Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays

“[This] remarkable debut essay collection touches on art and literature and pop culture, but also feels intensely intimate, filled with stunning insights.” —Vulture

On April 11, 1931, Virginia Woolf ended her entry in A Writer’s Diary with the words “too much and not the mood.” She was describing how tired she was of correcting her own writing, of the “cramming in and the cutting out” to please other readers, wondering if she had anything at all that was truly worth saying.

The character of that sentiment, the attitude of it, inspired Durga Chew-Bose to write and collect her own work. The result is a lyrical and piercingly insightful collection of essays and her own brand of essay-meets-prose poetry about identity and culture. Inspired by Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, Lydia Davis’s short prose, and Vivian Gornick’s exploration of interior life, Chew-Bose captures the inner restlessness that keeps her always on the brink of creative expression. Too Much and Not the Mood is a beautiful and surprising exploration of what it means to be a creative young woman working today, and shutting out the noise in order to hear your own voice.

“When the world seems to be on fire, intuitive essays that focus on miniature aspects of the ordinary-everyday can serve as a balm . . . Her sentences [come] as close as language can to how it feels to be alive as a young woman, at a time in your life when every detail matters.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“A self-portrait of the writer as intrepid mental wanderer . . . This is a book to slip into your pocket for company during a day of solitary walking.” —The New Yorker

“Reveals a young author who is wise beyond her years and whose keen eye moves beyond tired tropes about identity struggles . . . Her ample talent and keenly observed essays will surely win her followers, especially at a time and place when authenticity is a rare and much-valued currency.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Picking apart art and literature and blending it with observations from everyday life, Chew-Bose could make even the grayest day seem beautiful and fascinating.” —Rolling Stone

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