Hot Boy Summer

I, like many of you, have encountered something strange over the last year or so. No, I don’t mean the icky body stuff from China, or even the disorienting experience of finding myself either an inch taller or shorter than usual almost daily upon entering my kitchen and seemingly at random, and also not the really sweet body stuff from China. No, I’m referring to the hot girl summer.

You’ve heard of this — your friend ditches a date because she’s busy learning the full choreography of the “Oops I Did It Again” video with full replica costume? Hot girl summer. Ditching the sunscreen because Steve is already out on the waves and melanoma is a winter malady? Hot girl summer. Going horseback riding on a Thursday evening with an exam on Friday because it’s not even summer? Yes, still hot girl summer.

You see, the hot girl summer is not confined by the feeble Western calendar, or even constrained by the corporeal form of the (by definition hot) girl in question — no, dear reader, it is more than that, it is a state of being, a summer of the soul, and it stinks of stale vodka sweat and cheeto dust but also freedom — pure ideological freedom. What started as a radio hit by Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion has evolved into a cultural awakening, the logical conclusion of over a dozen philosophies and the unscrewing of the lynchpin which manacled a generation’s sticky, club-stamped wrists.

Naturally, upon learning of this I became first envious and then indignant: why should I be nominally outright restricted from the last of the 2010s’ great achievements? Why should I, the white man, not experience such an unfettering of the so-stiff mind and spirit? In which dark and dusty corner of the zeitgeist was I to find my own deliverance of equal or greater value — my hot boy summer?

But what truly sets apart the boys and girls in a clear and measurable way during a time in which gender debates prove so derisive? Is it, perhaps, the ability to beat me up? No, that category is potentially highly inclusive. A propensity for drinking, or specific taste in alcohol? Again, no (source: instagram, and also reality.) I needed something truly polarizing, a benchmark which splits hard lines without settling into lazy and outdated stereotypes, something evocative yet data-driven.

That benchmark was Cormac McCarthy.

Admittedly, a sample size of roughly a dozen subjects is atypically small; however, the Newsletter’s zero-tolerance stance on doing actual work has been well-established and I don’t intend to infringe upon my own traditions in this economy. So we’re left with who I happen to know, and we’re left with Cormac McCarthy, an author who I repeatedly find adored by the men I know who have tried him but reviled by the women I know with no currently known exceptions.

Granted, this is typically discovered in regards to The Road specifically because it is the most prominent to spot on bookshelves and probably the most widely known and read. I would argue, however, that this is fine for my purposes because while The Road is unique in being the only speculative novel of McCarthy’s mainstream works, it is perhaps the purest distillation of his style and probably the most extreme, so it’s a good stress test.

Regardless of the details, my dusty path to salvation was clear and laid out before me, and I had little choice but to begin my hot night of the boy soul.

Follow my journey to its grim conclusion in part 2, Book Report: Far Too Much Cormac McCarthy