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I'm Trying to Reach You
* The Believer Book Award Finalist
* One of the Best Books of 2012 ― BuzzFeed
“I was in Zagreb the day that Michael Jackson died. When I heard the news, the first thing I thought was, That’s it. That’s the first line of my novel. ‘I was in Zagreb the day that Michael Jackson died.’” First Michael Jackson, then Pina Bausch. Next is Merce Cunningham. Gray Adams, a former dancer with the Royal Swiss Ballet at work on his dissertation at NYU, has a theory spurred by countless hours of YouTube-based Someone is killing these famous dancers! (And he may bear an uncanny resemblance to Jimmy Stewart, circa Vertigo .) I’m Trying to Reach You is a moving and candid contemporary look at how we process grief, as well as how we love and communicate with one another. "A provocative novel... that blurs the boundaries between life and performance, dance, art, and viral video. The novel is also framed in the world of performance art and is itself its own kind of performance... and feels rightly reflective of a moment when dance is pushing the boundaries of what constitutes a performance space." ― Slate
* One of the Best Books of 2012 ― BuzzFeed
“I was in Zagreb the day that Michael Jackson died. When I heard the news, the first thing I thought was, That’s it. That’s the first line of my novel. ‘I was in Zagreb the day that Michael Jackson died.’” First Michael Jackson, then Pina Bausch. Next is Merce Cunningham. Gray Adams, a former dancer with the Royal Swiss Ballet at work on his dissertation at NYU, has a theory spurred by countless hours of YouTube-based Someone is killing these famous dancers! (And he may bear an uncanny resemblance to Jimmy Stewart, circa Vertigo .) I’m Trying to Reach You is a moving and candid contemporary look at how we process grief, as well as how we love and communicate with one another. "A provocative novel... that blurs the boundaries between life and performance, dance, art, and viral video. The novel is also framed in the world of performance art and is itself its own kind of performance... and feels rightly reflective of a moment when dance is pushing the boundaries of what constitutes a performance space." ― Slate
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
6 people are currently reading
488 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Browning
21 books49 followersBarbara Browning's debut novel, The Correspondence Artist, was published in February, 2011. She has a PhD from Yale in Comparative Literature. She teaches in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. She's also a poet and a dancer. She lives with her son in Greenwich Village.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
November 26, 2012
Read the entire book on the same day I also finished Sheila Heti's How Should A Person Be?, along with Tove Jansson's Fair Play and Elizabeth Hardwick's Sleepless Nights. Then this book: one that is about artists, about performance, about modern relationships, about YouTube, about memories of people, about everything those other three books were about in very different ways.
And then the freaky (but "just for me" freaky) stuff: how I was abroad too when Michael Jackson died, how the narrator mentions an exhibit I went to (as, probably, did half of Brooklyn and much of Manhattan), how Bugs Bunny's sister (read the book) is exactly like a woman who lives in the building where we lived in New York, how an Estonian I met in Latvia recently sent me an email recommending many of the same Pina Bausch pieces that were mentioned in the book, how while reading I thought of a Nao Bustamante performance I saw at Sundance ten pages before her name appeared there on the page. And then the ending: it was saying exactly what I wanted to say at the end of Sheila Heti's book. Maybe even what Sheila Heti wanted to say.
This is not a book review, it's just a bunch of jotted down thoughts to say that this book was the most perfect freaky ending a woman who hasn't left the house all day could have to her day.
This is a book review: this is one of the most unique and entertaining books I've read in a while. More of the same, please. (4 for the book itself; 5 for being the perfect ending to the sequence of books I've read today.)
And then the freaky (but "just for me" freaky) stuff: how I was abroad too when Michael Jackson died, how the narrator mentions an exhibit I went to (as, probably, did half of Brooklyn and much of Manhattan), how Bugs Bunny's sister (read the book) is exactly like a woman who lives in the building where we lived in New York, how an Estonian I met in Latvia recently sent me an email recommending many of the same Pina Bausch pieces that were mentioned in the book, how while reading I thought of a Nao Bustamante performance I saw at Sundance ten pages before her name appeared there on the page. And then the ending: it was saying exactly what I wanted to say at the end of Sheila Heti's book. Maybe even what Sheila Heti wanted to say.
