Lily Hoang Tells the Tale of Time at The Ancient City

I just recently cracked open my copy of Lily Hoang’s newest book, The Evolutionary Revolution, and about five minutes later I was online ordering more copies–because I knew I’d be lending this one out and I know what happens to great books when you lend them. That’s the kind of writer Lily Hoang is. The kind you just have to share, and damn the consequences. She’s that remarkable.

I think I first heard of Lily when she won the 2009 PEN/Beyond Margins Award for Changing, published by the Fairy Tale Review Press. (Obviously I came to the party rather late, but then I just arrived at the indie lit party a couple of years ago, so you’ll have to forgive me.) I remember reading the excerpts published at PEN, and being astounded by the wisdom and the poise of the prose there. It felt like fate, this sudden discovery, this need to read this writer who represented a sort of cool brilliance, these elegant pieces that read almost like theorems but also like dreams, like play, like memory shuffled too many times and spilled all over the floor. The way Lily picks up the pieces of memory and story and dream and equation and arranges them in new and sometimes jarring ways is nothing short of astounding. I thought then, and think now, I would read anything that came out of this person’s brain.

Lucky for me and for countless other fans, Lily’s brain is always producing new thoughts. You can read many of them over at HTMLGiant, where she’s a stellar contributor, expounding on everything from solipsism to Perec to hipsters to constraints to Schumann. And you can read more thoughts here. And here. And here.

And today, you should read Lily’s lovely, playful piece for The Ancient City Project at Necessary Fiction. And pick up a copy of the Evolutionary Revolution afterward–because you’ll want to, and because you’ll want to thank Lily and her lovely brain.