On Patricia Lockwood

Have we as a culture moved on from the phenomenon of the “internet novel”? Each time I think the answer is a firm and resounding “yes,” the discourse is for some reason or the other renewed, and the cycle continues and repeats itself. The subject has been a recurrent one in my memory for the past half decade, but a cursory search reveals its origins likely lie even further back to the early 2010s, a full decade removed. I suppose it should be unsurprising that the “internet novel” discourse has itself fallen victim to the internet machine–fading into the rearview in memory as quickly as it arose, only to be spat up, churned out, and discussed to the ground again after a certain number of months have passed, during which time the contemporary literary landscape has proffered several more titles to the ever-growing internet novel canon.