The Catastrophe Hour: Selected Essays

In these forthright pieces, The Unspeakable podcaster Daum (The Problem with Everything) meditates on the vagaries of midlife. Across several entries, she reflects on divorcing her husband of seven years while in her mid 40s over “petty” annoyances and on making peace with her life as a childless woman in her 50s after realizing that she values independence more than the lifelong romantic relationship she obsessed over attaining as a young woman. Contemplating how age has changed her relationship to pop culture, Daum describes how she came to prefer podcasts over music because her favorite songs remind her either of painful memories or naive notions of youthful possibility. She imbues the selections with wry humor, especially in “Independent Creator,” which probes the indignities of eking out a living from her podcast revenue and Substack subscriptions. Unfortunately, the condescending “What I Have in Common with Trans Activists” sticks out like a sore thumb. The essay is built around the dubious suggestion that Daum’s seeking out of narratives about unhappy mothers to affirm her decision to forgo having kids mirrors how trans people are allegedly deluded into changing their gender identity by ensconcing themselves in like-minded corners of Reddit and Tumblr, but Daum doesn’t provide even a shred of evidence to support this “social contagion” theory. It’s a glaring blight on an otherwise serviceable collection. (Apr.)