Chloé has a unique gift for writing about something very difficult and personal and turning it outward, making it relatable to anyone through her poetic honesty, endearing humor, and shimmering brilliance. Nearly two years and a pandemic later, she emailed me with the subject “My book!” It was an early draft, but I was immersed in an instant. And, with a spark of determination in her eye, she proclaimed across the table, “I am writing a book.” Earlier that year, Chloé had published a related essay called “Such Perfection” in the Believer, where she wrote about having sacral agenesis, a rare congenital disability, and the ways our culture conditions us to encounter beauty. Chloé also told me about the neutral room, her internal space and coping mechanism, and shared some of the more challenging experiences with strangers she’d faced.

We had dinner on my porch, with the birds squawking and freeway humming, and I listened as she told me stories from an epic journey she recently returned from-a solo trip to Europe and Asia where she’d had food and art and a Beyoncé-related adventure.

It’s not out of the ordinary for Chloé to show up smiling and in fantastic spirits, but that night she was particularly brimming with excitement. She was in Los Angeles and wanted to hang out. Le Petit Dé Frederic TutenĪ Playwright in Paris Brings the Revolution Onstage by Chris KnappĬhloé Cooper Jones texted me on a bright September afternoon in 2019. Olga Tokarczuk's The Books of Jacobby Rhian Sasseen Payal Kapadia's A Night of Knowing Nothingby Arun A.K.Ĭandice Hoyes's Blue Lagoon Womanby Jasmine Dreame Wagner Nicole Rudick's What Is Now Known Was Only Once Imagined: An (Auto)biography of Niki de Saint Phalleby Bruce LaBruce

By chloé cooper jones