Review: Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet’s new stories are about folks trying to keep it together

Lydia Millet has published more than a dozen novels and two collections of stories; her latest, “Atavists,” is a bit of both — a novel in stories, a deliciously digestible and of-the-moment read.

Each chapter of the collection from the “Dinosaurs” novelist gives us a look into the lives of a group of neighbors in Southern California. In each chapter, a main character is identified as some kind of “ist” — Tourist, Dramatist, Mixologist, Therapist, Optimist, etc. As a group, they are “atavists,” which means a throwback, a representative of a past style, outlook or activity.

A close look at a conversation in “Artist” between a widowed mom named Helen and her two daughters, Shelley, 22, and Mia, 18, sheds some light on what Millet means by this.

Mia is taking a gap year between high school and college to “follow her bliss.” Her mother, unsure whether this actually reflects familiarity with the work of Joseph Campbell, who coined that term, has agreed she may do so if she devotes part of her time to a service project. Mia’s first suggestion is “something with kittens and puppies.”

“Or I could help save koalas. They’re so cute, Mom. And lots of them are burning up. Plus dying from chlamydia.”

“Shut up,” says her sister.

“Google it,” says Mia. “Or maybe I could do fundraising for unfairly canceled celebrities. Like Aziz Ansari? That was mega sad.”

“Huh. I’m not sure, TBH.”

“That whole thing was [expletive].”

“Garbage. I had worse dates in junior high.”

“As usual, I don’t know who you’re talking about,” says their mother, but they ignored her.

Like volunteerism and following one’s bliss and what kind of things you can get canceled for, the institution of marriage has also gone a little wonky in this brave new world. Another girl in the neighborhood, Liza, also 18, showed up “for dinner late one night, plunked down her backpack at the door, and announced she was married.” To a “DACA kid” named Luis.

But the big problem, the one the poor atavists have no idea what to do about, is the “five-alarm emergency” of ecological catastrophe, which is low-key alluded to in every story, as the kids might say.

The way they avoid that by filling up their lives with lesser problems and obsessions — academic plagiarism, cultural appropriation, unsightly body hair — is almost funny. But not quite. Ask the koalas about that.

Marion Winik is a Baltimore-based professor and writer.

Atavists

By: Lydia Millet.