Loser’s Thoughts on Clancy Steadwell’s Bildungsroman.
‘The big T’ is a masterclass of storytelling. It’s told from Jude’s perspective, and it feels casual and conversational, in a word — natural. You can tell a lot of love and time and effort has gone into something when it looks and feels easy or effortless: a song that swells and builds naturally, a play that unfolds perfectly, a painting or poem that so vividly pictures it’s subject. The big T is such a force, where it feels like a story being told by someone who lived it. This pulled me in easily and I came to love the characters and feel what they felt. By the time you reach the end of the book, it is very emotional to part with the characters/reach the end and find that there isn’t more to read. I was also shocked to find similar scenarios in my own life (like weirdly similar [stop following me Clancy]). It’s a wonderfully relatable story. I commented this somewhere on it but, it feels a little like the movie Boyhood — if that means anything to anyone.
{PS: did a lil rework of the image, hoping to fill it with Substack books I’ve read and informally reviewed}
Read original Note here.
