The Afterparty with Danielle Chelosky
Sheridan Wilbur speaks to Danielle Chelosky about power dynamics in romantic relationships, the unreliable self-narrator, and desiring annihilation in Chelosky’s debut novel Pregaming Grief.
INTERVIEW BY SHERIDAN WILBUR
Danielle Chelosky is an author, music journalist, and an editor at Hobart who at just 23 has already captured the complexity of girlhood in prose that’s both provocative and self-aware. Her debut novel, Pregaming Grief (Short Flight/Long Drive, 2024), draws from common coming-of-age experiences: becoming enamoured with an older man and losing the sense of self in pursuit of validation and being wanted. Standing on the shoulders of confessional giants like Annie Ernaux, Chris Kraus and Anaïs Nin, Danielle delves into painful yearning, yet goes beyond introspection, weaving in references to music and literature. Her book isn’t a purge–it reflects growing up and taking responsibility for your actions. “When you convince yourself you're powerless, that's just an illusion,” she tells me over Zoom. For the psychoanalysis issue of Worms, Sheridan Wilbur speaks to Danielle Chelosky about power dynamics in love and sex, desiring annihilation, as well as the unreliable self-narrator.
Sheridan Wilbur: Why did you name your book Pregaming Grief?
Danielle Chelosky: I really wanted to think of a title before I wrote the whole thing because I love little phrases that stick in your mind. That was sticking for me because I thought, "Who the fuck else is gonna title a book Pregaming Grief?” If anyone else does, I will sue them. I will be really angry. The book is more about sex and love than it is about grief. But I think love and sex also have to do with grief. The grief in the title has more to do with her romantic relationships than the family stuff, which is a big undercurrent beneath it all. But I wasn't ready to include more of it.
Who is your audience?
When I write, I don't think about anyone reading it. Which is probably why everyone tells me, I can't believe you wrote this or this is so honest. It’s none of my business who reads it. From what I notice, people who have similar taste to me read Annie Ernaux or Anaïs Nin or Chris Kraus. People who read about sex and feminist stuff.
I could sense their influences but this is your own voice. Your characters have so many dimensions, they feel so real. I loved reading the narrator’s unrestrained monologue/stream of consciousness but it can be hard to write so vulnerably. How much did you draw from your own experience?
All of it really.
My professor said that I was ‘transcribing reality.’ I thought that was an accurate term. I still do it. After I go out and have a night with people, I'll just immediately start writing about it.
I'm not sure why. It feels productive.
There's a Joan Didion quote, “Writers are always selling somebody out.” Have you ever felt like you were compromising the people in your life by including them in your work?
I definitely feel bad sometimes. Either because I'm making someone look bad or I'm catching them at a bad time. But it’s not like I'm making myself look great either, especially in this book. There's a difference between writing something and publishing something. I really wanted to use real first names. I read I Love Dick by Chris Kraus which made me feel that way. In interviews, she had said Richard (Dick) was really angry about it. That's awesome. I wanted to do the same thing. But then I was thinking about ethics. Not even just ethics, because that's such a detached term, but people who I've had experiences with. People deserve more consideration when you’re publishing stories about them. I tried to remedy this by only using the first letter of names. But it looked so fucking annoying and hard to read. It was shit show.
One of Freud's ideas is that the ego distorts reality to protect itself. How might you be an unreliable narrator?
I went crazy trying to express the dynamic between the narrator and Andrew. That was a big source of confusion. I couldn't tell if I was projecting this evilness onto him or if I was protecting myself by doing so.
That's part of why I was writing the book. I wanted to find closure with that relationship.
I didn't know how to feel after it was over. Of course, it's not over at the end because she chooses to go back. But in the book, I keep talking to my friends about him. Trying to see what they think. I'm desperate for this objective perception of our relationship. I came to the conclusion that that's impossible. We all perceive things in different ways. One relationship can't be understood through some easy explanation. I don't know if this is answering your question.
Your relationship with Andrew had such a power imbalance. He had rules about being submissive that would make it harder to see your agency. It makes sense there was ambiguity for you. He's older, more dominant, detached. Do you believe she gains power by proxy, being close to him, or through some level of transference?
