Before indie music stardom, before acclaim as an essayist and laurels as an author, Alina Simone studied photography in art school. She leverages her compositional acumen into Note To Self, her debut novel, capturing a portrait of our “late-blooming”, tech-obsessed, self-obsessed, pop-culture-obsessed generation fevered to achieve Meaning through—of all absurd channels—creativity. Simone frames this cultural moment with the linguistic dexterity of her song lyrics, and the hilarity of her non-fiction.
She’s funny in person, too. HENRY filmed Simone in a Farrar, Straus, and Giroux conference room, where her buoyancy cut a welcome contrast to the “marketing strategy” packets arranged across the long table dominating the space. We’re already excited to film a reading from Simone’s next book, about Madonna. Note to self: preorder.
Edited by Justin Goncalves; Cinematography: Daphnee Denis
