Cazzie David likes to describe Delusions: Of Grandeur, of Romance, of Progress (out today from St. Martin’s Press) as a “prolonged existential crisis in essays.”
Those essays—and crises—assume different forms, from a tortured meditation on the end of her 20s to a Notes-app postmortem of a breakup (“My friend told me she saw you in public making out with the Chicken Shop girl”) and a taxonomy of the members at the influencer-only gym she accidentally joins. From the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard, where she contemplates a perennial situationship, to the floor of her bathroom on the night of her 30th birthday, David mines her own experiences with biting and brutal hilarity.
Her dream for the book? That readers (especially women) will read it and relate. Her nightmare? Having it read by anyone she knows.
Vogue: Early on in Delusions, you compare writing a book to childbirth, where, in order for you to do it again, your body has to erase the memory of the pain. Have you forgotten what was painful about writing this book?
Cazzie David: I have been reminded in the last two weeks why it was so horrible. Obviously, it’s so lucky to have a book published, but it’s hard to know if it’s worth the agony. Talking about it actually is one of the worst parts.
Did you know you were writing a book as these essays were emerging?
I’d started writing some essays, and they felt so connected through this one theme of me developing this paralyzing fear of being in charge of my own fate between my 29th and 30th birthdays. But it’s weird, when you’re writing a book, you have this place where any of your observations and thoughts can go, and when you don’t have that anymore, you don’t really know what to do with them.
Have there been any recent social phenomena or social media trends that you’ve wished you could write an essay about?
I don’t know that I would write a full essay about it, but I get a lot of wellness advice because I am obsessed with wellness, and I’m convinced by all of it. I watched a video where someone says, “Eat three kiwis a day for this outcome.” This person doesn’t believe in eating three kiwis a day—this person believes in making a video about eating three kiwis a day. What is the actual motive here? It’s not to get other people to eat kiwis. It’s just that they wanted something to make a video about.
Do you ever catch yourself doing something or lingering in a certain experience because you think it will be good to write about?
It’s the only reason I will leave my house. Almost always, if I leave my house, I get an idea for something to write about. But, by the way, the idea always stems from something bad that happens. So, it’s like, am I going to go and have a bad experience and write something, or am I going to avoid the bad experience?
Do you feel like it becomes a bad experience when you’re writing it, or do you know it in the moment?
No, I know it while it happens. I sometimes know it before it happens.
There are a lot of moments in the book where you don’t quite recognize yourself—whether it’s going waterskiing to impress an unrequited crush, or editing an Instagram photo, or throwing a 30th birthday party that you don’t want to attend. Do you reread your books, and if you do, do you recognize the person who wrote them?
I can’t reread anything I write because I hate everything the second it’s done and I’ve moved on. This book is really about someone who’s trying rationally, or irrationally, to reason her way through our very unreasonable existence. It’s meant to show the lack of growth throughout this one year, when you’re desperate to be the person everyone says you’re going to be by the time you turn 30.
In the book, there’s a lot of acknowledgement of your own privilege and how certain experiences won’t be relatable to your reader—like having famous parents or summering in Martha’s Vineyard. But you also write about experiences of body dysmorphia and social media addiction. Is that a conscious aim of yours, relatability?
I just don’t find it interesting to write about unless it feels universal in some way, especially for other women. There’s obviously one defining difference, which is us, but that is really important to me—for it to connect to other women.
After you publish something like this that’s so personal, do you then deal with people talking to you like they know you?
I would love nothing more.
Really?
Yeah, because I think every writer at the end of the day just wants to be understood. That’s the selfish goal among the other unselfish motives. The dream, really, is that you’re understood and then validated.
So the idea of someone approaching you and saying, “I loved your book,” is not terrifying or anything?
It’s literally the best thing that could ever happen to me. I only want strangers to read it and relate to it. I don’t want anyone I know to read it. It’s definitely not for anyone I know.
But will they read it, the people you know?
You know, I don’t know if people still read, so I’m hoping they don’t. So we’ll see. It will be clear if they do.
In the way that they treat you?
Yeah. But I do think it’s interesting: If you’re promoting a movie or something, people can see that in an hour. I might not know how people respond to this for months. People take their time reading, especially if they don’t like it. Then they really take their time. It could be a year before anyone finishes this book.
You have an essay about how when people give advice, it’s often a form of coercion. What’s it like to receive advice about your writing?
I stick to people I trust and whose opinion I really care about. Men love to give me unsolicited advice on my writing. They love telling me I should apologize less, which is so ironic. I’m someone who walks in a room and apologizes for having entered it and changed the vibe, so I’m just being myself. The work I respond to most feels really authentic, and the same goes for the people I respond to. So apologizing is part of that authenticity for me.
You have this lovely description of one of the few times in life when you feel present: watching deer in your backyard. Do you feel present when you’re writing?
I don’t think I do, honestly. I really only feel present when I’m looking at nature or watching animals, because they remind you they have nowhere else to be besides the present. It’s why I love having cats, because every time I look at them, I’m appalled that they don’t have phones and they’re never distracted.
The book concludes with an account of tearfully trying to take a photo to make an ex jealous the night of your 30th birthday. It made me wonder what it was like taking the author photo for Delusions and whether it was a painful process for you.
I think all photos are painful because you hope one of your faces that you like is going to show up, and oftentimes it doesn’t. And it’s just such a vulnerable situation to stand in front of the camera. But I wrote about trying to get a photo on your birthday because I felt like that was the perfect example of having not grown at all by 30 and still caring about something really silly and trivial.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
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