The Oyster Diaries

by Nancy Lemann

From the author of the cult classic Lives of the Saints, a diaristic novel of middle-aged reckoning that roves from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, from court records to Don Giovanni, all of it riotously narrated by one of American fiction’s most singular voices.

Delery Anhalt—middle-aged, prone to “embroidering everything into vast ideals” like Don Quixote, but incapable of identifying the Shakespearean villains in her life, like Desdemona—is at a crossroads in life. Her father and his peers, the old guard of New Orleans, are entering their twilight years, her daughters are stepping into adulthood, and she is navigating the uncertainty of being midway upon the journey of her life.

Caught between a generation fixed in the past and one intent on changing the future, Delery decides to take stock of herself and the people around her through a series of diaries brimming with wry observations of her upbringing in New Orleans and daily travails in Washington DC, and frank appraisals on what she calls her lions at the the interior demands of insecurity, ego, annoyance, operatic wrath (felt most keenly towards bad houseguests), and remorse.

A disarmingly funny and poignant portrayal of the vicissitudes of adulthood that is as exuberant as it is indignant, The Oyster Diaries sees the return of the beloved character Claude Collier from The Lives of the Saints. Full of uncomfortable hilarities and potent truths, this novel proves to us, once again, that Nancy Lemann is one of our most fearless and original writers on the human condition.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Humor

241 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 7, 2026

About the author

American novelist.

Reviews

[Fred Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel in the form of a diary, that of Delery Anhalt, a New Orleanian now living in DC. It goes back and forth as she moves between Louisiana and DC, as she remembers people and events from her past. It is not quite as stream of consciousness as The Lives of the Saints, but it is very much in Lemann's typical style, which I call rambling with intent. It is more reflective, more concerned the spirit, life and death than the Saints. We find out more about Louise Brown, Claude Collier, and other characters from her earlier book.

Don Giovanni is a leitmotiv; many other literary works pop up. And I like her choice of epigraphs, beginning with Cavafy;

You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.

It well describes Lemann and New Orleans.


Some quotes:

When you're young you spend a certain amount of time trying to find yourself; but in the middle of this journey of our life, you tend to lose your way. Probably the same amount of time it took to find yourself when you were young, is the amount of time it takes to realize that you have lost your way again and must renew the search.

Maybe more like scrupulosity in my case--haunted by small sins, too small for God to care about, but that still disturb the soul.

If this life on earth is all there is, that renders it absurd.

Self-loathing is bad, but there is a fine line between self-loathing and self-awareness.

"I have decided to live in the past," she announced one day in 1960.
New Orleans decided to do pretty much the same thing. You could kind of hear things coming to a screeching halt in some previous epoch.

"Did you have a therapist, Mom?"
"I had one but she was illiterate and tedious and annoying, so I had to get out of it."

He told me he had seen a vision of the Virgin Mary in the drugstore that day. He had seen a vision of the Virgin Mary oncee before--in the gym at school in the sixth grade.

We all know what was revelry for him. Ancient Greek, Latin fricatives, his book-lined house, its atmosphere of intellect and calm, an anchor in the storm.

By your sorrows you may be unbroken, but you will always have to return to them from time to time, wandering amid the ruins.

It is a book that is often quite funny, but always elegiac, for people and places long gone, for a city that will slowly sink into the sea.

[John Caleb Grenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE OYSTER DIARIES
Nancy Lemann
Thank you for the #gifted copy @nyrbooks , out 4/7.

“By George, some things are difficult. Let’s get on with it. You have to have an iron nerve.
But I am a heartless maniac, blithe and cold. What planet are you from, lady? I keep asking myself. What planet am I living on, to be so coldhearted? I don’t know.”

Following Delery Anhalt between New Orleans and Washington D.C. as she sorts out end-of-life matters for her father and deals with her own trudging, life-altering mess, The Oyster Diaries makes much of the every day and really uncovers that side of us that just doesn’t care about things as much as maybe we thought it would.

I love the way Nancy Lemann is able to parse out the obscure sentiments we have that don’t always get named, the parts of ourselves we’re ambivalent toward, ignorant of, or confused about, but that we still bleed out from slowly but surely anyway.

I love how she builds a contrasting, complex America between New Orleans and DC, displaying disparity and joy, the wide gap of cultures (or the gap between places of culture and those without) and that she isn’t shy about spelling things out plainly.

Lemann has a dry, dry wit. It’s so dry I missed the jokes sometimes until I read back through parts again and realized I nearly missed the out-loud-chuckle this book came to make me anticipate. She’s able to place so much timelessness among modern concerns; it feels like you’re reading a Classic, but about someone you know.

I haven’t felt so deeply known and understood by a book in a long time. I don’t know if that means I’m currently going through the same sort of mental anguish as most middle aged women do, or if it speaks to just how much Lemann touches on the human side of things: the difference between being a good person and being a person who just halfheartedly tries to be one, and how she painstakingly-yet-humorously finds that little pit of eye-rolling, shoulder-shrugging anhedonia that is such a core tenet of being human.

It’s a book about trudging through when you have to, and I think we can all relate. I loved it.

[Marianne Kaplan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I realize I’m the outlier here but I did not enjoy this book. The author writes with humor and uses a lot of big words but what is her point. My biggest take away is that I never want to do a safari regardless of the guide’s charm. Do not recommend.

[E.Y. Zhao]

Ever since a friend said Sex and the City is the Brothers Karamazov of our time, I’ve tried to stop letting fiction wash over me and nail one disconcerting ethical question into my brain from every book. Lemann makes it easy. “What does it mean to be a remorse artist” and “how do we reconcile always wanting to feel good while doing good” — which clearly point toward paradox/antinomy/“just doing it”, like most such Qs — will swish around stinging, like jellyfish in the rich scenic brine and pithiness that is Oyster Diaries. Will be reading more!

[Colleen Grablick · Rating 4 out of 5]

sooo that’s my girl … she expands to me what a book can be. her voice is truly one of a kind. she’s so funny

[Tex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat scattered rendering of a chaotic life…but mostly about death. The primary settings are New Orleans, Washington DC, and several countries in Africa. There are some extremely poignant passages, but also a great deal of rambling with some unclear characters. Well, unclear as to relationship or family, but extraordinarily clear in philosophy.

[Caroline Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

OBSESSED with this diva

[mar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hm, not sure how I felt about this. Really funny at times with a unique voice. But a little bit adrift.

For example: the book ends on a safari trip that Delery isn't particularly interested in going on (husband's idea) and that ends with some pain on her end (recent hip replacement + COVID). At first I thought this was kind of a random and unsatisfying end point to this novel which is focused on grief—long goodbyes to family members set against the slowly decaying glamour of New Orleans. So why are we in Botswana now?

But on second thought, this kind of random, meandering narrative fits with the rest of the novel. Delery says herself that she is not a mover and shaker; she is a stoic whose life is built on abnegation and quiet suffering. Cool, I guess. Not asking for a different kind of character. I suppose I was just hoping for some kind of resolution / progression beyond this ambient, static distress. Delery suffers in DC, in New Orleans, in her house on the coast, in Botswana and Zimbabwe, in memory. It's a little tiring.

Like her father's daily oyster diary, Delery's diary of remorse is a creative concept and acts as an index of the author's neuroticisms. Unfortunately, for both diaries, form takes precedence over content: they're a bit of a drag to read.

[Cleomartham · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a zellenial I loved the interactions with her and her daughters. As others have said this might not be for everyone but it was for me. I also enjoyed that it was an easy read but she did include many ‘big’ words for me to look up and add to my vocabulary

[Brian Roemer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. It's a bit ragged and unkempt, maybe down at the heels, and like New Orleans itself, where this is largely set, that's a lot of its appeal. Nancy Lemann's voice is clear and distinctive and shines through every passage.

It's been awhile since I read something and immediately started devouring all of the published and available works of an author (if anyone has a copy of Sportsman's Paradise they'd like to lend me, please reach out).

It's an absolute joy to spend time in Nancy Lemann's company during her Wastrel Youth.

[Roxane · Rating 3 out of 5]

a strange, unique, and very meandering account of middle age

this is a multi-part sort of diary through which the narrator explores her key relationships with her parents, children, in-laws, and (unfaithful) husband; she is in pursuit of deeper understanding: of others & of her own self

it’s also an exploration of meaning, which she mostly finds through beauty

i was toying between a 4 and a 3 but the last portion felt really off & tone death to me, and I’m not sure why it was even included

overall i liked the bits and pieces about intellectual pursuit & the search for beauty but it was a bit too all over the place for me

the writing reminded me a liiitle of Offil and Jong but it just didn’t do it for me the same way

[Baxter Huntington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! I fully admit that I picked up this book because a) I liked the pretty sunset on the cover and b) the title was really intriguing. What could an “oyster diary” possibly be? I won’t spoil it.

This book is very much of the realistic fiction ilk; so much so that I sometimes had to remind myself that I wasn’t reading a real person’s musings. I loved Del’s dry, incredibly sarcastic voice and found her perspective on life intriguing and fun to read. Behind the humor, there is a wonderful sincerity in Nancy Lemann’s fondness and appreciation for New Orleans and its culture.

Gem of a book with beautiful writing (and lots of fun 50¢ words to look up).

“You'd think I'd need a drink. But I don't drink. It's all part of the anhedonia.”

[Jake Bittle]

Just a phenomenal intelligence, the kind of intelligence that makes you feel ashamed to be so dull inside so much of the time. Could've done without the safari part.

[michal k-c · Rating 4 out of 5]

nearly every detail of this book is shot through with melancholy but it is truly so funny, maybe the funniest new novel I have read in quite some time. A novel that understands the rot at the centre of most of "high society" -- highly recommended

[Bridget Bonaparte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh what I forgot to write anything for Nancy?? I must have been sinking in a quagmire of unreality and lack of purpose. This book has a million quotable lines, I love a wise southern belle. “Why is a person an empty vessel of insecurity— what is this vagary, why does the ego need nonstop confirmation to restore its fragile balance?”

[Paul Secor · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you read The Oyster Diaries looking for a conventional narrative, you won't find it. I've read her Nancy Lemann's debut novel, Lives of the Saints , and it's the same deal there. What you will find are splendid moments and anecdotes.
Those moments and anecdotes are enough for me.
The Oyster Diaries is set in Washington, D.C., where the narrator, Delery Anhalt, lives, and in New Orleans which she visits virtually to monitor court sessions (humorous and sad) and in person to help care for her elderly ailing father (and to escape troubling events at home). He keeps a diary of all of the oysters he's consumed for years, from whence the title comes. The N.O. settings are the most enjoyable. There's also an odd account of an African Safari at the end of the book which didn't work for me.

Some writing moments:

When Delery learns that her best friend is marrying her father:
"It's pretty hard to build a segue from being someone's dear friend to marrying their father, surely. She insinuated herself aggressively into all our hearts - that is not a crime."
...
The reality is more positive - she loves him, he loves her, she would enhance and prolong his life, she would look after him. we wouldn't have to. Magnanimity has its advantages."

"Being elderly, most of my father's friends had diseases or were in tragic declines. This was the decline but not the fall."

"After a few months, the situation with my father stabilized and he was home, surrounded by adoring women - his wife and an array of rotating nurses. He was rickety but suave - like New Orleans.

"'Am I disturbing you?' I asked lamely. after playing him the briefest bit (of Don Giovanni).
'You're disturbing me just perfectly.'"

"My father's study looked like a cross between the laboratory of a mad scientist and a repository of documents in a Kafka novel after a tornado."

"The first time it was my turn to put on the seder, I studiously followed all of the traditions of my mother-in-law. I did try to put my individual stamp on it in however infinitesimal a way. I might delete one of the eight courses possibly, I mentioned.
The response to this suggestion was that basically there was a knife vibrating in the wall next to my head."

And, thankfully, The Oyster Diaries marks the return of Claude Collier from Lives of the Saints. He utters an all-time classic pickup line (although in the context of the novel, it's not a pickup line):
"'They must have let the angels out of heaven,' he said when he saw me."

Perhaps this is a common, cheesy line. I don't know because I'm not one for flirting. My wife tells me that I've been clueless when a woman was obviously flirting with me. I just think it's a great line.

Oh - and Nancy Lemann uses the word anhedonia several times throughout the novel. I had to look that one up. A general definition is an inability to experience pleasure or a loss of interest in pleasurable activities. I'm sure that I'll forget that definition once this review is written, since I doubt it will be come part of my active vocabulary.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Kierkegaard was so not what I expected. I started at the beginning. First he keeps talking about how boring and annoying everything is. "It is a curious fact that those who do not bore themselves usually bore others, while those who bore themselves entertain others. Those who do not bore themselves are...the most tiresome, the most utterly unendurable.'

Many fine points about what is annoying and boring follow. 'The unpleasant is merely a piquant ingredient in the dullness of life.'

Which explains why it is so diverting to analyze things that are annoying" (7).

"'It is in your power to review your life, to look at things you saw before, but from another point of view.'

Erwin Schott playing Don Giovanni: Was it the same or different twenty years ago, and if so, how?

Or rather: What is different among the circumstances of the thing itself that is the same (Don Giovanni)? The thing is the same but you are different?" (8).

"I had been relegated to accommodate a beach house for a swarm of houseguests mainly consisting of my husband's relatives. Which was annoying, kind of in the same way that being expected to fulfill the dictates of my mother's dinner-party books would have annoyed me. But it is a universal truth of life that many people and things are annoying, and that finding an effective way to deal with this is important.

The first basic thing is to identify and quantify what is annoying and why. The next thing is to move forward, noting that annoyance is unavoidable and inevitable in life. Rather than kind of sinking further into paralysis and rage at each annoyance.

Annoyance turns to wrath if you're not careful. Not that wrath is so bad. It's kind of a more stern form of annoyance. Maybe a more elevated form. I don't know. But I do know that if you let it get out of hand, pretty soon you're looking at the wrath of Achilles" (59).

"But why is my favorite subject how annoying some people are? Like the fire only burns when people are annoying me and when I marvel at their inability to--to what, be like me? Obviously I have an ego disorder" (61).

"Defeat is more interesting than victory. The ancient Greeks preferred to write heroic legends of defeat, which stirred men's hearts more than tales of victory. These two defeated lions stirred mine" (213).

[Hank Stuever · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently moved to New Orleans, where I spent my college years, but that was so long ago as to feel like a dream I once had, and not terribly useful for much besides nostalgia, which is one of the place's chief features -- grasping at a past. Nowadays, the New Orleans required reading list is daunting, but after a few common titles that exist on everyone's own version of it (and, in this century, includes a lot of Katrina reportage), it sort of falls off into dense histories and small-press fiction and essay efforts that only kinda-sorta wind up being what a reader like me is looking for. Native daughter Nancy Lemann, who left her Uptown roots years ago, wrote "Lives of the Saints" in the 1980s, and I think I always meant to read it because at the time in New Orleans there was a lot of talk about it, and I probably soon will. It's still on some locals' you-should-read list, but not many.

Lemann's "The Oyster Diaries" just came out, and Dwight Garner in the NYT liked it, and that's what brings me here. And I did find a lot of what I need right now: a thoughtfully ruminative novel (of sorts) that links a New Orleans then and a New Orleans now: a seasoned skepticism, bordering on misanthropy, that sees through the cliches of an overwrought (and overwritten) city and seeks something more meaningful, or gives into an idea that all meaning is easily lost? Sorry, that was a word salad, but that is also an effect of Lemann's affect here, almost like an extended muttering to one's self.

There is something really lovely going on here in the story of the narrator's frequent returns from Washington, DC, to New Orleans to help care for her dying parents and reconsider her dying/reviving/re-dying city and its gauzy past, her past.

I mean, I guess? The last third of the book gets too incoherent to really know what I signed up for. The writing remains lovely to the end. I imagine as many people won't be able to makes heads nor tails of it.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

“When you're young you spend a certain amount of time finding yourself; but in the middle of this journey of our life, you tend to lose your way. Probably the same amount of time it took to find yourself when you were young, is the amount of time it takes to realize that you have lost your way again and must renew the search” (p.51)

“I had no Jewish culture but that which is innate. If there is such a thing as Jewish culture which is innate. It did not involve actual knowledge. Complete ignorance characterized my knowledge of Judaism. I only had the spark of the outsider, something that keeps you apart from the general crowd and gives you a harder road to travel. Is that the spark of Judaism?
It could be the spark of individuality or nonconformity, etc. What I'm saying is that in New Orleans my Jewish character could be discerned in contrast to the Catholics. Such traits as being sort of intellectual, bookish, studious, and basically not being drunk” (p. 95)

“Sometimes in life I find myself standing in the middle of a room repeating his name when ridden with angst and anxiety, trying to calm down. I don't know exactly why. But to this day when I am nervous and mired in angst and malaise, I still say his name” (p. 184)

[christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Operatic wrath, displacement, homecoming, loss, morality, oysters--I loved Lemann's unreliable/yet reliable narrator, who rambles through concentric circles around her mid-life themes, ala Dante. Laugh-aloud wit spiked with several memorable Southern gothic portraits.

