Born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1987, Yael van der Wouden is a writer and teacher who lectures in creative writing and comparative literature in the Netherlands. Her work has appeared in publications including LitHub, Electric Literature and Elle.com, and she has a David Attenborough-themed advice column, Dear David, in the online literary journal Longleaf Review. Her essay on Dutch identity and Jewishness, On (Not) Reading Anne Frank, received a notable mention in the 2018 Best American Essays collection. The Safekeep, published by Viking earlier this year, is Van der Wouden’s debut novel and is shortlisted for the Booker prize.
1. Book
Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas
A friend gave this to me and said it “changed their genetic makeup”. You’d think a novel given with the promise of a life-altering experience can only disappoint, and yet! Will Idlewild disrupt every reader’s mental equilibrium? Unlikely. Will it send some of us down an existential spiral for approximately a week? Certainly. The novel is a familiar and well-executed three-act Bildungsroman and at the same time like nothing I’ve read before. I’ve been pitching it to people as: imagine a teen love triangle, only instead of love, the three axis points are obsession, sexuality and gender-envy. A terrifying, rollicking ride.
2. YouTube channel
This summer on holiday my girlfriend looked over my shoulder in bed, saw I was watching a 45-minute restoration of a wardrobe, and proceeded to make brutal fun of me. It’s grandma behaviour, she said. Surely grandmas don’t restore whole wardrobes, I said. It’s very physically demanding, and requires years of study. I did not convince her, but I’ve been trying to. There’s something about craftsmanship, about doing something extremely well and then applying that skill to the undoing of entropy that leaves me with the sense that people do know things, and that wrongs can be undone. Or perhaps I’ve never outgrown the wow of a good makeover.
3. Music
Fountain Baby by Amaarae
These past couple of years have been fantastic for pop, and my favourite genre to come out of it is the strange and horny side of queer hyperpop. The incredible Chappell Roan was brewed in those waters, but consider also Peach PRC, Ashnikko, Cobrah, Lil Mariko. For a while now I’ve been obsessed with Amaarae’s latest album, Fountain Baby, specifically the song Sociopathic Dance Queen. A poppy, creepy, demonic dance club hit that sandwiches the Minogueian refrain of “touch touch touch!” with lyrics such as “I buried all the bodies in the pool”. It’s addictive and unsettling.
4. Interior design
Ceramic fish
Two things came together in this one: the fact that I’m moving homes soon, and the fact that I’m eyeball-deep in research into the former Zuiderzee (“south sea”), which is now the IJssel lake – the body of water that scoops down into the middle of the Netherlands like a big thumb. I’ve been looking into what kinds of fish survived the transition from salty to sweet waters, how it affected life along the sea and the people’s relationship to the water. In other words, fish are on my mind these days. So when I started looking around for things to put in my new house, I just kept getting drawn to… fish. Fish plates, fish art, fish shower curtains. Through my haze of fish fixation I could see that most of these were hideous, but this collection of Italian ceramic fish are, I believe, perfect in every way. Especially the anchovies and the sardines, the cool blues and the big eyes. They please me. I have come to understand this is not a universal opinion. However, I have bought six. I will probably purchase more.
5. Drink
Calvados Dauphin Fine
I recently went on a writing retreat in Giethoorn – the “Schrijvershuis” – possibly the most picturesque town in the Netherlands. The canals, the bridges, the thatched roofs. My hosts were a wonderful couple who took me sightseeing and on boat rides and, most importantly, would text me at the end of every other writing day: wine-glass emoji question mark? And I would come down, and there would be food, and wine, and laughter, and, on my final night there,a glass of Calvados Dauphin Fine. It came with a story: when they were young, an older couple had allowed them a taste of the drink, and they then went on to save for several months in order to afford a bottle of their own. They’ve made sure to always have one at hand ever since. I was sceptical, and I took one sip, and have been plotting my own purchase ever since. Not too sweet, not too dry. For lovers of oak, honey, baked apples and the fantasy of living the kind of life where you host frazzled writers in your spare room.
6. Museum
This is one of the most impressive museums of cultural heritage I’ve ever seen. The history is this: in 1932 the Afsluitdijk was completed, a barrier dam that effectively closed off the Zuiderzee and made it into a big, shallow, sweet-water lake. As traditional sea life dwindled along the shores and on the islands, the museum acted as a living archive: abandoned homes were transported wholesale to the museum grounds. Desks, beds, chairs, fishing nets, sheets, entire shops. The museum is a big village of original and recreated homes. You can go inside these homes and touch the things, historians dressed in traditional clothes will tell you stories. It is both magical and tragic: the fact that you’re witnessing traces of life curated and enclosed also means it is gone.
WEB ONLY:
7. Podcast
Anna Sale is one of my all-time favourite interviewers. Leading up to one of my first moderating gigs I listened to just about every episode of Death, Sex & Money, just to see if there was something about her curious way of being with other people that might rub off on me. I wish I could laugh like she does. One of my favourite recent episodes is the one about life in the Playboy Mansion, where Crystal Hefner talks about her life in the claustrophobic house and under Hefner’s control – about his childish tyrant ways. She talks about living there as a young woman and then into adulthood, eventually marrying Hefner, and how she searched for and then found agency in small secret ways. A gorgeous interview.
