No One Is Talking About This

 
　　網路，或至少就社群媒體而言，比任何事都更像是一個虛構的假象。
 
　　當書中時間開始滾動，一個新晉的女生網紅便躍然於紙上。她因為激增的人氣，現在正在世界巡迴，與粉絲們碰面。她打算在網路，也就是她口中所謂的「門戶」上引領新「語言」和「禮儀規範」，然而「門戶」中越來越嘈雜、分歧的聲音，卻開始影響了她的想法。當外在真實環境的問題，如氣候變遷、經濟衰退、某處崛起的獨裁者等等，開始影響「門戶」世界中的一切，她越發覺得此地的空虛。大量的圖片、大量的消息、新聞等等，似乎描繪出一個個不倫不類，又好像什麼都正確的輪廓。「門戶」世界裡的網民們不禁想問：「我們是身處於地獄嗎？難道我們要把這樣的事重複施作，一直到死為止嗎？」
 
　　然而回到真正的現實生活，網紅女孩的媽媽傳了封簡訊給她：「家裡出事了，你最快什麼時候可以回來？」真實人生似乎開始和荒謬的「門戶」世界重合，女孩即將發現這個世界有著大量證明這宇宙間確實有良善、悲憫和正義；然而她同時也會意識到，另外也有一堆證據告訴你，這世間的醜惡。
 
　　本書是作者獻給線上和線下、虛擬和現實世界，溫柔而誠摯的一封情書。
　　
　　(文／博客來外文館)

　　"I really admire and love this book. Patricia Lockwood is a completely singular talent and this is her best, funniest, weirdest, most affecting work yet." --Sally Rooney

　　"A furiously original novel." --Jia Tolentino

　　From "a formidably gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review), a book that asks: Is there life after the internet?

　　As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?"

　　Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

　　Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.