The Only Living Girl In Chicago

by Mallory Smart

Zoe Clark is back in Chicago, and she already wants to run. But she can never turn her back on her monstrous hometown again. Grief, technology, isolation, and emptiness keep her up at night. Or maybe it's the coffee. Her brain feels like a mosquito trapped in amber, ready to be found in 65 million years by an enterprising paleontologist. Full of anxiety, humor, philosophy, and grief, The Only Living Girl in Chicago is a stunning coming-of-age novel, a later bloomer's bible in constant, dizzying motion.

Genres: Fiction

173 pages, Paperback

Published August 24, 2021

About the author

Mallory Smart is a Chicago-based writer, editor-in-chief of Maudlin House, and podcaster.

She is the author of the novel, "The Only Living Girl In Chicago" from Trident Press, the poetry collection, " I Want To Feel Happy But I Only Feel__" from Expat Press, the experimental hybrid short story collection," THE WRITER," the poetry chapbook, "I'm AntiSocial, Coffee Never Lies" from Bottlecap Press and the weird chapbook, "Hipster Idiot" from Ghost City Press.

At the age of 23, she founded Maudlin House.

When she is not writing or editing, she hosts the podcast, Textual Healing. Mallory Smart is also the co-host of the horror podcast, That Horrorcast.

Reviews

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Those who know me know that I love contemporary stories. I specifically love contemporary stories told by women, that's why I love Girls and Insecure so much (and probably would love the adaptations of the Sally Rooney novels once I set some time for them). I also love The Worst Person of the World, although it's a story about a lost woman told by a man (a genius named Joachim Trier) but I can forgive that because Trier is a sensitive artist. I can tell you right now that I loved The Only Living Girl in Chicago for the same reasons I liked those shows and other movies with the same sensibility. And I liked it even more because I hadn't read anything in that vein yet, until now. It felt to me that the great contemporary female writers were all of them putting their creative efforts in TV and film, and it's wonderful to find an underdog like Mallory Smart, someone who had given us a book that reflects the dread of being part of the millennial generation (something that if you have listened to her podcast she's super obsessed with), a generation that lived through I don't even know how many recessions now, deep in debt (thank you very much student loans) and have lost faith for the future. To be a millennial in their early 30s is to live in permanent sense of doom, not knowing what to do with your life, holding degrees on shit we hate, wishing to own something yet being unable to accomplish anything we set our minds too because the world is a place with no opportunities for us.

It was refreshing to read something that I could relate to without looking to relate to. For example, Zoe is 30, but while reading I couldn't help but thinking that she feels like a person in her early 20s (and there's a scene that confirmed that feeling). I sometimes (must of the time honestly) feel like I was still 25, but I guess is because that's how old I was when I lost the north of my life. From 25 to 32 I was like Zoe, living on my routine, getting drinks on coffee places where beautiful girls used to work, buying books that kept me dull, living for my nostalgia TV (I too love Mad Men) watching movies and talking about them with my friends on Friday nights with a beer in hand because there was nothing better to do, no dates, not perspectives for the future, not new ideas to sit down and write, nothing. There was nothing. I get Zoe, I understand her. I was there too and went through life with the same boredom.

Great job Mallory, you nailed this one.

[Martin Appleby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mallory Smart's The Only Living Girl In Chicago is really like no other book I have read. In the best possible way. Its story is simple - the protagonist, Zoe Clark, is almost 30 and doesn't really have her s**t together yet, and kind of hates her life, so decides to move back home to Chicago in an attempt to remedy those things.

This isn't your standard coming-of-age BS though, because real life don't be like that. You don't suddenly just figure things out because one day you decided you need to. Sometimes life just happens and takes you along for the ride with it. That is what I love most about this book - it is real. It is possibly the realest book I have ever read, or perhaps, being a millennial, I just relate to it more than any other book I have read. I mean, for real, if you dislike millennials then this book, and I can not stress this enough, IS NOT FOR YOU. You'll legit hate it.

