What makes somebody “the best girlfriend of all time”? I undoubtedly don’t know—simply ask my boyfriend!—however Actuality Kahn, the Gowanus-based 23-year-old zine maker and water-park-commercial star who serves because the protagonist of Sophie Kemp’s debut novel, Paradise Logic, is on a quest to seek out out. Actuality’s obsession with discovering love (or, extra precisely, with discovering somebody to like her) is much less Bridget Jones’s Diary and extra What the hell did I simply learn? however in one of the best ways potential. Kemp—who has written for Vogue, The Paris Evaluate, GQ, Pitchfork, and *The Baffler and now teaches writing at Columbia—is possessed of a voice like no one else’s, and it’s deployed right here to dazzling impact.
This week, Vogue spoke to Kemp about all the pieces from Brandy Melville jewellery and her three-steak pub week to the most effective metropolis for falling in love.
Vogue: What was publication day like for you, and the way are you getting ready to your e-book launch get together?
Sophie Kemp: Pub day was actually enjoyable! The evening earlier than, I used to be like, I can’t imagine that is lastly occurring, in, like, a foul method. However then it truly occurred, and it was nice. I went to a bunch of bookstores throughout New York and did loads of signing. I walked from Flatbush to each Brooklyn bookstore I needed to go to, which is a bit insane, after which my editor and my agent and the editorial assistant on my e-book took me out for a steak at Frenchette. It was my third steak of the week.
Get that iron!
Proper. At the moment I’m doing my laundry and getting a blowout earlier than my launch get together at Public Information. Put that in for colour, that I’m on my approach to the laundromat in my sweatpants and Brandy Melville earrings that flip my ears inexperienced. The get together’s going to be actually enjoyable; I’ve Megan Nolan, Rayne Fisher-Quann, and Tony Tulathimutte studying.
As somebody who actually struggles with naming fictional characters, I must know the way you got here up with Actuality Kahn to your protagonist’s title.
I’ve a extremely humorous reply to this query, which is that I used to be listening to a podcast with Ottessa Moshfegh two weeks into me writing my e-book. This was August of 2021, and she or he was requested on the podcast what she would title a cat, and she or he stated, “Actuality.” I used to be like, Yeah, that’s it. Then as I began writing the e-book extra, I used to be like, Oh shit, that is truly the right title for cosmic and psychedelic causes as properly. After which for Kahn, I’m a patrilineal Jew, so I needed to throw that in.
