How Darcie Wilder’s stunning debut novel was born on Twitter

Darcie Wilder’s debut novel literally show me a healthy person
doesn’t sit well. It’s 97 pages of full-throttle disclosure, complete
with semi-obvious booze, cum, and heartbreak details, as well as
less-obvious 9/11 jokes and quips about what it feels like to lose a
parent. Taken piece by piece, it’s hundreds of bits of hard-to-stomach
flash fiction. But as a whole, it’s a gritty, moving portrait of grief
and the chaos it kicks off in people’s brains. When I spoke to Wilder on
the phone and told her the book physically exhausted me, she said she
likes to remind people who are reading it that they “really
don’t have to finish it.” But it’s worth it to push through. (I’m saying
this as a reader who took a nice, necessary subway nap right after
putting it down.)

I’ve followed Wilder’s personal Twitter and her work at MTV News for quite a while, so I’ve seen parts of literally show me a healthy person
before — in tweet form. Encountering them again feels like déjà vu in
the best way, suddenly getting context for something that was previously
just a joke to be retweeted.