Ryan Chapman
Ryan Chapman is a Sri Lankan–American writer originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and currently based in Kingston, New York. He is the author of Riots I Have Known, which NPR named “one of the smartest—and best—novels of the year,” among other accolades. His criticism and humor pieces have appeared in Bookforum, The New Yorker, The Guardian, McSweeney’s, BOMB, Frieze, and elsewhere.
Here is the journal of Victoria Stevens, biohuckster whose purported cure for cancer catalyzes the action of Ryan Chapman’s new novel, The Audacity. She has fled to the desert amid impending charges of fraud and remains pathologically defiant. If the goal of fiction is to capture thought in action, the unique synaptic firings of inscrutable individuals particular to a moment in time, few will best Chapman’s contribution of the self-important, hypomanic capitalist. The content and tone of Victoria’s musings may prove invaluable to future historians puzzling over how we empowered our tech monsters.