This is not a book review, it's just a bunch of jotted down thoughts to say that this book was the most perfect freaky ending a woman who hasn't left the house all day could have to her day.
This is a book review: this is one of the most unique and entertaining books I've read in a while. More of the same, please. (4 for the book itself; 5 for being the perfect ending to the sequence of books I've read today.)
December 22, 2012
(7/10) Well this is an odd one. I'm Trying to Reach You is a kind of conspiracy novel, but it's a conspiracy that revolves around cryptic YouTube videos, modern dance, and Michael Jackson. The narrator is even more of an oddity, a strange mixture of voyeurism, fixation, and critical theory. He watches what he perceives to be a something incredibly significant and strange, but is not involved in it, taking the same role of observer as we do. The whole thing is vaguely Hitchcock-esque, but also a bit experimental and a bit silly at the same time.
In the end, I'm Trying to Reach You is about the ways in which new media, from YouTube to JSTOR, have altered the way we see the world. We all become conspiracy theorists, after a fashion, trying to string together so many bits of meaningless messages and depthless tragedies, and the issue is usually only that we're talking about the wrong conspiracy. The novel itself seems to conform to this vision of surface without depth -- its central character and the events it depicts all seem unreal and alienating. While this may be intentional, it doesn't make it any easier to read (I also had a couple issues with the conclusion, which are too spoilery to get into here). While it may not have fit the character's narrative voice, I would have liked at least some nice prose. But like many postmodern novels, no matter how distanced I felt from the text while reading it, thinking about it afterwards proved much more exciting.
In the end, I'm Trying to Reach You is about the ways in which new media, from YouTube to JSTOR, have altered the way we see the world. We all become conspiracy theorists, after a fashion, trying to string together so many bits of meaningless messages and depthless tragedies, and the issue is usually only that we're talking about the wrong conspiracy. The novel itself seems to conform to this vision of surface without depth -- its central character and the events it depicts all seem unreal and alienating. While this may be intentional, it doesn't make it any easier to read (I also had a couple issues with the conclusion, which are too spoilery to get into here). While it may not have fit the character's narrative voice, I would have liked at least some nice prose. But like many postmodern novels, no matter how distanced I felt from the text while reading it, thinking about it afterwards proved much more exciting.
May 22, 2020
Absolutely love the videos really exist
https://youtu.be/AgZl1vq8L5I
https://youtu.be/AgZl1vq8L5I
July 1, 2012
Good hybrid of/riff on the academic comedy and the paranoid thriller. Also impressive: works in a completely different way than Browning's earlier THE CORRESPONDENCE ARTIST.
October 8, 2015
Utter shit.
January 4, 2014
This is so not a book I would have chosen for myself and I actually put off reading it until just before book club, but I loved it. Details about the characters and the plot are often not provided until they're narratively necessary, so they feel like they could have just been added and since so many of them were so easy to relate to my own life, it often felt like the book was being written for me as I went along - like a choose-your-own-adventure where I didn't realize I was making the choices.
It's not a perfect book - as C said at book club it spells out details it doesn't need to and it's often too on the nose about its themes. Also, frankly the resolution of the "mystery" is a little unsatisfying, but it's such an exhilarating, fascinating read that I'm happy to overlook those things. All the characters are really delightful as well, people you would happily spend whole books of their own with. It's a weird little book, but I also feel like I could recommend it to so many people in my life with very divergent interests and they would all like it as well, which is rare and v. cool.
It's not a perfect book - as C said at book club it spells out details it doesn't need to and it's often too on the nose about its themes. Also, frankly the resolution of the "mystery" is a little unsatisfying, but it's such an exhilarating, fascinating read that I'm happy to overlook those things. All the characters are really delightful as well, people you would happily spend whole books of their own with. It's a weird little book, but I also feel like I could recommend it to so many people in my life with very divergent interests and they would all like it as well, which is rare and v. cool.
