Health and Safety Audiobook By Emily Witt cover art

Health and Safety

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Health and Safety

By: Emily Witt
Narrated by: Emily Witt
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About this listen

“Haunting . . . [Witt] writes with such cool precision.”—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

"The first great book about what it was like to live through the Trump presidency"—Emily Gould, The Cut

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF 2024 (SO FAR) • From the New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed author of Future Sex comes a memoir about drugs, techno, and New York City

In the summer of 2016, a divisive presidential election was underway, and a new breed of right-wing rage was on the rise. Emily Witt, who would soon publish her first book on sex in the digital age, had recently quit antidepressants for a more expansive world of psychedelic experimentation. From her apartment in Brooklyn, she began to catch glimpses of the clandestine nightlife scene thrumming around her.

In Health and Safety, Witt charts her immersion into New York City’s dance music underground. Emily would come to lead a double life. By day she worked as a journalist, covering gun violence, climate catastrophes, and the rallies of right-wing militias. And by night she pushed the limits of consciousness in hollowed-out office spaces and warehouses to music that sounded like the future. But no counterculture, no matter how utopian, could stave off the squalor of American politics and the cataclysm of 2020.

Affectionate yet never sentimental, Health and Safety is a lament for a broken relationship, for a changed nightlife scene, and for New York City just before the fall. Sparing no one—least of all herself—Witt offers her life as a lens onto an era of American delirium and dissolution.

©2024 Emily Witt (P)2024 Random House Audio
Anthropology Women New York
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Critic reviews

A Most Anticipated Book by Vulture ∙ Bustle ∙ Lit HubThe Millions That Eric Alper

"Haunting . . . [Witt] writes with such cool precision . . . . By turns, disdainful, cleareyed, playful, serious, adventurous and terrified . . . it’s a testament to Witt’s skills as a writer that this book is enhanced, and not diminished, by her refusal to reconcile such contradictions."—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

"The first great book about what it was like to live through the Trump presidency, the beginning of the pandemic, and the radical moral and political shifts that happened in America between 2016 and 2020."—Emily Gould, The Cut

"Witt’s directness and sincerity are disarming . . . . She is pursuing hard introspective truths with a neutral, unsentimental rigor."The Atlantic

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Such a sad book!

Beautifully written and honest chronicle of the last few years in one small corner of the world. Made me very glad to be old.

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Insightful and Captivating

This was unexpectedly good. I thought the author was really able to capture in essence a "moment" in time in terms of her experience being under the spell of the enchantment of a certain segment of the club scene and its enhancement when combined and tweaked with certain drugs. There's no moralizing or repenting here. It happened, she bears witness and gives us a little window into the experience. It was oddly voyeristic reading about some of her nights out, nights that lasted over the course of two days at times and the skill required to make certain substances jump and perform in a way that helped her and those around her reach that "sweet spot" where it was pure joy and oneness with the music and the environment. Lovely descriptions of the scene (especially the flapping red cloth covering a window behind a certain deejay in the early hours of an all-nighter). It isn't all cookies and cream and the story she tells can be chilling and a bit harrowing to imagine investing so much in something so ephemeral. Highly recommended.

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