What I’ve Been Reading This Week:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A book that is a novel. A book that is a memoir. A book that is literary scholarship, or at least quotes (and sources) freely from other texts. Yes, all of these are the same book. Hybrid texts are not new to me, but this was entirely new to me. It reminded me slightly of Dan Beachy-Quick’s This Nest, Swift Passerine<\/em> for the way it quoted other texts. It reminded me a little of Metallic Realms<\/em> by Lincoln Michel, and in turns books I haven’t read but I know have similar conceits, like Nabokov’s Pale Fire<\/em>. Those sorts of metafictional comparisons aren’t quite<\/em> right, because this book seems to be doing a couple of different things, but the comparison crossed my mind. I’m talking, of course, about Fit Into Me: A Novel: A Memoir<\/em> by Molly Gaudry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fit Into Me: A Novel: A Memoir <\/strong><\/em>by Molly Gaudry: <\/strong>Yes, it\u2019s very much both. The novel concerns the tea house woman, a character who has appeared in earlier Gaudry books. The memoir focuses on Gaudry\u2019s summer with her birth father and half-siblings in Korea, Gaudry having a traumatic brain injury while roller skating and needing vision therapy, and Gaudry trying to do dissertation defense. There is also an out-of-whack romantic subplot, and it does all work together, though, after one reading, I am struggling to put into words how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a lot going on, and thus a lot I am afraid to get embarrassingly wrong, so I\u2019ll be kind of detail-light. The tea house woman\u2019s dramas and struggles do not perfectly mirror Molly\u2019s, but you see the difficulties with writing a novel while also having a hard time telling your own story. Hell, having a hard time reading words on the page, given the traumatic brain injury. There is this fiery love for language, literature, and creating stories that I think really makes the book work. Like Vi Khi Nao\u2019s book, there\u2019s an undercurrent of getting to read a writer\u2019s uninterrupted thoughts. But there is also all this fascinating stuff about how senses work, how it feels being adopted, and how scholarship works on a professional level that is super interesting. Definitely read this book\u2014it will be challenging for normie readers and weirdos like me. Oh so worth it, though. Like I said, it is making me go back and look at a manuscript I’m mostly finished with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Something to listen to while you browse? Have we listened to any of the (relatively) new Elephant Gym yet? I feel like we have, but just in case. I mean, this is just a new version of this song, but. Listen to the new Elephant Gym!<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Fit](\"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_7288-768x1024.jpg\")