August 16, 2016
I was in Philadelphia when Michael Jackson died.
The final image of the "It ain't easy being green" performance is indelibly seared in my brain. It might be more memorable than everything else in this book.
The final image of the "It ain't easy being green" performance is indelibly seared in my brain. It might be more memorable than everything else in this book.
April 18, 2013
This probably deserves more than three stars, but somehow it just didn't speak to me. Parts of it did, other parts just fell a bit flat. I would give it 3 1/2 stars if I could.
September 12, 2018
perhaps subconsciously tending right now toward books in or in relation to new york. there's an element here of times square red, times square blue's "openness" and "generosity," words i was tired of and bewailing even when i first read that book a couple years ago and which feel even more embarrassing now. embarrassment: a quality that browning's intriguingly intentionally off-putting writing isn't afraid to take one, wants to take on. thinking of a talk i went to last night at the bookstore with the worst name in brooklyn in which a Hot Young Writer, who also likes to think about embarrassment and abjection all the time, speculated out loud that irony is a kind of earnestness, since it's a way of making your desires bearable to you. browning has no use for irony, for that kind of earnestness, is totally past trying to obfuscate the texts' desires, the characters' desires, what she wants to do with the story. the book has a total upfront guilelessness to it. it's playful and wise. afterward i watched all the dances on youtube that go with the story and most just have a couple hundred views and only a couple have comments, such a contrast with the fictional comments of the book. perhaps for another writer this could be embarrassing but not for her, not at all. perhaps for another writer it would be sad but i doubt she would think so (but i was saddened by it).
i'll also say: always odd how books that take place in the very recent past (in this case, 2009) are such period pieces. the political mood is entirely different; the internet is entirely different; the imagination of virality, of the kinds of lives led on the internet (an expectation/starting point of anonymity—that was still hanging in there in 2009, i'd say) entirely different. this novel maybe even couldn't be written now, which i think makes it even better, more specific.
i'll also say: always odd how books that take place in the very recent past (in this case, 2009) are such period pieces. the political mood is entirely different; the internet is entirely different; the imagination of virality, of the kinds of lives led on the internet (an expectation/starting point of anonymity—that was still hanging in there in 2009, i'd say) entirely different. this novel maybe even couldn't be written now, which i think makes it even better, more specific.
April 12, 2025
The narrator is really just trying to finish his book but he's actually looking for meaning all around him. Everybody has died (Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham, Les Paul) or is dying (everybody else). And yet he's found YouTube videos and strange comments that have led him down a rabbit hole as he tries to solve the mystery of what's happening.
The opening line is iconic, and sets up his character as a person who doesn't know what he's doing but who needs to express himself anyway. There are YouTube videos that actually exist that he watches, and the whole novel takes on a sort of performance art vibe, like you need both the videos and the book together to truly make sense of what's going on. I don't know that I've read anything like it.
I don't know if I liked the ending, but I liked the closing line. Probably not as iconic as the opening line, but it's a question I asked myself once. Who does know what Malta will bring?
The opening line is iconic, and sets up his character as a person who doesn't know what he's doing but who needs to express himself anyway. There are YouTube videos that actually exist that he watches, and the whole novel takes on a sort of performance art vibe, like you need both the videos and the book together to truly make sense of what's going on. I don't know that I've read anything like it.
I don't know if I liked the ending, but I liked the closing line. Probably not as iconic as the opening line, but it's a question I asked myself once. Who does know what Malta will bring?
March 24, 2019
This was the weirdest book I've read in a LONG time. And I read a lot of weird books! YouTube conspiracies and meaningless academic/pretentious meanderings that lead to nothing.
This was disappointing, but it was also strangely amusing in some ways? I laughed at it more than I hated it, so it merits more than 1 star.
This was disappointing, but it was also strangely amusing in some ways? I laughed at it more than I hated it, so it merits more than 1 star.
September 17, 2024
Gives me Frances Ha, or Cleo from 5-7pm vibes in the sense of following someone through a specific moment in their life.
