It’s the first time I’m sharing my actual life, or the actual events that inspired the songs. I’ve often asked myself, am I creating chaos in my world? Or is it the way that I see through this? My most recent record is probably the most intimate, honest, unguarded thing that I’ve done. It made me think of how distress can lead us to create-and how it can also lead to an experience that ’ s pleasurable for an audience.ĪNGEL OLSEN: approach writing is I will change a few things from what happened. listening to Angel ’ s album, feeling blissed out. I lost myself in Jules’ book, reading on my patio with my dog for hours and I’ve been driving around L.A. You ’ ve created work that gives the audience so much pleasure while working through some painful stuff. REBECCA SACKS: First of all, mazal tov to both of you for making art during the pandemic. In a conversation moderated by novelist Rebecca Sacks, Jules and Angel talk art, sex, and heartbreak. She recently joined a Zoom call with debut novelist Jules Ohman, whose book, Body Grammar, follows Lou, a teenage model thrust into the world of fashion, all while navigating loss and queer love. In her sixth studio album, Big Time, Angel Olsen works through grief and pleasure-the pain of losing both her parents, two months apart, after having experienced the joy of coming out to them as queer.

But in the limelight, Lou begins to fear that she’s losing her identity-as an individual, as an artist, and as a person still in love with the girl she left behind.Ī sharply observed and intimate story of grief and healing, doubt and self-acceptance set against the hyper-image-conscious industry of modeling and high fashion, Body Grammar shines with the anxieties of finding your place in the world and the heartbreaking beauty of pursuing love.There’s an argument to be made that all art-fiction or otherwise-is on some level an artist encountering herself. It’s a whirlwind of learning how to walk and how to command a body she’s never felt at ease in. Determined to find a purpose, Lou moves to New York and steps into the dizzying world of international fashion shows, haute couture, and editorial shoots. She prefers to take photographs, especially of Ivy, her close friend and secret crush.īut when a hike ends in a tragic accident, Lou finds herself lost and ridden with guilt.

Lou has no interest in fashion or being in the spotlight. roiling with deep questions of identity and art, love, and the irrepressible need for meaning in life' (Jess Walter, bestselling author of The Cold Millions)īy the time Lou turns eighteen, modeling agents across Portland have scouted her for her striking androgynous look. A coming-of-age queer love story set in the glamorous but grueling world of international modeling-a 'terrific debut.

Body Grammar by Jules Ohman