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"The first great book about what it was like to live through the Trump presidency"—Emily Gould, The Cut
In the summer of 2016, a divisive presidential election was underway, and a new breed of right-wing rage was on the rise. Emily Witt, who would soon publish her first book on sex in the digital age, had recently quit antidepressants for a more expansive world of psychedelic experimentation. From her apartment in Brooklyn, she began to catch glimpses of the clandestine nightlife scene thrumming around her.
In Health and Safety, Witt charts her immersion into New York City’s dance music underground. Emily would come to lead a double life. By day she worked as a journalist, covering gun violence, climate catastrophes, and the rallies of right-wing militias. And by night she pushed the limits of consciousness in hollowed-out office spaces and warehouses to music that sounded like the future. But no counterculture, no matter how utopian, could stave off the squalor of American politics and the cataclysm of 2020.
Affectionate yet never sentimental, Health and Safety is a lament for a broken relationship, for a changed nightlife scene, and for New York City just before the fall. Sparing no one—least of all herself—Witt offers her life as a lens onto an era of American delirium and dissolution.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
September 17, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593913246
- File size: 259412 KB
- Duration: 09:00:26
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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September 9, 2024
New Yorker staff writer Witt (Nollywood) delivers an arresting memoir rife with techno music, drugs, and the blush of new romance. In 2013, after quitting antidepressants, Witt decided to try “as many psychedelic drugs as possible,” her curiosity piqued by shifting social attitudes toward the substances. A solo trip to an ayahuasca ceremony in the Catskills netted her a boyfriend and a starting point, and she spent the next three years documenting her experiences on LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin while working on her first book, Future Sex. Then, in 2016, after a breakup and a move to Bushwick, Brooklyn, Witt fell in with a new social scene and got a new boyfriend, Andrew, who took her to forest raves and industrial techno shows. As the events of 2016—including the presidential election, mass shootings, and climate disasters—made Witt’s days as a journalist ever bleaker, she sought to counteract the gloom with nights out dancing. the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, Witt’s release valve vanished thanks to lockdown measures, causing her relationship with Andrew to disintegrate along with her faith in the social fabric. Witt’s well-honed prose makes her gut-wrenching portrait of 2010s boom-and-bust hedonism feel like the sharp observations of a trusted friend. This intense portrait of one woman’s wild years deserves a wide audience. Agent: Edward Orloff, McCormick Literary.
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