Sometimes it’s meandering and most often there’s a line that’ll stop you in your tracks
Sometimes it’s meandering and most often there’s a line that’ll stop you in your tracks
October 26, 2020
More like a 2.5, really. It was just ok. The youtube components were interesting initially, but I found them tiresome by the end of the book. I wasn't captivated by either the prose or the plot.
April 9, 2019
When Gray Adams, former ballet dancer turned academic, gets stuck turning his dissertation into a book, he does what any good academic does: more research. Unfortunately, his research isn’t into his book’s topic (“Semaphoric Mime from the Ballet Blanc to William Forsythe: A Derridean Analysis”), but rather into the deaths of three iconic figures in dance—Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch, and Merce Cunningham.
Browning’s playful novel follows Gray as he deciphers cryptic clues embedded in a series of YouTube videos. But readers expecting a mystery similar to Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe might be disappointed; even Gray realizes that his theories are probably paranoid projections. Instead, the novel delves into Gray’s scattered mind as he goes in search of information. Sometimes, Gray’s search leads him on surprising discoveries, such as when he uncovers the Swedish word for “boyfriend” (pojkvan, a compound word combining ‘boy’ and ‘skilled’).
At other times, though, he simply rambles. Gray occasionally disappears down a black hole of YouTube comments, uncovering vaguely threatening messages from a man he dubs “Jimmy Stewart,” as well as the original poster’s responses. But the comments speak at cross-purposes. Their “conversation,” comprised of quotations attributed to the “real” Jimmy Stewart and poetic fragments from Emily Dickinson, offers juxtaposition but no real discourse. (The less said about the sophomoric and homophobic responses from “real people,” the better.)
This, perhaps, is intentional. Browning’s novel is a pastiche. She cuts and pastes from many different sources to create a multimedia experience. (The videos that Gray sees, for instance, are available on YouTube.) And while this works, Browning often fails to exploit how different media can work together. For example, when Gray sends photo messages to his Swedish boyfriend, Sven, Browning includes the photograph in the text. But rather than parse the photograph or use the photograph as a jumping-off point for further musing (a là W. G. Sebald), Browning merely describes what’s in the picture, as if seeing it weren’t enough. Similarly, Browning includes lengthy summaries of the film noirs that Gray and Sven see, but doesn’t examine how these films illuminate their relationship. The summaries add texture but no flavor.
Indeed, the characters, other than Gray, feel nebulous. Gray exists so much in his own head that the other people who pass through his life do exactly that: pass through. His involvement with Sven consists mostly of text messages and emoticons. They act less like boyfriends and more like FWBs (Friends With Blackberrys). Sven’s HIV-positive serostatus is given less space than, say, a hermeneutic examination into Les Paul. But, even though Browning isn’t aiming for psychological realism—indeed, Gray continually claims that he is short on cash, but never has any issue jetting off to Europe—she prefers to play for bemused chuckles, like Gray’s deaf downstairs neighbor, described only as “Bugs Bunny’s sister,” who speaks IN ALL CAPS WITH AN EGGZAJURATED NOO YAWK ACCENT.
Despite its flaws, the novel shows ambitious scope, encompassing everything from critical theory to the relationship between Merce Cunningham and John Cage. But, in the end, the novel feels like watching an artist’s greatest hits on YouTube: you get all the high points, but it doesn’t feel like an album.
Browning’s playful novel follows Gray as he deciphers cryptic clues embedded in a series of YouTube videos. But readers expecting a mystery similar to Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe might be disappointed; even Gray realizes that his theories are probably paranoid projections. Instead, the novel delves into Gray’s scattered mind as he goes in search of information. Sometimes, Gray’s search leads him on surprising discoveries, such as when he uncovers the Swedish word for “boyfriend” (pojkvan, a compound word combining ‘boy’ and ‘skilled’).
At other times, though, he simply rambles. Gray occasionally disappears down a black hole of YouTube comments, uncovering vaguely threatening messages from a man he dubs “Jimmy Stewart,” as well as the original poster’s responses. But the comments speak at cross-purposes. Their “conversation,” comprised of quotations attributed to the “real” Jimmy Stewart and poetic fragments from Emily Dickinson, offers juxtaposition but no real discourse. (The less said about the sophomoric and homophobic responses from “real people,” the better.)
