♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ > Recent Status Updates

The official launch for my next novel, Evil Genius, will happen at my hometown bookstore, Bookshop Santa Cruz, on 18 Feb 2026! If any of my Bay Area goodreads friends can make it, I would surely love to see you!

RSVP at:

https://bookshopsantacruz.com/evil-ge...

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I just noticed there is a Goodreads Giveaway going on right now for Evil Genius by Claire Oshetsky, here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Please sign up! I'd love it if people actually interested in reading this novel got a free copy, vs. the people who sign up for every giveaway offered because they like the concept of "free book"

If you’re w/in driving distance of Bookshop Santa Cruz: October 20 we Santa Cruzians will be kicking off Jeff’s west coast book tour, coinciding with the ppb release of Absolution! Come celebrate with us! I will be ‘in conversation’ with Jeff that evening, so if you have burning questions about Area X and can’t come ask him yourself, then ask away here, and I will try to get you answers!

xx (area) x,
lark/claire

This is an awfully good read. I'm captivated by the story of how petty jealousies, wounded pride, crossed signals, and bad hunches led to one of the most destructive wars in history.

My new novel just got added to NetGalley~!

https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/boo...

My new novel just got added to NetGalley!

https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/boo...

Evil Genius

[bookcover:Evil Genius|234313834]

To my horror Meta AI is trawling the gr comments I make as 'claire oshetsky' but maybe i can hide out over here as lark benobi to say some stuff about my books. As some of you know 'chouette' has a big owl in it, and 'poor deer' has a sad deer, and what is it about the need for things to come in 3's? At any rate 'evil genius' will be the third and last of my Big Animal phase. It features a giant She-Crab. I love her.

It reminds me of Saramago's BLINDNESS but with colors filtered to half their usual saturation. Instead of "the car thief" and "the doctor" etc. we have "the young man" and "the woman in the indigo skirt," but these characters have no character, so far, beyond these identifying tags, whereas the characters in blindness felt whole and rich from the beginning. But it's early, and I may yet learn how to read it.

EVIL GENIUS - Cover Reveal!

I’m reading it again, in German, what a joy. This time I have taken the time to look up “Paternoster,” which in the English translation is helpfully translated as “paternoster elevator,” which I could imagine for myself from context clues, but man, now that I’ve done some research I’m surprised these things haven’t appeared in many a horror story featuring decapitations and other sorts of limb removing accidents

If u friend-requested me in the past few weeks: I’m sorry for my delay. I’ve been smote by sickness, one of those scary colds without name or number, and my mind has been lost in a swirly robitussin dream, and coincidentally I had a big edit due for my future novel, a circumstance that has probably nudged the book’s final form unexpectedly into fever dream territory, but anyway. I hope to be in touch today.

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Wow, this book is amazing.

A re- re- re- re-read.

I’m not stuttering it. I’m studying it.

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I miss math

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How did it come to be absolutely necessary to read Death in Venice again, right now, tonight, before any of the other books I’m halfway through?

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1. As I always suspected, sheep are creepy

2. This is the second book I’ve read in my life, and the first since reading “Lord of the Rings,” that has the term “Gaffer” in it, which Google AI just informed me is “ a nickname meaning "old man" or "boss" in British slang”

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She wasn’t much of a cow; she had seen too many hard winters, and the scrubby calf punching its long nose futilely at her near-dry udder showed she had been less than choosy in the bull she associated with.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a sentence like that one before and somehow sentences just like it keep coming along.
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Can a novel be 'relevant' and 'important' without being 'well-written?'

It’s reminding me a bit of There, There,themes of idealism, youth, identity, economic disparity, a roving close third person point of view, a story building up to a big public gathering where violence erupts, plus the fact they’re both debuts, which both novels wear lightly because both Orange and Rege are so talented, but both books suffer a bit from over-exposition and clunky transitions. Even so, good.

Ok I have put off reading Paul Auster way too long, probably for some stupid reason like, I was jealous of his eyes, or thought he might be too erudite for me given his ‘postmodern’ rep, but wow this novel is amazingly, outrageously fun to read

uh, this is wild

Right at the beginning there is such a succinct and perfect mini-scene of casual-yet-threatening discrimination that I’m feeling very excited to read on.

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A dog kept his options open, after all. Didn't he? Oh yes, he did. But for now: a dog let himself get carried. His tootsies were sore from those frickin' yellow bricks.

I love that this version of toto says "frickin".

Also: "tootsies"

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I keep laughing.

It feels so good.

I'm filled with joy to be reading Moby Dick again. It's so wonderful. No one ever talks about how funny it is.

I woke up today thinking it was past time to read Madame Bovary again

I LOVE THIS NOVEL

I’m loving this!

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My worst fears are realized