Am I a Jerk for Underestimating This Celeb's Bookclub?

Kaia Gerber is all over the place—she acts in the Apple TV series Palm Royale, is rehearsing ahead of her January opening in a play in Los Angeles and graces the December Vogue with not one but two covers—one of which shows her in an oil portrait by art world sensation Anna Weyant. She’s also on my bedside table—at least her influence is, since I bought a book called Dear Dickhead I learned about via her book club.

How can this sheltered daughter of the Golden State have such a sophisticated and far-reaching sensibility? It's not a question I mull over any longer.

Turns out, in so many ways. I found Dear Dickhead thanks to her. (It was the second Virginie Despentes book I bought, after a collection of feminist essays called King King Theory, which I got after 90s rocker Courtney Love mentioned it in an old tweet.) And I loved it. Dear Dickhead is a novel told in letters that starts when a late-career French movie star (imagine Eva Green) claps back at a cruel tweet written by a journalist who turns out to have a secret past connection to her. Turns out the journo has been recently cancelled, is a recovering alcoholic and has a surprising response to the star’s rebuke…and then Covid shuts down Paris. The novel’s thorny topics including addiction, feminism and sexual harassment, and the brisk pacing makes it a wild read I finished over a weekend.

After reading, I listened to Gerber’s online discussion about the book with Anahid Nersessian (writer and poetry editor at Granta), and gained additional nuanced appreciation. Gerber even compared it to Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker, a metafictional novel involving all kinds of transgressive sex stuff which I’ve long deemed literary cool girl canon (so much so, I’ve never gotten around to actually reading it).

What else does she recommend, you ask? Well, there’s Job, the story of a Google standards screener’s post-nervous breakdown with a serious twist ending. And there’s Martyr, about an Iranian immigrant with artistic pursuits. And how about Lillian fishman's Acts of Service, a novel about a hot three-way affair but, you know, literary?

What is going on here? How can this sheltered daughter of the Golden State have such a sophisticated and far-reaching sensibility? It’s not a question I mull any longer, since I discovered the Library Science credo on its about page: “We learn the most from stories that aren’t our own.” (A great motto for these fractious times, I daresay.) I initially dismissed Kaia as a 23-year-old Malibu girl turned model by genetic lottery—but looking at this list of titles, I see I was so wrong.

The connection between these books is that they make me feel less alone. They also—like Gerber herself—contain surprises that stop you in your tracks.