This, perhaps, is intentional. Browning’s novel is a pastiche. She cuts and pastes from many different sources to create a multimedia experience. (The videos that Gray sees, for instance, are available on YouTube.) And while this works, Browning often fails to exploit how different media can work together. For example, when Gray sends photo messages to his Swedish boyfriend, Sven, Browning includes the photograph in the text. But rather than parse the photograph or use the photograph as a jumping-off point for further musing (a là W. G. Sebald), Browning merely describes what’s in the picture, as if seeing it weren’t enough. Similarly, Browning includes lengthy summaries of the film noirs that Gray and Sven see, but doesn’t examine how these films illuminate their relationship. The summaries add texture but no flavor.
Indeed, the characters, other than Gray, feel nebulous. Gray exists so much in his own head that the other people who pass through his life do exactly that: pass through. His involvement with Sven consists mostly of text messages and emoticons. They act less like boyfriends and more like FWBs (Friends With Blackberrys). Sven’s HIV-positive serostatus is given less space than, say, a hermeneutic examination into Les Paul. But, even though Browning isn’t aiming for psychological realism—indeed, Gray continually claims that he is short on cash, but never has any issue jetting off to Europe—she prefers to play for bemused chuckles, like Gray’s deaf downstairs neighbor, described only as “Bugs Bunny’s sister,” who speaks IN ALL CAPS WITH AN EGGZAJURATED NOO YAWK ACCENT.
Despite its flaws, the novel shows ambitious scope, encompassing everything from critical theory to the relationship between Merce Cunningham and John Cage. But, in the end, the novel feels like watching an artist’s greatest hits on YouTube: you get all the high points, but it doesn’t feel like an album.
October 5, 2012
When I first started this book I wasn't clear on the narrator. Since the author was a woman, I assumed the narrator was, too. I had a pic in my head of a quiet thirty-something white woman with long brown hair. Then I started thinking maybe it was a gay guy, but I wasn't sure. Then I finally figured out it was a gay guy, and after I readjusted the pic in my head, the voice made more sense. But then later on I learned that he was a "brown" gay guy, which changed the MJ obsession into something more of an identity thing. Then I learned that he was 46, and I had to adjust again. The author wasn't very up front about these things.
I loved the story, though, and the academia-steeped language and the lectures and performances. Sometimes I miss that, although usually I'm just glad I graduated and I never have to go back. Still, all those drunk intellectual discussions you have in college that make you feel like a fucking genius at the time are fun. Sometimes I miss using big words.
And even though I know absolutely nothing about performance studies, I was completely absorbed in the story and enjoyed it immensely.
So those are my thoughts on the main character and the setting. I enjoyed those, but the story was the best. What better way to procrastinate on a lecture and avoid working on your thesis but to obsess over a conspiracy theory based on a youtube performer and the people who comment? What better way to avoid dealing with all your own issues of love and commitment and fear of death, etc., than to immerse yourself in a completely bizarre fantasy world?
Great story! If you like any of the things I mentioned above, you should read it.
I loved the story, though, and the academia-steeped language and the lectures and performances. Sometimes I miss that, although usually I'm just glad I graduated and I never have to go back. Still, all those drunk intellectual discussions you have in college that make you feel like a fucking genius at the time are fun. Sometimes I miss using big words.
And even though I know absolutely nothing about performance studies, I was completely absorbed in the story and enjoyed it immensely.
So those are my thoughts on the main character and the setting. I enjoyed those, but the story was the best. What better way to procrastinate on a lecture and avoid working on your thesis but to obsess over a conspiracy theory based on a youtube performer and the people who comment? What better way to avoid dealing with all your own issues of love and commitment and fear of death, etc., than to immerse yourself in a completely bizarre fantasy world?
Great story! If you like any of the things I mentioned above, you should read it.