In that relationship, I was convinced that I had no agency. I was 19, I was under his spell. I feel like I projected he was taking away my agency but that's the way to make yourself submit to something bigger than yourself. In doing that, you feel some sort of power because by submitting to something, you don't have to feel any responsibility for your actions and you should feel responsible for your actions. When you convince yourself you're powerless, that's just an illusion. That caused me to resent him. But really, it was my doing. Is this making any sense?
We're definitely going down the rabbit hole. But that's sort of the point of the conversation anyway.
This feels like it's deep in my unconsciousness.
Maybe this is a good moment to talk about dreams. Dreams can be a pathway to our unconscious, and things we secretly want. On page 15, you say: “I secretly hid inside fantasies of Xavier, almost against my will, subconsciously cherishing the idea of a simple love with someone my age. I’d wake from recurring, passionate dreams of intimacy with him, despite suppressing the thought of him. Years later, Xavier and I drunkenly kissed on a Boston street, then fucked in a hotel room; it was better than I had imagined...” How do recurring dreams like this in your story reflect unresolved conflicts or hidden desires you have?
I was actually talking about my dreams this morning. I really love dreams because I just get to shut my brain off. But I have been having a lot of crazy vivid dreams about my exes. I haven't been thinking about any of my exes. That's probably why. I'm avoiding thinking about the past and it just comes up in my dreams. I really was suppressing my feelings for Xavier so hard. I was trying to convince myself I wasn't attracted to him and that just sent my unconscious into a spiral. A horny spiral. This feels like therapy. Wow.
I am not a licensed psychologist.
Promise?
Pinky swear. I liked how your narrator would act on these intense desires or urges, but she clearly has self restraint when she really wants to hit Helen, the ex-girlfriend of ‘you.’ How did moral judgement play a role in her behaviour?
That's more fear of confrontation. Which makes me sound like such a pussy.
Well publishing is so brave.
Thank you. That's the thing.
My only way of getting revenge is through writing.
Though it is very, very delayed. I've never punched anyone in the face, yet.
You're still young.
[Laughter] Well, it’s good that you think I have restraint. I was surprised when you said that. The more spontaneous stuff definitely helps when there's alcohol involved. But the alcohol was never enough to make me punch people and believe me, I wanted to punch people.
There’s too much literature right now trying too hard to be transgressive.
It's such a thing that pisses me off right now, people calling their writing transgressive. You can't really do that because that's something for the audience to decide. You're saying people are going to react to it negatively or they're going to be provoked by it. But it's the same people who are gonna be upset if they get one star on Goodreads, so it pisses me off.
[Laughter] When we were texting before our interview, you mentioned Anaïs Nin as an influence for writing as a way to dissect your own subconscious, on your own. But you admit in the novel: “Writing began to feel less like an attempt to move on and more like a form of relapse. I kept trying over and over to make sense out of something that didn’t. I was in a maze with no exit. Relief felt perpetually out of reach.” Do you find that writing remains limiting, or can it be a tool for self-exploration?
I wrote to get rid of the ambiguity covering the relationship with Andrew. I wanted to see a definitive answer for the situation. Writing with the intention of trying to understand a situation can work sometimes, but that’s not always how life works. In one part, at Andrew’s, I wrote, “I want to get drunk as fast as possible.” And [my editor] Elizabeth asked me, “Can you explain why you thought this way, why you did this?” I was like, Fuck, dude. I have to explain myself? That forced me to confront not fun things.
I love writing but when you get to the hard parts, you realise writing isn’t totally fun. You have to be willing to really get in it and sacrifice some of your sanity.
When I wrote this book, a lot of the fragments are from the day after things happened. But then I edited a few months ago and these situations felt very different.
I was surprised you used past tense in your book. It makes room for distance or reflection. Was that deliberate?
Past tense sounds more eloquent to me. But it’s also natural. I’ll be in a moment and be like, I have to write about this later. I'm already thinking about the present retrospectively.
That’s why being a writer is so alienating. You see yourself as an observer of your own life, which can make you feel really separate from everyone else. That’s depressing. I have this weird thing when I’m writing something, I feel the urge to share it with other people immediately. Maybe I'm trying to make up for the fact I've been absent or pulled out of moments because I wanted to write about them.
