T-3 weeks to THE PORTRAIT OF A MIRROR
gratuitous beauty, virtual tour dates & welcome to my "quite useless" newsletter
Hello!
Thanks so much for your interest in my debut novel, The Portrait of a Mirror, and for dropping your email address on my website or, more recently, Substack. I migrated over to Substack mainly for technical reasons, but with the side benefit of getting to choose a cute name for this sporadic little newsletter. I went with “quite useless,” after the last line of Oscar Wilde’s preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, “All art is quite useless,” and which was also very nearly the title of The Portrait of a Mirror. Hopefully it will be everything you want, and nothing you need.
First order of gratuitous beauty: behold, the extraordinary animated cover designed by the geniuses at ABRAMS/Overlook:
The little pop of the social icons! The subtle ripple in the pool! It’s so gorgeous that I made a TikTok account expressly for its benefit, overlaying the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. I have since been informed by several friends that this is “not what TikTok is for.” Alas.
Gratuitous beauty part deux is the real deal, which showed up in my mailbox last week:
Truly, you have to see them in person. The title and social icons gleam as you move the cover in the light, and there’s an image appendix with stunning full-color plates of visual art referenced in the novel. If you’re considering a preorder and haven’t decided between formats, I’d have to give the nod to the hardcover. Or request it from your local library! Or, if you’d like to go all-out with a signed copy, I’m delighted to share that you can preorder one from my independent bookstore here in DC, Politics & Prose. Preorders will land in your mailbox on publication day, June 1.
I’ll also be doing a virtual book tour in early June that I’m delighted to announce here first. I’ll share more details and links closer to publication, but please do save the dates:
Thursday, June 3 | 7:30pm EST - Virtual launch event at Greenlight Bookstore, in conversation with Lauren Oyler (via Zoom)
Tuesday, June 8 | 6:30pm EST - Virtual event with Bookclubz (via Instagram Live)
Wednesday, June 9 | 7pm EST - Virtual event at Literati Bookstore, in conversation with Jia Tolentino (via Zoom)
A few other sundry updates from the past few months:
The Portrait of a Mirror received a *STARRED* review from Booklist with comps to Jonathan Franzen, Donna Tartt, Christina Alger, and HBO’s Succession
The novel was recently featured as one of Veranda magazine’s “32 New Books You Don't Want to Miss This Summer”
My essay “Delusions of Grandeur” on Versailles, Vivaldi, and the aftermath of the 2016 & 2020 elections was published in The Common
Thank you again for supporting my work, and hope to see you virtually in early June!
Very best,
Natasha