It’s Not Happening

Part 1, maybe. She’s doing a timeline of her life and its relation to historical events. This one is a little stretch – she was born on the 30th anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s assassination – but the picture she drew to signify it is all kinds of awesome:

A collection of nine stories all featuring the same characters had better be compelling. Julie Hecht worked it out and kept pulling me along, story after story, when the narrator was an unlovably neurotic New York housewife with just enough money to need something to do but not enough to keep her distracted. Despite being afraid of people, food, the weather, change and herself, she pursues extremely specific yet somehow lofty goals (like photographing famous reproductive surgeons and capturing their true natures) just until she nears the point of completion.

Hecht’s writing is hilarious – as if Dorothy Parker were scripting The Office. The adventures of one awkward, self-aware semi-rich woman filled with existential dread confronting a world that goes out of its way not to understand her turn out to be comedy gold.