Maybe I'm trying to create a new moment by sharing the work.
That’s kinda beautiful though. You’re doing something that not everyone can do, not everyone has that vision or looks at the world that way… Ok I don’t even know if I’m gonna ask this one.
Oh god.
Ok, it’s intense but answer it however much you want. I found this section of your book pretty self aware but also devastating. “Male pain has so often been a weapon I thought might kill me. I’m a dartboard for men and the things that deeply disturb them… cutting into my skin, creating wounds that slowly become open voids, rendering me less of a person, lessening the space I take up.” Freud has this idea of a death drive, the inherent desire for self-annihilation. How would you say that resonates in your book?
I love the word annihilation. It fits when it comes to that part of my life – drinking and romantic relationships. Most of the nights with Andrew were also nights of drinking. It’s about wanting annihilation because it’s the closest thing to death while still getting to live. When you’re depressed you don’t want to die, you just want to feel something. You’ll take the closest thing to death which is annihilation. I stopped drinking in April of last year. Once I made that decision I didn't want to do anything self destructive. Before I was like, I’m young so I can do this and I'm a writer so I'm allowed to suffer a little bit. I was getting something out of it in those intense moments with Andrew. I was drunk. I was in love. He was giving me attention. After a while you realise you're suffering more than feeling good. I was awfully codependent. I wanted to not care but it affected how I went about everyday life. I had no choice but to confront this. But that's after the book.
Has Andrew read the book? Does he know about it?
No. The character ‘you’ knows about it. He’s stoked. But Andrew, no. I haven’t talked to him since August of 2022 and he’s such a fucking mystery honestly, I can’t find him anywhere online. He could be dead.
Do you feel like your book captures something specific about the female experience?
It’s fair to say this is a female voice because I am writing about the experiences of being a young woman. Using terms like ‘the female voice’ can be reductive but it’s so inevitable with the way magazines operate. It’s funny because I published a few chapbooks and mostly dudes read them. Why is this happening?
They’re trying to get into the female psyche. [Laughter] Simone de Beauvoir is quoted for saying “I’m not a woman writer” which is sort of a defence to this reduction. But she also denies that part of her existence so people take her seriously. And Virginia Woolf makes a plea for access to literature in A Room of One’s Own, but she also doesn’t want to admit she’s a woman writer. So she falls into this double bind, and has to choose between her gender and being a fully embodied human. Whereas now it doesn’t seem like you, or the culture really, has the same ultimatum.
It’s weird. The publishing industry now prioritises female voices. I don't know if you saw that article on Dazed, “Where are all the young white male novelists?” People are so serious about that.
No one refers to male writers as male writers. They're just writers. Because of fucking Hemingway. It’s his fault.
I think I see myself as a writer before I see myself as a woman. Because I'm insane that's why. There are so many people who enjoy calling themselves writers more than they enjoy writing. I don’t know, couldn’t be me.
I don't think you should be bragging about being a writer. It's not fucking cool.
Yeah when I meet someone at the pub, I’m not telling them I’m a writer.
I moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania last year and made a plan to write a novel there so I could get rich from it and afford to live by myself in New York. But locals would be like, Why did you move here? I wouldn't fucking say I came here to write a novel. I’m not in a fucking movie.
I’m all about romanticising every aspect of your life.
That being said, usually it’s more fun to fantasise about things than execute them.
Well you did execute this and I loved reading it. Thank you so much for your time. We covered so much.
We went all the way to death and back, baby.
Danielle Chelosky is a writer and journalist from New York. She works at Stereogum and has bylines in NPR, The Fader, and Billboard. She is an editor at Hobart Pulp and an editorial assistant at Amphetamine Sulphate.
Sheridan Wilbur is a writer, journalist and copywriter based in London. Her work has been published in The Guardian, Huck, Office Magazine, Women’s Running, and more. She was formerly the commissioning editor of METER, a semi-annual print magazine for Tracksmith. Her fiction can be found in Hobart and Worms Magazine.
