CJ Hauser has one of those faces. She looks like someone you can talk to — and strangers tend to do just that, stopping her on the street or dropping her life story on her plane. This phenomenon is only exacerbated when Hauser brings in a gentle giant named Moriarty, a 6-year-old Bernese Mountain Dog, the day he meets at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Within minutes of stepping into the park, a man approached Hauser and talked about how the dog attacked him and how the bright orange color of Moriati's harness reminded him of his trauma. Later, while we are sitting on the grass, we will talk about how the woman stopped and how she came to adopt herself. Hauser laughs at these interruptions that are part of her everyday reality, with or without her dog. "I thought this was in everyone's life until her friend" realized this was weird, "she says.
Hauser'sher over-sharing comfortis bidirectional. This became viral because I wrote her essayso strongly thatmodestParis Review. Published online in July 2019, "Crane's Wife" is Hauser's experience and why she traveled to the Gulf of Texas to study American Shirozuru 10 days after she canceled her wedding. She talks about whether she chose to end the engagement. The work exploded on Twitter and was read by more than a million people.
Currently a 38-year-old writer and university writing professor publishes her debut essay collectionon July 12, named after her viral work. intend to do something. Crane's Wifeincludes 7 previously published essays and 10 new essays, analyzing Hauser's most meaningful relationships while giving Hauser's changing perspective on all forms of love. I will explore. When self-exposure and confession writing have become widespread these days, Hauser's storytelling stands out by taking advantage of universal questions about love and the stories we tell, and certain internal organs from her own life. The ability to filter them catastrophically throughout the moment. She drills under her own skin,unearths her emotions, and even in 2022 it's still hard to talk. "I have a lot of feelings here," she gestures. "That applies to all of us. My relationship with what to do with them, feel or drive them away, who to share with, or whether to share at all-it made me feel good or bad about myself. Over time, it was stuffy and fluctuating. "After growing up in a small town in Connecticut, she said she wasn't open to discussing the painful and rewarding parts of life in her family and culture. increase. ..
Crane's wifehas a lot of things to put on the table. In One Piece, Hauser unearths memories of college relationships with her friend, a young woman. And it has become secretly romantic. She writes: To hear it anyway: it made us angry because it was. very sorry.
She also looks back on the anxiety and sadness of being tapped to spread the ashes of her grandparents at Martha's Vineyard, and considersher breast reduction surgery. I will dig deeper into the reason why I did it. , Unfolds a painful and turbulent story of her bond with her first boyfriend. She went in and out of her life for several years and suffered from hisdrinkingIt was that relationship that Hauser found particularly difficult to put on paper — she was with them. I remembered how painful it was when I was there, and writing about him meant revisiting a particular, intermittent broken heart. Still, throughout the collection, Hauser shows thatis not afraid to gothere. Especially when organizing the dire details of her memory related to desire, loss and longing.
Hauser Most of her life spent relentlessly following the fictional relationships played on the pages, screens and stages. She saw all 11 seasons of. I've seen theX-Filesat least four times, not only because she's shrouded in mystery, but because she's crazy about it. I can't get enough of her favorite on-screen coupleMulderandScully. And she has a deep attachment toThe Fantasticks. This is the Star Cross enthusiast musical she once saw with her first boyfriend. So, of course, she positions herself as a fiction writer, she published her national novelThe From-Awaysin 2014, and in 2019 the climate-meets-family storyFamily. published ofOrigin. Somewhat quietly, there was no such thing as the influence of "Crane's Wife".
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Hauser is in his work success. “After that, I was very stubborn about not wanting to write any more nonfiction,” she says. But nonfiction is where her writing career began technically. When Hauser was an undergraduate student in Georgetown, the university offered only one creative writing class. She applied every year and was rejected by sending a sample of fiction. Hauser submitted some real letters to her ex-boyfriend using her application when she was in her fourth grade, the year she finally entered school. "I called it an epistolary novel," she shrugs. There was something there. There was something about how she wrote the truth.
Any author who claims to have been postponed by literary fame is lying, but for Hauser, her visibility gained by her becoming viral has a cool side effect. did. She was surprised to find out how many people were involved in her story about sacrificing her need for "love." She can minimize herself by writing about one of her most shameful experiences in her life, and thousands of strangers on the internet feel the same. I didn't expect to say that. "If you're one person full of emotions in a bad situation, that's an anecdote, but if it's hundreds of millions of people, what's going on?" She says. "I'm worried about us."
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This work was not intended to be a hit. She pitched it and raised her modest awareness of theOrigin of Originshe was promoting at the time. It was a great achievement to be able to break through the situation of supersaturated content. Hauser attributed her moments in the spotlight to our contemporary concept of shared art. With her hand on Moriarty's side, she wears a figurative professor's hat. She explains that Canon has been disassembled. Most writers have been left behind from it for too long. The world opposes the notion of classics — those works are considered important by the legacy power structure. Therefore, fill that blank with your own reference. ConnectionYou can connect via "Bad Art Friend"or an essay about whooping cranes with your personal needs. And it makes sense especially when shared art like "The Crane Wife" can express in words the notion that many people have a hard time expressing it. Love.
It's been three years since Hauser published her work, but she quickly revealed that she was still struggling with romance. "Someone suggested that I do a column of love advice," she ridicules. "Have I read this? I'm not very good at it." But even if it doesn't include the traditional "and they've lived happily ever since" ending, her The new collection presents those who appear to be quite confident in their understanding of, where love looks like. The various forms it should be allowed to take.
Collecting the departures, Hauser and Moriarty are planning a path to the dog's beach in the center of the park, and she's running around with a bubble sword. Notice the flock. They stab each other, tick and run through the trees. Hauser asks an adult counselor what is happening. It is said to be a summer camp with the theme of Percy Jackson. She turned to me and was delighted to find another example of shared art. She asserts that it is everywhere. Then she turns to the counselor: "Are you room for someone in your thirties?"
Annabel Gutterman (). annabel.gutterman@time.com