Health and Safety: A Breakdown

New Yorker staff writer Witt (Nollywood) delivers an arresting memoir rife with techno music, drugs, and the blush of new romance. In 2013, after quitting antidepressants, Witt decided to try “as many psychedelic drugs as possible,” her curiosity piqued by shifting social attitudes toward the substances. A solo trip to an ayahuasca ceremony in the Catskills netted her a boyfriend and a starting point, and she spent the next three years documenting her experiences on LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin while working on her first book, Future Sex. Then, in 2016, after a breakup and a move to Bushwick, Brooklyn, Witt fell in with a new social scene and got a new boyfriend, Andrew, who took her to forest raves and industrial techno shows. As the events of 2016—including the presidential election, mass shootings, and climate disasters—made Witt’s days as a journalist ever bleaker, she sought to counteract the gloom with nights out dancing. the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, Witt’s release valve vanished thanks to lockdown measures, causing her relationship with Andrew to disintegrate along with her faith in the social fabric. Witt’s well-honed prose makes her gut-wrenching portrait of 2010s boom-and-bust hedonism feel like the sharp observations of a trusted friend. This intense portrait of one woman’s wild years deserves a wide audience. Agent: Edward Orloff, McCormick Literary. (Sept.)