mahindra Humanities Center. “There was still this idea that the internet couldn’t be in a book, and that really fascinated me.”

The discomfort, she theorized, stems from people perceiving their own online lives as private and embarrassing. To admit that the internet is real life is to admit a person’s online self is their authentic self, Lockwood told the Fong Auditorium audience.

The poet, novelist, and author of the 2017 memoir “Priestdaddy,” who is known for her sharp literary voice and irreverent social media presence, spoke with FAS Assistant Professor of English Tara K. Menon about crafting characters, writing long-form in an era of micro-content, and the art of inhabiting another writer’s mind.

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