There was a sardonic us-against-the-world kind of vibe. I get my sense of humor straight from my dad. It’s like a loving misanthropy-a love of the soul of humanity, but not necessarily wanting be, like, near it. When it comes to comedy, there’s a grumpy misanthropic type of humor that really gets me. I forget all the time that things I think are true are just stories. It’s a bunch of people who know nothing trying to love and raise others who will ultimately know nothing. When you start to gain that awareness, you realize your parents know nothing. One of the qualities I value in myself is knowing that I know nothing-like, the Socrates deal. Seeing your parents as human can be a very gradual process. There’s this idea “ who could I have been if I had been raised differently? Kind of like that Pinterest meme: What would you be if you weren't afraid? There’s that other self. But the book also speculates: when should someone stop blaming their parents? I’d say Rachel still can-24 is pretty young.ĭefinitely. Rachel breaks communication with her mother as an experiment, to cut out her destructive refrains. We discussed the influence of Philip Roth, dictating on the 405 in lieu of writing at a desk, and absolving one’s parents (kind of). Miriam’s presence “giv life to my dead parts,” as Rachel put it, and this hit of intimacy spurs her to make other changes.ĮLLE.com spoke with Broder by phone from her house in the Canyon, where she takes breaks from editing her next novel to obsess about her dog Pickle’s engagement with local rodent life. Everything in Rachel’s life feels disposable and insufficient until she encounters Miriam, a “kosher coquette” who serves frozen yogurt.

When Rachel does open-mic nights, her “alt JAP” persona, clad in Saks Off Fifth, is an obvious outlier amongst the “Moon Juice, organic lip tint, and cocaine” set. She’s been shamed her whole life by her mother and developed disordered eating habits that make her “high on sacrifice.” Nothing adequately compensates: Her job at a Hollywood talent agency feels meaningless and she considers her therapist dubiously qualified at best (“How good could she be if she was willing to deal with Blue Shield?”). Her latest protagonist, Rachel, lurches between visceral impulses and toxic narratives.

This ache for more of everything-more flavor! more passion! more approval! more comfort!-is ultimately impossible to quench, and Broder examines how to live with that infuriating disappointment. It’s a theme that runs through her catalogue more widely, be it her droll-slash-existentially-queasy Twitter handle, So Sad Today, or her celebrated novel The Pisces. Melissa Broder’s new novel, Milk Fed, grapples with dissatisfaction.

Milk fed a novel