Smart's prose is so free and loose, it almost reads like a stream of consciousness, but for the Twitter generation. Vignettes of a lost soul, traversing the city of Chicago fuelled only by coffee, prescription meds and the knowledge that life is essentially pointless. There is no sugar coating the bad stuff, the embarrassing stuff, the mental health stuff, and you're not constantly being hit over the head with some moral of the week message that you sometimes get in books like this. I would say that this is the closest to a "mumblecore" movie of any novel I have read. I get that mumblecore isn't exactly an up-to-date reference, but if you like movies like Hannah Takes the Stairs, then you'll love this book. I think.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zoe Clark is the epitome of a lost millennial. Stuck somewhere between where she’s expected to be in life and where she’d actually like to go she finds solace in the city that she came from. Smart does an excellent job at making a city feel like an actual character in the novel and redefines the stereotype of millennials. She treats the generation as lost and confused. Not entitled rich kids from Brooklyn.

[C.E. Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"For one hot second, everything was okay."
Stark yet ethereal. Replete w/ desperation, isolation, humour and beauty.
Relatable for any writer, introvert, or millennial freaked about turning thirty.

[Teddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved loved this book, Mallory Smart has a very simple, almost local way of speaking that places you in Chicago, following a woman around who is trying to find meaning in what can so easily be seen as a meaningless life. Sort of in the vein of the recent Dana Spiotta novel, “Wayward”, this is an excellent novel worth reading.

[OSLO Zeimantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many cliches in the literary world, and adjectives to describe what is something of an eternal time capsule. The mind, and yet so alone, this book calls for help like a 51/50 by mom after the pills are seeping into the lining of you're stomach. More a tree soaked in emotions full spectrum, full bore hole, brain drilling material, less a diary. New spectrum (!!), things that, I would never consider to be apart of someones life. Reading it took me time, because I had to set it down for odd reasons, inflection, reflection, introspection, all good things. Books I really enjoy I do not finish in one night, nor a sitting, to re-read this I feel a time will come. Its a sign that I do not miss with anything I try to understand. Things that fall short, that should not, are pop culture references, nothing hinges on that so say some. The book is filled with things to clutch the brain, bringing awareness to the actual subject and stand a slight second to the actual theme. Themes including, loneliness, absence of faith in self, a hatred that is real for things that might not deserve it, longing for the past, coffee, communism, books, good & bad movies, good and bad situations, people, cats, buildings, locations. (the "to and fros" motion makes for putting some extra ballast in you're brain socket) Feels like one of the most balanced books I have read in a long time. It feel like a ballet, or a "triple beam", that is set to real if there was a setting. It leaves you with little to guess for, more to consider (less and less books do this). Messages are driven and not as subject matter. Things are told, not asked. A life is lived, then relived on paper and you get gems like "TOLGIC". These are the type of literary works that need to be read by the masses, who might feel that this world has no space for them, or crying is something in you're life, I will cry less, and or more, because of this work, and that is a good thing. Identification with the authors subject can seem bad, but its a foot ball, run with it. The longing for accomplishment that is in all us. SCREAMS this, tempo, or mantra, of "want for all said to be in good fortune not to be destroying themself." or "you will all love each other." This is not a simple book. (/emoji for cuss words) but, good books are not supposed to be simple. Not offense to certain genres or maybe so. <3
....writing this review was HARD because the book put a lot into me, about the future. I think that it deserves a shot from anyone looking for anything. I hope everyone is.
7.73/10

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reminicent of books like Sad Janet and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Mallory Smart's novel sits us directly on the lap of Zoe, a thirty year old girl-woman who returns to her hometown of Chicago in the midst of a depressive episode.

Somehow surviving on a diet of coffee and xanax, her days consist of awkward dates at coffee shops, tweeting meaningless garbage into the ether, and friend zoning guys until one or both of them call each other's bullshit. She's a product of her time and moreso of her own headspace, preferring to manufacture realistic sounding excuses to avoid human contact rather than actually going out and trying to just have a good time.

Filled with Millennial angst and anxiety, The Only Living Girl in Chicago isn't necessarily breaking new ground, but it IS doing its part to spotlight how this generation processes grief, redefines emotional normality, and hides and/or thrives within the comfortable confines of technology.

[Wilson Koewing · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a subtle brilliance to this book, much like everything Mallory does. It is understated, but quintessentially her. I suppose that’s why I liked it so much.

[Joey G · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome Chicago book!