“Quietly Hostile” follows Samantha Irby’s best-selling essay collections “We Are Never Meeting in Real Life” and “Wow, No Thank You” — but does not live up to them.
Irby, known for her blog and her work as a writer, producer and/or co-host of television shows, including the “Sex and the City” reboot, “And Just Like That,” has proven that she wears many hats in the entertainment industry. She’s a 2021 recipient of the Lambda Literary Award, and is a two-time New York Times best-selling author. I was eager to get my hands on her recent release, but was left underwhelmed with her latest nonfiction work.
“Quietly Hostile” contains a few notable essays, including The New Yorker-published piece “Please Invite Me To Your Party.” However, while the aforementioned essay succeeds in its succinct wit and self-deprecating humor, the others in the collection fail to reflect Irby’s typical goofy, structured pen.
The second essay in the collection, “The Last Normal Day,” is a day in the life of Irby right at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than reading as a cohesive inner monologue, the essay reads as a superfluous ramble full of unnecessary details and random tangents, peppered with a million or so question marks and exclamation points. The best parts of the essay — including the bullet point list of erratic purchases Irby struggled to pack up when she fled her Chicago apartment — were obscured by the jumbled thoughts recounted throughout it. I finished the essay unsure of how it started, only able to remember the random corn dog anecdote shared at the end.
In general, the essays seem to lack substance. One essay, “David Matthews’s Greatest Romantic Hits” is 13 pages long and consists of long-winded spiels about the romantic merit of 14 Dave Matthews Band songs; another piece, “Two Old Nuns Having Amzing [Sic] Lesbian Sex” clocks in at 22 pages, all the while recounting a 39-minute porno Irby has permanently queued. While both of these essays would make for incredible PowerPoint party presentations, they quickly became repetitive and dull in the written form.
It’s hard to pinpoint a central theme or consistent thread in “Quietly Hostile.” From twenty-plus pages on pornography to a two-page piece on whales, the collection was generating whiplash left and right. Though it is fitting to call the collection an “outrageously funny tour of all the gory details that make up the true portrait of a life,” it is also disappointing to navigate what felt like an unorganized mash-up of internal ramblings.
That said, Irby is a writer who should be read and whose work should be uplifted. The essays that do work hit the nail right on the head (in terms of humor and pacing), and bring to mind Irby’s past nonfiction work.
The highlight of “Quietly Hostile” is the essay “What If I Died Like Elvis,” a lively and comical account of the time Irby gave herself a severe allergic reaction while attempting to remove her gel manicure. What begins with a relatable statement on Irby’s issues with being perceived in her everyday life turns into a horror story as Irby suffers the consequences of removing a manicure she didn’t want in the first place. Irby showcases her comedic timing through her writing as she describes her conversation with the hotline nurse and her ridiculous thought process as she prepared to leave for the hospital (stopping to grab a lip balm) and highlights her storytelling abilities in this unforgettable piece. In spite of the other underwhelming essays, “What If I Died Like Elvis” made me want to read more.
So, no, “Quietly Hostile” shouldn’t be your first Irby read, but it shouldn’t be your last, either. While the overall collection is underwhelming with regard to Irby’s past works, there are a few notable pieces that exhibit her comical and ever-relatable written prowess. Her talent lies in her ability to tell stories, which I hope to read more of in the future.
Daily Arts Writer Lillian Pearce can be reached at pearcel@umich.edu.