Overview

“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 From the New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed author of Future Sex, 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.

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Reviews

A Most Anticipated Book by Vulture ∙ Bustle ∙ Lit Hub ∙ The 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 ""Astonishing . . . I could not stop reading."" —Ezra Klein, The Bulwark podcast ""There are moments in this book when Witt elevates writing about altered states of consciousness to something akin to the most brilliant art criticism I’ve ever read in my life. With shocking precision and honesty, she maps zones of transcendence and devastation, freedom and repression, both in the individual mind and in the collective experience of America. Health and  Safety is a tribute to the profound and radical potential in substances that insist on bringing another world into being, and an acute, heartbroken reckoning with their limits, too."" —Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror   ""Health and Safety is a foreboding and panoramic account of a subculture, relationship, and country in crisis. Radical, lucid, and harrowing."" —Anna Wiener, New York Times bestselling author of Uncanny Valley ""No one writes about contemporary American life—about drugs, sex, dating, madness—with as hard an edge as Emily Witt. Health and Safety is a masterpiece of observation and analysis. Read it if you can."" —Keith Gessen, author of A Terrible Country ""Witt, with a gimlet eye and a voice that never shies away from the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us, offers a tour of the years that begin with the surreal catastrophe of the 2016 election and through the COVID years and the murder of George Floyd, giving us insight to a time that all too often feels like a nightmare that has, like all dreams, begun to fade from memory. This remarkable book didn't just allow me to relive that time, but helped me to understand it."" —Ayelet Waldman, author of A Really Good Day ""Brilliant . . . self-eviscerating, honest, often painful—a superbly realized chronicle of an ever-darkening age."" —Kirkus Reviews (starred) ""An arresting memoir . . . Witt’s well-honed prose makes her gut-wrenching portrait of 2010s boom-and-bust hedonism feel like the sharp observations of a trusted friend. This intense portrait of one woman’s wild years deserves a wide audience."" —Publishers Weekly

"A Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Lit Hub ∙ The Millions ∙ That Eric Alper ""Astonishing . . . I could not stop reading."" —Ezra Klein, The Bulwark podcast ""There are moments in this book when Witt elevates writing about altered states of consciousness to something akin to the most brilliant art criticism I’ve ever read in my life. With shocking precision and honesty, she maps zones of transcendence and devastation, freedom and repression, both in the individual mind and in the collective experience of America. Health and  Safety is a tribute to the profound and radical potential in substances that insist on bringing another world into being, and an acute, heartbroken reckoning with their limits, too."" —Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror   ""Health and Safety is a foreboding and panoramic account of a subculture, relationship, and country in crisis. Radical, lucid, and harrowing."" —Anna Wiener, New York Times bestselling author of Uncanny Valley ""No one writes about contemporary American life—about drugs, sex, dating, madness—with as hard an edge as Emily Witt. Health and Safety is a masterpiece of observation and analysis. Read it if you can."" —Keith Gessen, author of A Terrible Country ""Witt, with a gimlet eye and a voice that never shies away from the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us, offers a tour of the years that begin with the surreal catastrophe of the 2016 election and through the COVID years and the murder of George Floyd, giving us insight to a time that all too often feels like a nightmare that has, like all dreams, begun to fade from memory. This remarkable book didn't just allow me to relive that time, but helped me to understand it."" —Ayelet Waldman, author of A Really Good Day ""Brilliant . . . self-eviscerating, honest, often painful—a superbly realized chronicle of an ever-darkening age."" —Kirkus Reviews (starred) ""An arresting memoir . . . Witt’s well-honed prose makes her gut-wrenching portrait of 2010s boom-and-bust hedonism feel like the sharp observations of a trusted friend. This intense portrait of one woman’s wild years deserves a wide audience."" —Publishers Weekly"

"""No one writes about contemporary American life—about drugs, sex, dating, madness—with as hard an edge as Emily Witt. Health and Safety is a masterpiece of observation and analysis. Read it if you can."" —Keith Gessen, author of A Terrible Country"

Author Information

Emily Witt is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She has covered breaking news and politics from around the country, and has written about culture, sexuality, drugs, and night life. She is the author of the books Future Sex and Nollywood. Her journalism, essays, and criticism have appeared in n+1, the Times, GQ, Harper’s, and the London Review of Books.

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