How Should a Person Be?

Sheila Heti

Image | BOOK COVER: How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti

How Should a Person Be? is an unabashedly honest and hilarious tour through the unknowable pieces of one woman's heart and mind, an irresistible torn-from-life book about friendship, art, sex, and love. Part literary novel, part self-help manual and part racy confessional, it is a fearless exploration into the way we live now by one of the most highly inventive and thoughtful young writers working today. (From House Of Anansi Press)

From the book

Margaux and I broke from our feelings of austerity with drugs. A good night of drinking and smoking, or a night of doing coke, and the next day, far from being hungover, our brains felt stilled and refreshed. It was like our insides had been set back to 00:00:00.
Margaux made the best paintings of her career the morning after we had been drinking for eight hours straight. She woke at nine and got up, and without thinking or hesitation went straight into her studio and began making paintings. I woke and cleaned the entire apartment, washed all the walls by hand. We didn't feel the need to call each other that day, and normally Margaux and I talked minimum once, for reassurance.

From How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti ©2010. Published by House of Anansi Press.