Impulse Purchases, Author Spotlight

Rosalía, Tessa Hadley + the Portal (Again!)

May 18, 2026

Hello, hello! Well, I took a month off and boy, do I have updates. I’m fresh off a trip to London and New York (the latter of which was tragically cut short after I tore my calf dancing at a wedding and had to self-evacuate back to LA with a set of crutches and various unmet needs). Let’s focus on the positives, though: London is thrilling, as always. Its bookstores are the best in the world. The food is on another level. The parks. The parks! (Can we collectively manifest a flat for me, please? I’m not picky.)

What I want to write about today, though, is the reason I went to London – to see Rosalía perform her new album with the London Philharmonic – and to argue a case for making spontaneous, seemingly irresponsible decisions. Some background: I am an Aries, and extremely impulsive. This has resulted in various misadventures (see: that time I impulse-bought Miami Heat tickets for Aaron’s birthday, then realized the game was in Miami – not Chicago, where we lived – then proceeded to buy tickets to Miami to see the game rather than forfeit the idea). The Rosalía tickets followed the same thread: I saw, I bought, I knew I’d figure it out later. Yes, I knew she was playing in LA, my city of residence, later this summer. But I saw her London show, knew I had to be there and clicked ‘purchase’ with basically zero seconds of processing. Understandably, this behavior likely makes some people squirm. It also has an extremely high success rate if you can let go logistically. (And yes, it’s easier if you don’t have dependents.)

Seeing this woman perform was a peak life experience. I think I’d forgotten what collective joy felt like. Crying while dancing in a stadium of thousands of other fans does something to your cells. It rearranges you for the night (/forever?). A tiny channel opens; frustration dissolves and is replaced with a swell of inspiration, euphoria, simultaneous in-and-out-of-body-ness. Witnessing someone do precisely what they were put on this earth to do makes you feel human. It reminds you that life is okay despite the muck we’re currently embroiled in. It binds you to others. It assures you that art will not die despite our – air-quote – leader’s best efforts, and maybe in spite of that, too. AI could never replace a woman who sings in 13 languages, dances on point, shakes her ass and improvs charming audience conversation within a 2-hour period. Remember The Portal? This concert was a reminder that it exists.

Most people I know are having a ‘weird time’ right now. We’re realizing the system has utterly failed us. We’re trying to redesign our lives to work less and prioritize community-building. This is when art comes in handy, in any and all forms. Books, music, paintings, dance, either observed or engaged in – all have the power to absorb the shock of free-fall. The next time you see something that creates a spark, that feeling of ‘That looks fun,’ just click yes and figure it out later. You won’t be sorry.

Below: Our second author spotlight (I need to do more of these!). And linking some old recipes because honestly, it’s hard to cook anything compelling with crutches besides steamed vegetables and broiled fish.

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Author Spotlight: Tessa Hadley

Our second author spotlight is Tessa Hadley: a brilliant British author whose name I scan for at every bookstore in every city I visit. She’s beloved in the UK and should be better-known/more accessible here than she is (though her short stories are frequently featured in the New Yorker). Hopefully after you read this you’ll track down her work and become as ardent a fan as I am.

I’m not a short story lover but Hadley is one of the authors I make exceptions for (the other is Claire Keegan). In this vein she’s been compared to Alice Munro – high praise, and convenient, as it’s unlikely I’ll ever read Alice Munro again. Her novels, though, are what I want to urge you toward. Hadley’s prose is razor-sharp and controlled, yet not cold. She draws rich characters from the standpoint of an objective observer, managing to remain at a distance but somehow keeping you close. She isn’t sympathetic or soft. The language she uses to describe tension, family dynamics, and repressed emotions (especially women’s) will make you re-read sentences. For a writer like me – someone who does not, and cannot, hold back – reading writers like Hadley is revelatory. Hadley-coded themes include: marriage, sibling dynamics, adultery, women yearning for richer lives, women’s inner worlds. Very RER.

Hadley first took hold of my heart with Free Love (2022), a novel about a woman living a pre-ordained middle-class life in the suburbs in the 1960s, who – after a brief encounter with a young, rebellious dinner party guest – leaves her family, moves to London and embarks on a full-scale transformation. It’s exciting to read about women who abandon everything for the sake of themselves, and even better when an author does the hard work of plumbing the depths of her characters’ deepest, darkest fears, desires and insecurities. Hadley isn’t afraid to go there, and doesn’t apologize for her characters’ sins.

Next I read The Past (2015), a family drama that takes place between four siblings and various side characters over three weeks at their country home. Hadley sandwiches the present with a flashback to the 60s featuring the siblings’ parents – a technique she employs throughout her novels, a flexing of her short story muscle. No one writes about families quite like Hadley; she burrows into the discomfort of who people really are and exposes them like a raw nerve. I gobbled this one up.

Other Hadley books I’ve adored: Late in the Day (2019), another novel about marriage, friendship and their dissolution; After the Funeral (2023), an excellent short story collection; The Party (2024), a novella about two sisters in post-War Bristol; and, most recently, Accidents in the Home (2002), her debut novel and one about which I’ll be writing in more depth soon.

Her books are tough to find in mainstream US bookstores but are abundant online (Thriftbooks, Blackwells). Seek them out and please let me know what you think!