"Wuthering Heights"
New episode of "Private Life" and my contributions to the Brontë/Fennell discourse (sorry!)
When Emerald Fennell’s new movie was announced months ago, a hyper-stylized version of Wuthering Heights with music by Charli XCX, I proposed writing about the soundtrack for the venerable 4Columns, because I felt like writing about Charli XCX.
Last month I went to see Charli XCX’s (brilliant) new movie The Moment (2026) and realized that’s actually what I wanted to write about, and did so for The Critic’s Table, (thanks again Johanna Fateman!) but I was still on the hook for covering “Wuthering Heights”. It was published this morning (Thanks to Margaret Sundell!)
Wuthering Heights is all I’ve thought about for the last month, and I have to say, re-reading it was the best art experience I’ve had so far this year (cannot say the same for watching the movie.) One of the great pleasures of returning to books and movies I loved as a sixteen year old, that formed and affirmed my aesthetic sensibilities, is getting to realize that teenage me was fucking right!
Don’t worry, I’m not becoming a pop culture writer—back to weirdo art and books for me!
The new episode of “Private Life” the podcast I’m hosting for the New York Review is out now, which is an essay by Elizabeth Hardwick “Working Girls: The Brontës” from 1972 read by incredible actor Kathleen Chalfant. It’s a brilliant analysis of the inexplicable lives of Brontë sisters, and gives much needed depth and context to current discussions of “Wuthering Heights”. (It’s a follow-up to last weeks premiere episode, where I interviewed Darryl Pinckney about his relationship with Hardwick.) Give it a listen—send it to you friends.
As a palate cleanser, I’m currently a quarter of the way into Elizabeth Young-Breuhl’s biography of her teacher Hannah Arendt: For the Love of the World (1982) —which I can’t believe I’ve never read before— and as an inveterate hater of the biography-as-a-form, I’m pleased to say that this one is wonderful.