January 9, 2014
This book featured such an amazing array of details that seemed custom-designed to make me and my book club adore it:
- Gay, non-white main character
- Long distance relationships
- Ballet
- Film noir
- Performance art
- The internet as a social medium
- Making fun of New York art cliques
There were a couple of moments that I wished the author trusted the reader a bit more to do the emotional work/math and not spell out things quite so clearly (I didn't need a multi-paragraph definition of a MacGuffin dropped into the middle of the book, THANKS, I got it), but overall the book is doing such a nuanced complicated thing that a couple of moments where I could see the writer's hand clearly amidst all the deftness wasn't too shabby at all.
I'm not sure the Youtube videos were actually necessary as part of the reading experience, but they were definitely interesting; I liked watching them and then reading Grey's description of them to compare/contrast with my own interpretation of them, but we're not quite at the embedded multimedia reading experience that I think would make this all fit together beyond "wonderful book". It is a wonderful book though.
- Gay, non-white main character
- Long distance relationships
- Ballet
- Film noir
- Performance art
- The internet as a social medium
- Making fun of New York art cliques
There were a couple of moments that I wished the author trusted the reader a bit more to do the emotional work/math and not spell out things quite so clearly (I didn't need a multi-paragraph definition of a MacGuffin dropped into the middle of the book, THANKS, I got it), but overall the book is doing such a nuanced complicated thing that a couple of moments where I could see the writer's hand clearly amidst all the deftness wasn't too shabby at all.
I'm not sure the Youtube videos were actually necessary as part of the reading experience, but they were definitely interesting; I liked watching them and then reading Grey's description of them to compare/contrast with my own interpretation of them, but we're not quite at the embedded multimedia reading experience that I think would make this all fit together beyond "wonderful book". It is a wonderful book though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 21, 2023
I was really loved the majority of this book. The protagonist is an academic and a former dancer, who finds themself falling into a YouTube rabbit hole, noticing some patterns that may or may not correlate to real life, and becoming increasingly paranoid and obsessed with solving a mystery that may or may not exist. Deaths of famous dancers and musicians, performance art, procrastination, renting classic movies from Netflix on DVD, relationships that span the romantic to the friendly acquaintance - honestly it hit so many random buttons for me, that my only slight disappointment was the conclusion of the mystery (I probably would have preferred more ambiguity? who knows) BUT this book definitely made me want to check out other Browning books - they seem really smart and cool.
April 2, 2013
An odd book I'd never have chosen had it not been up for the IPPY award, in the category of literary fiction and had I not been one of the judges. Sort of limits what I can actually tell you about it, more's the pity. I'm afraid you'll have to get more insight from the other reviews. I'm including it in my Books Read because my goal is to finish 100 in 2013 and I'm not giving up one title I can add to the total.
Yes, my reasons are purely selfish.
Yes, my reasons are purely selfish.
May 29, 2013
Yes, I really liked this book.
Took a long time to read, because the book consistently refers to YouTube videos which I would search out in order to better understand the material. Furthermore, there is a good deal of dance/ballet namedropping which I somehow thought it was necessary to read up on.
Made me think. It may make you think too.
(also caused me to remember C. Carr's book "On Edge: Performance Art at the End of the 20th Century." Highly recommended).
Took a long time to read, because the book consistently refers to YouTube videos which I would search out in order to better understand the material. Furthermore, there is a good deal of dance/ballet namedropping which I somehow thought it was necessary to read up on.
Made me think. It may make you think too.
(also caused me to remember C. Carr's book "On Edge: Performance Art at the End of the 20th Century." Highly recommended).
July 17, 2016
Read my review on New York Journal of Books first. Additional remarks that appeared in a different and now defunct publication can now be found on my Wordpress blog.
August 7, 2011
Read an early draft of this -- more complete review to come in a few months!
February 2, 2014
I'd been wanting to read this forever, and guess what? It's great. It also won my heart for featuring Jess Dobkin's "It Ain't Easy Being Green" act.
September 24, 2013
I honestly don't know what to think of this book yet but I've certainly never read anything like it.
December 10, 2013
Pretty awful, but thankfully pretty short, too.
January 3, 2017
Strange but interesting, funny quick read.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews