The Superrationals

by Stephanie LaCava

An erotic and darkly comic novel about female friendship, set at the intersection between counterculture and the multimillion dollar art industry.

Over the course of a few days in the fall of 2015, the sophisticated and awkward, wry and beautiful Mathilde upends her tidy world. She takes a short leave from her job at one of New York's leading auction houses and follows her best friend Gretchen on an impromptu trip to Paris. While there, she confronts her late mother's hidden life, attempts to rein in Gretchen's encounters with an aloof and withholding sometime-boyfriend, and faces the traumatic loss of both her parents when she was a teenager.

Reeling between New York, Paris, Munich London, and Berlin, The Superrationals is an erotic and darkly comic story about female friendship, set at the intersection between counterculture and the multimillion dollar art industry. Mathilde takes short, perceptive notes on artworks as a way to organize her own chaotic thoughts and life. Featuring a bitchy gossip chorus within a larger carousel of voices, The Superrationals coolly surveys the international art and media worlds while exploring game theory, the uncanny, and psychoanalysis. Written in the "Young Girl" tradition of Michelle Bernstein's All The King's Horses, Bernadette Corporation's Reena Spaulings and Natasha Stagg's Surveys, The Superrationals confronts the complexity of building narrative in life and on the page and the instability that lies at the heart of everything.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Literary Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 13, 2020

About the author

Stephanie LaCava is a writer in New York.

Reviews

[Jennifer nyc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pleasant surprise. I found this book while exploring bookstore shelves, and bought it based on the description on the back. But I didn’t expect to love the emotional weight of it. I didn’t know it would be written in this internal way that always resonates with me. It’s a personal aesthetic, the effect of this particular kind of writing, often experienced for me in translations into English, more than in my native tongue.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have sometimes met people who seem very smart, who pepper their conversation with literary, philosophical and historical references that only a well-read person would know and who have visionary ideas for something new and important. Maybe it's a business, maybe it's some sort of intellectual or scientific revolution. Or just some other new new thing. It's natural to respond to this kind of person by thinking that they must be much smarter than I am, that they are three steps ahead of me, that they have seen further and thought deeper, but nearly always after I have given their ideas a chance to sink in, I come to the conclusion that these people are bullshitters. Sometimes they can still be amusing or useful or even make good friends, but I try to make it a policy not to trust them with anything important and definitely to not go into business with them unless they pay me cash up front and I'm not betting my time or reputation on the success of their ideas.

Reading this book was like meeting such a person. The things that Matilde and Gretchen say and think ultimately don't add up, though they fool a lot of the people around them and even mostly fool themselves. They really are intelligent, they really are beautiful, but all of the so so smart stuff, the byproduct of the Ivy League education, in the end doesn't really make sense. The interludes of Mathilde's writing are barely coherent. And both of them use sex for all the wrong reasons - Gretchen to pursue a bad guy who she thinks, probably in error, is an artistic genius, and Mathilde, half in search of adventure and half in search of business advantage. Unsurprisingly, it all feels false and is clearly unsatisfying. There is only one thing that is genuine in the whole book - the relationship between the two women. They do at least have each other as they burn down the world around them with their miscues. The Greek chorus of the girls from the office who don't like Mathilde are ironically right in their conclusions, but not for the reasons they think because whatever problems Mathilde and Gretchen have, the girls from the office have squared.

So my next question is how much of my reading of this book is consistent with Ms. LaCava's intentions? I know that it is no longer supposed to matter because the author is dead in the postmodern world inhabited by these characters, but I am too old school to dismiss this question lightly. The more I think about it, the more I think that I may have hit the nail on the head. Surely Ms. LaCava meant much of the book to be ironic and to be a send up of the people in this world of pretension and manipulation. Certainly the title supports my interpretation because the characters are superrational, if at all, only in their own minds.

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 2 out of 5]

The principle gambit undergirding THE SUPERRATIONALS, debut novel of Stephanie LaCava, conspicuously flourishing writer and maker of the international scenes (in the avowedly plural), pertains to its rather cerebral structure. Though I am by no means anything like a fan of the book, I am at the same time willing to concede that the relationship between its structure and what I will allow myself to reductively term its content, is more than merely a matter of incidental correlation. Do we not have a salient formulation from Mathilde de Saint-Evans testifying to this? Indeed, yes, we do. Right here on page 100. A nice round number. They hardly get rounder. “Buy and sell. Manufacture connection.” If THE SUPERRATIONALS grounds itself in an axiomatic, this would be the one to pinpoint. Mathilde de Saint-Evans and her best friend (sometimes very nearly frienemy) Gretchen Salt, conspicuously flourishing art world auxiliaries and makers of the international scenes, are not exactly dummies, and they do not exist under the illusion that they get to do what they do without attending to their social capital. We all know how the market reduces art to commodity, and we may also have some sense of the extent to which people navigating the commercial art world are going to need to largely think of themselves in terms of their own saleability, at least should they wish to attain or maintain what shockingly many are able to keep a straight face whilst calling “success.” Mathilde de Saint-Evans is nominally the protagonist of THE SUPERRATIONALS, and I am sure you will not have difficulty detecting the basic ways in which her name resembles that of Stephanie LaCava, both young American women, both names trailing more than a vague whiff, eminently deceptive, of the European Continent. The nice thing about having a name that is a little like a fake Cartier bracelet, at least so long as it should retain its chic, is that is very much isn’t your fault. Which brings us to the question of background and origins, which is where this debut novel begins, but in a smart and unconventional way. The first page gives us a breakdown of personal background, but we are not privy to who is speaking. Yes, it is Mathilde, her backstory as filtered through her own perspective, but we will need to read at least a few more fragmentary chapters (or sections) framed by, around, or through diverse perspectives before we can be certain of it. It is a large part of how this novel operates. Everybody buying and selling, most especially selling themselves and buying (or not) into the illusions engineered by self-motivated others, but all in service to a novelistic schematic all about connection and missed connection, most especially about the connections the reader is asked to establish (or “manufacture”). It is a unique and rather smart way of telling this story, but it is not necessarily radical. And certainly not unprecedented. We have fancy terms for this sort of approach. Terms like “anagnorisis” (the point in a narrative at which a character become aware of a person, place, or thing’s true identity) and “peripeteia” (a sudden and unexpected development or correlation), both of which can be applied to key interstices in THE SUPERRATIONALS intended to allow the composite work to “add up” respective both of its cursory sense and its production of human meaning. From a strictly structural standpoint, LaCava demonstrates skill and intelligence. She does some curious things to help throw us slightly off, a matter I suspect is already a conscious effort to get down to the fundamentals of meaning-making. In that introductory backstory we have mention of Mathilde’s deceased mother, who goes unnamed for the time being, a book editor who had once worked (very closely, if you catch my drift) with a writer named “Robert Northwell.” The brief opening chapter/section, following the page-long backstory, is narrated to us by “Robert Norton.” Eventually we will realize that Robert Northwell and Robert Norton very much definitely are the same person, and that the original misattribution respective of surname is not an error on the novelist’s part, but rather an error of Mathilde’s (who we would tellingly have to imagine in large part the author’s surrogate). Much confusion or conflation of both names and the flimsy identities on which they hang obtains throughout the novel that follows, especially insofar as pertains to men with whom Mathilde and/or Gretchen are romantically involved or in whom they experience some kind of romantic interest. There are two pairs of doubles here, and I believe the innocuous similarity of names rather intentional: it is mostly easy enough to distinguish between Jack and John, but at a certain point in the novel I realized I was going to have to expend some special effort to remember that Christopher isn’t Charles and Charles isn’t Christopher. Mathilde is sometimes known as Tilly or Mati, but we mustn’t mistake her for Mila, Robert’s assistant. Et cetera. Again, I imagine this is all entirely by design. Referring back to that introductory bit of backstory, we will note that it closes with a literally parenthetical aside—“(I should probably mention Gretchen too)”—telegraphing for us that friends and lovers are going to be at best a tenuous sort of a business. After we meet Robert Norton, narrating in his own voice, we move on quickly to thirty-four-year-old artist Tom Belier, an ascendant notable who has noticed and become interested in Mathilde, and then the “Girls in New York,” a group of malevolent gossips working for big shot art world capitalist Charles, a viperous Greek chorus of sorts professing, as a rank and file unity, disfavour for Mathilde, their ostensible colleague, in no uncertain terms. While the bulk of the novel takes place in 2015, an early chapter/section introduces us to Mathilde and Gretchen as students, way back in 2007 New York (year of economic crisis). Here we learn some crucial stuff, not the least of which is Mathilde de Saint-Evans’s full name. 2007 Gretchen has or had “a photographic memory and could read three books in one evening.” She thought she would be a philosopher, and did a roving investigation of the field, discarding many masters and acolytes in the process. In February of 2007 she is passing through an obsession with psychoanalytic theory. “As a teenager, boarding school had been too easy for her. Instead of going to class, she would stay in her room and make art; until coke got in the way.” Gretchen is to the manor born and (very much) ‘acts’ as though she hasn’t a care in the world. Mathilde thinks of herself as careful, worried, anxious, “destined for an accident, an explosion, a misstep.” Both young women practice irony in something close to its bitterest from, but you would not or at least ought not call it cynicism, because this bitter irony is a front shielding a hope which cannot help but be a mild source of shame, practically too dirty a thing to confess outright. It is a good place for smart young people to find themselves. It demonstrates that illusions are being uneasily shed. Good riddance. Mathilde: “The problem with keeping straight when you’re young is you inevitably need to fill that void of experience. It’s only a matter of when.” This is a sensible outlook, advantageous, no doubt, in its constitutive humility. Both Gretchen and Mathilde have “meltdowns” concerning men; it is the vulnerable point of a concealed hope. Gretchen has financial security and noteworthy pedigree. Plus the unique perspicacity. She makes image boards featuring herself, availing herself of a quasi-objective distance from her own image. “Gretchen planned to recontextualize these tear sheets, it made her feel like a secret agent, like a spy with a messy agenda.” By 2015, both young women will have evolved as sober adjutants of their own social capital, if in few other discernible ways. They can be clear-eyed about the tendency of male seducers to operate based on considerations relating to their own Lordly ambition, but they have not been able to vanquish the suppressed hope that appears to still believe in salvation through romantic attachment. They predictably persist in their having of meltdowns. Back in 2007, Mathilde knows that romance, as with John, is a matter of “oxytocin” and vulnerability to the enticements of “appreciation.” Okay, she is no dummy, as stated. However, she remains for as long as we are with her crippled by the romantic hangup, unable to properly assimilate what she has earlier professed to know perfectly well. This becomes a crucial theme in THE SUPERRATIONALS, so much so that it is ultimately expressed rather explicitly in the voice of Mathilde (who is employing the precept here to denigrate her friend Gretchen): “You can have theories though and not follow them.” I know this all too well. It is a plain fact that has for extended period comsummately vexed my oft-blighted existence. Working for a considerable period frontline in addictions, I collected a formidable abundance of anecdotal evidence as to how you can tell people exactly what they need to know about recovery and wellness, watch them nod their heads vigorously... and then watch them proceed to go on doing the same old shit, making no use of what they have pretended to learn. It is a diagnosis Stephanie LaCava makes and beyond which she does not really expand. If this is a liability for a novel, it is not at all one that would on its own tend to prove fatal. The real problem with THE SUPERRATIONALS is that the writing itself is never better than poor, often abusively bad. It is hardly merely a matter of a reliance on dull or rhythmically limiting parataxis. There are fragments interspersed throughout the book that present bits of art commentary and theoretical cant care of Mathilde—beginning with a blathering, amateurish diversion covering the uncanny in relation to staged situations in Carolee Schneemann and Cosey Fanni Tutti—and at one point we actually have Mathilde telling us that she knows how desperately her more academic writing requires fine-tuning. She’s right, to be sure, but the problem is not confined to the theory-based vignettes. All the voices here are essentially the same voice, and they tend to share the same problems of syntax and lexicography. They are all oddly hyphen-averse. You would think that Robert, supposedly a widely revered writer, would demonstrate at least cursory command of his craft. You may not fault him for never using a hyphen—using “non linear” and so forth—but try this gem on for size: “I had no intention of joining my friend for dinner, but liked to commit to things and then, cancel last minute.” A bad sentence turned into a real doozy by that second comma. Robert again, a later section: “Olympia didn’t answer my calls or write after that. She’s managed to stage evidence of my desire for complicity and once assured, the inability to show up.” What the actual fuck? Mathilde is no better. Here she is addressing Charles, on the subject of Tom: “We’ve known each other through going out for sometime.” Wow. Can you handle one more? “He was very tall. And he looked down at me with that same fixed pleased, proud expression from earlier at the bar.” It may sound like I am being cruel, but in the strictest sense all I am doing is quoting directly from LaCava’s novel. I cannot comprehend how an editor at the illustrious Semiotext(e), a publishing imprint I hold in the very highest regard, singed off on all these myriad lexicographic catastrophes. Perhaps this is a case of a work doing what it intends to do. Perhaps the style, if you can even call it that, intends to communicate something completely lost on me just at the level of the style itself. Go ahead and explain it to me. I shouldn’t think you would be likely to convince me of my being entirely in the wrong. You can break my leg and argue a good case for having done so, but your rhetoric will not unbreak my leg. If we think back to Gretchen making that dorm room image board, the “tear sheet” collage of her own image, we might locate there a general sense of what THE SUPERRATIONALS properly constitutes, you know, as a novel. The sensibility on display seems to look inward in an onanistic sense, not toward language and literature. On the subject of art, all it can provide is inchoate drivel, though it can image-board a narrative commendably. Where the novel excels as a construction at the level of anagnorisis, especially by way of Mathilde’s circuitous retracing of the steps of her mother Olympia, this ends up working in such a way that the schematic relies on the tendency toward “near misses” or “happy accidents” of those inward-turned solipsists who aren’t properly looking where they are going. There is something to be said for that, and, hell, it's not like I haven't ever been that person...especially in my twenties! However, the execrable prose-craft is not exactly the whole problem. Consider “The Girls,” the Greeks chorus of glorified interns who work for Charles and talk endless smack about Gretchen and especially Mathilde, travelling from New York to Paris to London, their fixed roll unvarying. They are unpleasant and malicious gossips, to be sure. But do we like Mathilde any more than they do? On what grounds could we like her? Is she any less flimsy and off-putting than all the other names and personages than run into one another, productive of a general spirit of despondant dilution? I think of the 2017 Michael Haneke film HAPPY END, which makes me odd, because nobody likes or thinks about HAPPY END, which is, I would argue, quite possibly Haneke’s most remarkable formal achievement, but so vapidly populated that it ends up (and very much ended up) being the wrong kind of bummer, one most folks would appear to prefer to simply forget. THE SUPERRATIONALS also has a peripatetic international high society milieu and other elements which might place it in something like thematic proximity to Olivier Assayas’a very fine 2016 film PERSONAL SHOPPER. Crucially, whereas the “ghostly” in the Assayas makes itself available for imaginative poiesis and the subversion of cultural forms, in LaCava’s debut we could only use the word to designate a general pallor.

[Jack Skelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its title referencing Game Theory, this stylishly smudged novel snares characters in the rigging of the high-end art world. Central among its glam-hollow international cast is Mathilde. An auction assistant, she gropes for “agency,” if such art-erati buzzwords can survive Lacava’s sly asides. Fluid identity is a new-narrative deviation, along with the wit of ever-shifting structure.
Not dissimilar to I Love Dick’s veering into essay, the plot is punctured by Mathilde’s art-school dissertation, as it snowballs through transactional relationships among a-hole artists and dealers.

Attractive Mathilde is more commodity than persona, and, touchingly, she laments that in this epiphany: “I was playing into the unregulated game between men and artwork, romance between buyer to seller – seller to buyer. Like any advertising to make one want the thing that could make life breezier, better.” Concluding with a sex assault couched in devastating understatement, The Superrationals’ cool tone flows, never wavers.

[Charlotte Carpenter · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's people talking
They talk about me
They know my name
They think they know everything
But they don't know anything
About me

London, Paris, maybe Tokyo... and etc..

While this book did bring to mind the 2005 bop "Wake Up" by Hilary Duff, it was nowhere near as fun. In fact, it was incredibly meh. At times it was a little smart and sexy, but I've almost forgotten everything about it already unlike the preceding lyrics, which are seared into my brain forever. Now THAT really makes you think about the meaning of art.

[Joel Curry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Annoyingly the men in this book were kinda hot to me lol.

I like Stephanie’s writing, concise and impactful.

I need to stop reading books about sad New York City girls but something tells me that may not be happening anytime soon

[Izabella Silva · Rating 1 out of 5]

not sure if i’m illiterate or if the other review that said this was boring and incomprehensible was right. hard to follow, not the story about friendship you think it is, and i’m disappointed i thought this book would be better.

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. Tedious. I don’t like it when a book seems to only serve the author and not do anything for the reader. Like go to therapy about your ex boyfriend or your mother. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood idk

[Marc Nash · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave me Tao Lin vibes and that is not a good thing. Full video review to follow

[㋛ ㋡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmmmm. This book is hard to rate. I really appreciate the friendship between Mathilde & Gretchen, the messy entanglements Mathilde ends up in both professionally & privately, Gretchen's obsession with a dude who doesn't want and/or deserve her, and I was even THERE for whatever was happening with Mathilde's mother and The Writer. But I don't think the art criticism throughout the book ever gelled and while I'm okay with an unfinished/unknowing ending this one felt particularly abrupt. I would definitely read something else by Stephanie LaCava, though.

[sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stupid, sorry!

[Ava · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s hard to like this book simply because it’s setting - the jaded world of the international commercial art market- and the characters who inhabit that world - white, wealthy, commodity-driven, jet setters, don’t lend themselves to deeply developed characters. Behind all the pedigree and private school education, these characters are just one step removed from that bane of social media the ‘social influencer’ and their woes and heartbreaks and tedious meltdowns are really not that interesting. Pretentious and lacklustre.

[Ben Shear · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading about hot people doing hot shit. Also the absolutely precarious and transactional nature of every relationship. And there’s references to Cosey fanney tutti.
Really, not that well written, hard to follow, and poorly organized (the chorus is so bad lol) but I love it anyway!

[Ella Dixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I purchased this book from McNally Jackson on a recent trip to New York. I was trying to read more things I hadn't heard of and picked this up on a whim from the small press section of the store. I love stories of female friendship because those that accurately depict it are few and far between. I am also a lover of and participant in gossip. Both of these things set the book up for success but neither of them could save the story from itself.
I thought I would love it from the introduction, but I was really disappointed! I like novels that approach a story from several perspectives and this one had several, including one recurring voice that was actually the collective voices of all the women in protagonist Mathilde's office. Their perceptions of her felt both cliched and astute, which might have read as the truth if they weren't so annoying. Mathilde was the main narrator in the novel and her sections often revolved around her friend Gretchen, whose background is both cliche and unfinished. We also had the semi-consistent voice of Robert, a man whose books her mother edited. He inexplicably disappears midway through the story and doesn't return. And, as a one-off, we have the voice of an artist named Tom who wants to fuck Mathilde because she is alternative and because other women hate her (or maybe the chicken came before the egg). In any case, I don't trust any of them.
Mathilde's voice in the novel felt confusing for me. As the reader, I felt really removed from the scene by bursts of interiority that detracted from the moment of the narrative. Once these started, the qualifying insertions of context undermined the story being told. Including these asides undermined the ability of the characters to actually tell the story in scene and made me distrust the author. Too much explanation disrupts my ability to connect to the characters and inhibits a reader's emotional connection to the plot.
Speaking of the plot...what was that? Some of the in-scene explanation was confusing in itself because Mathlide spent so much time complaining about a confusing series of boys with J names, all of which I conflated with others. I couldn't tell where the present was in this series of boys, especially when the timeline jumped around. I couldn't figure out why she was taking her work trip or how long it lasted or what made her decide to change her plans around mid-way through. There's very little evidence of female friendship in the plot, just a lot of judgment and getting wasted. The beginning of the book set up an interesting plot line with her mother and one of her former lovers that feels both more important than the other events, but remains buried under the weight of all the rest of the frivolity in her life. A real missed opportunity, if you ask me.
Mathilde's thesis from college was inserted throughout the novel as a sort of refrain or mirror to the ideas presented in scene. She says early on that she's not a very advanced writer, and to this point I must agree. I found those sections so boring and I often tried to rush through them because I could sense that they didn't really relate well to the corresponding narrative. They had some base-level association, such as talking about objectification of women and then some about objects in art, but they didn't feel deeper than that and the other problems in the narrative convinced me it wasn't worthwhile to search for meaning beyond that. At times, the novel itself felt like an elaborate ruse to get us to read a poorly-written art history thesis.
There were many things that contributed to the plot confusion. For one, there are some literal typos in this novel that really bothered me. At a sentence level, things weren't working well either. And by that I don't mean that they're uninteresting or lack a voice (though they often do)—rather, they literally don't make sense. Many sentences or phrases refer erroneously to a different subject in a prior sentence. There are dangling modifiers everywhere and this kind of carelessness also took me out of the reading experience and forced me to decode meaning about simple things. I would have preferred to preserve that energy for bigger ideas, rather than having to nitpick about the color of someone's hair.
In summation, I find it ironic that this book is about an editor of books who is dead because that's probably the only person who could have saved this one. It totally lacks self-awareness and was a slog for such a short book. At one point, Mathilde and her friend Gertrude discuss a writer who goes underground after publishing his works in order to capitalize on the meaning that others unearth in his work and then claim that those were always his aims. Unless this odd and bad writing was somehow the artistic intention of the novel, I fear that this writer may have shown her hand inside the novel itself.

[Kat Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, but I rounded down simply because the sections that were theoretical/apparent echoes of the thesis Mathilde's coworkers mocked her for writing truly never came together for me. Reminiscent of Kate Zambreno's Drifts, which I had a similar problem with, these sections seemed like an effort to "elevate" the material beyond the kind of . . . slice of misery we're served.

LaCava's voice is edgy in a way I think Sally Rooney thinks she is (and isn't), and it's hard not to also think of Jean Rhys. Why feel the need to "elevate" the story that unfolds? It's a familiar story. Who among us didn't spend our early twenties chasing a man who had already made it abundantly clear he wasn't interested in anything serious? Overanalyzing breadcrumbs of affection and attention, willing them to be more significant than they were? And who among us didn't have a close friend doing the exactly the same thing at the same time? I remember how irritating it was, how I gave smug, sage advice I was unwilling to implement in my own life. I'm not sure I've read a book that depicted this tension so precisely before.

However, by the time we join Mathilde and Gretchen, this is a pretty toxic friendship and it's unclear what they ever liked about one another. I don't have a real problem with that--because it feels true to life--but it also made the characters feel somewhat flat.

Mathilde is already on a clear path of self-sabotage, but it's unclear why that's the case. I mean--there are obvious factors for why: dead parents, a marriage that's over, discontent in her career, but it's unclear why NOW is the time it seems to be finally hitting her. What accounts for this crisis?

The book copy makes some weird promises that the book does not deliver on. First, it says that Mathilde "confronts her late mother's hidden life . . . and faces the traumatic loss of both her parents while she was a teenager." Hm. I don't think the book delivers on this, but it certainly does build to this moment in the ending (mild spoiler?). I was also disheartened by a sexual assault in the final pages that served virtually zero purpose. With that in mind, I cringe to see this referred to as an "erotic" book. Frankly, all of the sex in this book seems designed to make the reader feel empty afterwards. Calling this "erotic" sounds as delusional as Gretchen after an encounter with Christopher.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with the author, and I'd be interested to read more of her work in the future. While the execution fell flat, I do think there's a lot to admire about voice and her exploration of female friendships.

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The seduction is not in the narrative, but the lack of one.” Stephanie LaCava’s debut novel The Superrationals is razor-sharp: an exhilarating novel with little in the way of plot, an accomplished look at psychoanalysis, identity, behaviour, the uncanny and game theory. This glance is somehow simultaneously sideways and direct, blending psychological realism with more non-linear, stylistically daring prose. Mathilde’s storyline arguably the dominant thread of the novel, unfurls in beautifully crafted introspective waves, set against the more straightforward perspectives of a handful of men, and the utterly captivating chorus of women who work with Mathilde, freely sharing their opinions and observations on her life and character; I immediately knew I had to read this book when I first read that it featured “a bitchy gossip chorus within a larger carousel of voices”, which sums up the auditory atmosphere of the novel. “You know we talk about the same things over and over again, all the time.” Mathilde, grieving the loss of her mother, trying to piece together her life, running from an unfulfilling relationship + looking for a better one in the wrong places, is a sympathetic and engaging pivot for the novel to turn on, her reflections full of an unlimited sense of self-awareness: “The personal rewriting of a critical moment in anyone’s development becomes personal mythology.” And yet Mathilde is still, relatably, predictably, necessarily in denial of some truth: “No one ever thinks the crazy thing is going to happen. Or they do, and then because they thought it, they imagine they can think it away.” Yet the details seem to fall away, letting the overarching impression define the text and Mathilde’s experience within it.

[Ebru Eltemur · Rating 5 out of 5]

LaCava's novel begins with little vignettes by a few people who work in the art world, but seem to be disconnected from each other. In honesty, I found myself struggling to understand who's who and what's what - until I was about 50-60 pages in. My initial judgement was completely off! Once the connection between Mathilde and Robert was established, I was hooked. The book quickly transformed into something else, some sort of diary written by multiple people within the same circle. Halfway through, I also felt extremely connected to Mathilde. If you're a woman whose worked in the art world since their teenage years, you'll definitely see parts of yourself and your experiences in Mathilde. While it does get irksome for those who can relate to her heavily, LaCava helps you work through those professional and sexual traumas by sharing Mathilde's most intimate thoughts and experiences. The vignettes are interwoven with short essays on contemporary art and theory, which feel a bit like page fillers that give you some insight into the writer's own interest in contemporary art. Fun, short read for summer!

[Lindsay Pugh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't hate this, didn't love it, but I know for sure that the way it was marketed is fucking idiotic and does nothing to give the reader realistic expectations of what they're about to dive into (but what else is new). It's not as smart as it thinks it is and maybe that's the point? But I also have no idea, tbh. The chapters from other POVs (aside from the girl chorus) didn't do much for me and I'm not sure why LaCava didn't just write everything from Mathilde's perspective. Like who gives a shit about Robert, Tom, or even Gretchen? They're all just rough outlines of ideas and most of the book is from Mathilde's POV anyway.

Even though I'm sounding pretty negative to meh on this, there was something compelling about it that kept me reading. Maybe it was LaCava's matter-of-fact treatment of Mathilde's crumbling sense of self, work striving, and the sexual assault/manipulation that runs rampant in these types of creative industries. Maybe it was the friendship between Mathilde and Gretchen? I found them both insufferable and wanted them to die together in a car crash, but it brought me back to that early/mid 20s type of friendship where the thing that binds you together is a strong desire to self-destruct.

I hated the sections from Mathilde's art thesis, though. No one wants to read that shit, not even other people who have slogged their way through art theses. I liked some of the anecdotes about Mathilde's mother that gave a possible explanation for her behavior without being totally reductive about it. Would I read more from this author? Maybe.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephanie LcCava's "The Superrationals" is a captivating novel that seamlessly weaves introspection, wit, and poignant storytelling. LcCava skillfully captures the contemporary art world with an astute and nuanced perspective. Through vivid descriptions and insightful portrayals of artists, curators, critics, and editors LcCava delves into the intricacies of the art scene, exposing its dynamics, ambitions, and inherent contradictions. With lyrical prose and vivid characters, LcCava creates a thought-provoking exploration of human nature and societal complexities, leaving readers profoundly moved.

[joe]

wasn’t really clever enough to “get” a large proportion of this, and at times it does feel like it’s trying quite hard. the art writing feels sprung up from nowhere, without any particular coherence to the characters. again, might just be my melted brain not latching onto the obvious, but can only comment what i know. i’ll come back to it again for the straight-to-the-point dialogue, which is where this books packs it’s punches for me. more focus on the characters, their dynamics, and how they react to a change in story is where i feel LaCava should aim. but then i did just eat a pot noodle, so maybe ignore me

[Izzywalter · Rating 4 out of 5]

didn't enjoy as much as nymph, which i think really benefitted from the continuity of remaining with one stable narrator. I love LaCava's strange sense of slight placenessness which routes her books primarily through the relationality of the characters. Because that's one of my favourite things about her writing i think i just prefer it without switching between characters too much, although towards the end Mathilde does take front and centre but I didn't feel as inside her head as with Nymph, which I found ( i think as a result) more moving.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Intellectual spookery”, pretentious book with tons of different references from Freud to Twombly and etc in order to show how smart, educated and intellectually challenged the author are and to make it absolutely incomprehensible for readers who don’t know the context to perhaps substitute the lack of real plot and characters. Absolutely agree that the book is written more in a scrip way than an actual book.
Disappointing reading…

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book for being a character-driven portrait. The telling of the central female friendship felt authentic and I recognized people I knew in the characters. It is offbeat, not what you expect it to be, so approach reading with an open mind. I especially loved the open ending that has you thinking about the book well after you’ve finished it.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Does La cava laugh at the silly absurdity of XYZ publishers luring you in with the promise of THE NEW SALLY ROONEY

IF YOU LIKED CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS

YOU WILL

LOVE THIS

Does she sigh watching the final episode of Lena Dunham’s GIRLS

Does she read Tao Lin and takes PSYCHEDLICS

Will she then listen to Terrence McKenna talk about FINNEGANS WAKE?

[Olivia Loving · Rating 2 out of 5]

re: the review that said it was 'incomprehensible': i felt similarly and wondered if this flaw was in fact my fault. that i wasn't putting in enough effort to understand the various POVs and characters. but, to my credit, and to the book's discredit (I think), I also didn't really WANT to put in that effort -- (if that WAS what was missing in my enjoyment.)

[Dytodo Vox · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit too "white people problems" for me which sucks because I live for that kind of thing. It came off as dreadfully pretentious, sort of pointless and a bit underdeveloped. A few bright spots here and there, though, that made me think I just don't get it. Will try other works by her but this underwhelming to me.

[Simran Sandhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. Took me no time to read this as Stephanie's words really pulled me into a world i'd love to be apart of. This book stands and Stephanie stands out in a sea of mediocrity. I look forward to her future work.

[Margaret Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm
This book excels in its descriptions: of people, interiors, and outfits especially. Its dialogue and pacing are its weakest points, but once I got into it I found myself sad that it was over. It’d make a great screenplay.

[Jasmyn Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her books confuse me in the best way. I always feel like LaCava writes way over my head, and I scramble to research anything she mentions even in passing so as to understand her at the same depth she presents as.

[Josh Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish I understood more about art theory, because I would've gotten more out of this novel, I think. Odd for me to have enjoyed the narrative so much. I guess I like reading about these types of characters.