Will There Ever Be Another You book review: Patricia Lockwood’s comedic exploration of identity and illness

AUTOFICTION

Will There Ever Be Another You

Patricia Lockwood

Bloomsbury Publishing, $32.99

In a world where literature is increasingly manufactured and increasingly irrelevant, where more novels seem to be written both by and for creative writing students, the offbeat writing of Patricia Lockwood stands out like a weed in concrete. A Midwestern poet who undertook her literary education on social media, Lockwood has made a career out of the absurd and personal.

While most writers flounder and fail to resonate with a public readership, she has achieved fame and acclaim three times over: first with Rape Joke , a viral poem about her own assault; then Priestdaddy , an absurdist memoir of childhood in a Catholic rectory and No One Is Talking About This , an autobiographical novel tha