Writer Samantha Irby calls her latest book 'a devolution!'

Samantha Irby is in a much different place now than the last time she was promoting a new book: When her last essay collection, the sharply funny, very relatable Wow, No Thank You was released just as the pandemic began in March 2020, Irby soon found herself promoting it her on her first virtual book tour. And now her latest, Quietly Hostile (due May 2023) will be out, with the pandemic (hopefully, mostly) in the rearview mirror and her career on an upswing — she has since became a writer on HBO's And Just Like That, which was renewed for a second season.

But that doesn't mean everything's glam and rosy. According to her publisher, Irby is just trying to keep her life together as she always had: "Her teeth are poisoning her from inside her mouth, and her diarrhea is back. She gets turned away from a restaurant for wearing ugly clothes, she goes to therapy and tries out Lexapro, gets healed with Reiki, explores the power of crystals, and becomes addicted to QVC. Making light of herself as she takes us on an outrageously funny tour of all the details that make up a true portrait of her life, Irby is once again the relatable, uproarious tonic we all need."

Here's a first look at the cover, and a few words from the author herself.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How is this an evolution from your last book? How is it not?

SAMANTHA IRBY: Well, I'm a hundred years older than I was when the last book came out and considerably more feral and mentally ill. It's a devolution!

How did you choose the topics to cover in Quietly Hostile?

I think Covid chose most of the subject matter for me! I didn't go anywhere or do anything cool but I did get the worst dog on the planet and my brain melted, so I wrote about him and that plus a bunch of indoor stuff like incontinence and the gorgeous, soothing hosts of Quality Value Convenience.

Did your writing process change at all this time around?

Not at all!!!!! As usual, I pitched my editor an outline full of smart and thoughtful ideas, then a few weeks before it was due I started panic-writing a bunch of semi-smart (maybe?) things about sitting in strip mall parking lots and how much I love David Matthews. Haha what if I was like "this time around I reinvented the modern essay blah blah sniffing my own farts blah?" You'd laugh yourself to death. Anyway: same soup, just reheated.

You promoted your last book during the pandemic, are you looking forward to doing it differently this time (maybe)?

I have been in a public space with more than like twenty-five people maybe...seven times in the last two and a half years? I mean, I'm still buying grocery delivery using a glitchy app on my phone and rolling up to Target with the hatch open for somebody to throw a pack of toilet paper in the back, so I don't think getting barfed on on an airplane is on the menu for me. The virtual tour I did a couple years ago was dope: people got to log on from their beds to see a grainy, greasy, dimly lit corner of the tidiest part of my dining room, and I got to talk to my friends in their pajamas about the stupid garbage we're watching on TV. Why not do that again?

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