But it's really about returning home to her New Orleans past through the lens of her present challenges, with the intent to "banish the lions." Tending to her dying father prompts reflections on her fraught relationship with the "patriarchy"and how her upbringing shaped this. As the Cavafy epigram promises about home: "You won't find a new country, won't find another shore. This city will pursue you." The lions at the gate persist.

A few favorite quotes:

"Those who do not bore themselves usually bore others, while those who bore themselves entertain others."

Her mother's advice: "There is a fine line between unkempt and nihilistic."

Her mother's eye: "Her withering criticism was not restricted by race, creed or blood; it was equally distributed amongst all. Perhaps the most withering was reserved for anyone who loved her. I developed a spine."

"Remorse is akin to regret, but more violent."

[Paula W · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Oyster Diaries is the new novel from the author of the cult classic Lives of the Saints, which I had a great time reading recently. In this new one, our main character Del Anhalt finds herself to be a middle-aged woman caught in those in between times — her children are moving off into adulthood while her father is entering his twilight years. The novel is written in diaristic style and its entries hop from present day Washington DC to her daily life in the New Orleans of her past. And Del has a lot to vent about.

I love Lemann’s style, her voice, and her fondness for New Orleans even in its ugly phases. I love her character’s frankness and her irritation with houseguests. I loved this novel. 4 stars.

Thank you to New York Review Books , Nancy Lemann (author), and Edelweiss for a digital review copy of The Oyster Diaries. Their generosity did not influence my review in any way.

[Jack D · Rating 3 out of 5]

They're doing a full-court press on Lemann because of this new book, I guess? NYRB's got this one & Lives of the Saints, and another press is reissuing Ritz of the Bayou. I get that this is her first one in a couple decades, but Oyster Diaries is really only fine. A bit too wispy and underdone for my taste. Narcissist I am, the best bits are those that relate to my own life: court watchers, long-haired OPD att'ys, a house in the Black Pearl that my good friend lived in after Lemann's family did. And the second-best stuff is cribbed from other New Orleans fiction. The first 1/4 reads like a retread of Welty's Delta Wedding, and Lemann interjects throughout with Walker Percy quotes. I keep getting signs from God to read The Moviegoer. I will keep ignoring them for the time being

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being so embedded in New Orleans there were a couple of things that tripped me up.... a major hurricane in 2020? That was 2021. The funeral home that became a bookstore? That didn't happen until after Katrina? Oh and I'm pretty sure I knew the Jesuit priest who taught Greek and Latin.

But... once you accept the dreamy episodic style. You are sucked into the characters life. The bridge between elderly parents and independent know it all teens. The quest for understanding relationships and our place in the universe.

I will be sitting with the full stop ending for awhile because I was not ready for it.

[Spiros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where has Nancy Lemann been all my life? This is a brilliant, funny dissection of a life by a woman who has reached the mid point in her journey through life, and is frankly discomposed by where she finds herself. I need to track down a copy of "Lives of the Saints" when NYRB releases both these books in April.

[Lj Baden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved LeMann's casual yet impressive command of diverse literary and philosophical references.
Reads as a collection of vignettes or maybe a thought process reflecting on the old New Orleans ways, Del's father's life and death, and a family trip to Africa for a few safaris.
Quick read. Sharp witted- my favorite part. Honest older woman , no bs perspective.

[Looweez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not consistently great— a little disjointed and no real plot. I love the New Orleans color, though, but I would have liked this to be more of a story. The middle part was good. The ending felt like something tacked on to make a book that fell short. I’m not a big Nancy Lemann fan. I don’t get what she is saying half the time.

[Megan Hood]

This book had some interesting characters and was decent. I think I just found the writing a bit hard to get into. There’s a lot of words I had to look up and it took me out of it at times. For example all in one page the author used - verbose, dubious, and malingering. This page, about 1/3 in, is ultimately where I decided to stop. Not bad, just not quite for me!

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would imagine Nancy Lemann is not every reader's cup of tea, and this is not a perfect novel, but I love her idiosyncratic style and her sly wit. The interactions between Delery and her Gen Z daughters were particularly entertaining. I celebrate this newfound interest in Lemann's work!

[Kris Lackey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nancy Lemann's New Orleans novels are always top of my read list, from Lives of the Saints to The Fiery Pantheon. Her latest revives her signature comic repetitions, classical allusions, fey protagonist, and ironic doom-saying. Easy to relish, as always.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up. Loved the middle of this novel. Beginning and end- not so much.