We seemed to live by night: The Retro Report: vol. 32

Yesterday was Retro pub day in the UK! Which means Brits (and readers who shop from British online retailers) can get their hands on this gorgeous edition of my debut novel:

Of course Americans can buy the USA edition of Retro from wherever you get your books!

Meanwhile—to keep with the Alyssa-Liu-skating-songs-theme—I’ve been touring stateside. I had a fantastic Retro happy hour event at McClellan’s Retreat, where the guys let me behind the bar to pose for this photo, resulting in possibly the most glamorous image of me ever taken:

And last night I had the BEST time in conversation with Alexandra Petri (find her work in The Atlantic and get her books!) at Politics & Prose.

Chicago: I’ll see you next week! The Hasty Book Club x Chicago Literary Salon are hosting me at Pallas Art Studio in Lincoln Park on Thursday, July 2 at 6:00 p.m. for a “Retro Book Salon,” ft. a bartender serving up retro cocktails and a Retro-inspired interactive art installation. Get your tickets before they sell out!

And then it’s back to the DMV for my event at Wonderland1 Books in Bethesda with pop music critic Chris Richards: Come through on Thursday, July 9 at 7 pm!

I am coming to New York! I heard your city was having a big summer and I just had to be a part of it. UNLIKE a certain both-sides-y muppet, I’m with you on the right side of history.

In 2023, I was a Spruceton Inn Artist Resident. This was one of those incredible weeks that changed my whole life, not least because I met Casey Scieszka, who was down to read Retro when it was still a rough draft and gave me notes that made my manuscript so much stronger; AND Jeremy Shellhorn, the artist who designed the Retro Metro map. It was just such a special experience as a writer and I will be grateful for it for all of my days!

Casey has been on the Retro Metro for a very long time and I am SO excited to be in conversation with her at Books Are Magic on Montague Street! Space is limited, though, so get your tickets for this one TODAY. (Tickets include a copy of the book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card!)

V excited to share my first piece for Literary Hub: An essay on how writing about time travel made me… an optimist? Almost? I know, I know: In this climate? But hear me out!

Are you more in the mood for a video/audio experience? My episode of the Creative Inspired Alive podcast is live now! So nice to have a long, in-depth conversation about process, nostalgia, and some of my journalism work, too. I also gave my top tips for humor writing; you can see that clip on Instagram.

COOL NEWS: Marie Claire magazine named Retro one of the best novels of 2026 (so far): They say Retro is “charming” and “delightful” AND “thought-provoking” — that’s a hat trick!

Last night, Petri generously set me up to talk about the most important man in my life at the moment: Robert Caro. I was able to articulate why this year is my Caro year—after owning but not reading The Power Broker for years, which I know is a situation in which many of you find yourselves currently—and that is: I knew this would be the biggest year of my life as a writer (to date), and I wanted to do something big as a READER. Something of commensurate scale and ambition!

So that’s why I finally actually read The Power Broker and why you find me now midway through LBJ no. 3: Master of the Senate. Right now he is gunning for the Democratic Leadership, tracking his odds like a maniac: “This was vote-counting by the son of a man who had fooled himself with wishful thinking.” If The Power Broker is, in its way, a meditation on a guy who never got over his mom, the LBJ books are about a man who never got over his dad. Great Father’s Day read!

With all my pub week promo (bus, club, club, another club) I have to keep this one short ‘n’ sweet2 so let me leave you with…

I just watched this stunner for the first time last week! As it goes with noir, telling you what it’s “about” is missing the point, because really it’s about atmosphere and sultry glances and lines like “I never saw her in the daytime. We seemed to live by night. What was left of the day went away like a pack of cigarettes you smoked.” and a man who can’t run away from himself no matter how many times he changes his name and tries to lead a simple life. It’s too complicated to go back now!

But basically it’s about this former private eye (ROBERT MITCHUM) who is running a gas station3 in a small town and dating a lovely girl (Virginia Huston4). Alas, his quiet existence is rattled by a guy from his old line of work, who drags him back to the boss (a young and menacing KIRK DOUGLASS). See, “Jeff” was supposed to fetch the boss’ old girlfriend, Kathie (Jane Greer)—who’d allegedly run off with $40,000 of the boss’ money—but instead of returning her, Jeff fell in love with her; she, in turn, gave Jeff the slip after a little oops-my-bad murder, and the body count climbs from there. She’s suuuuch a good femme fatale, the kind of woman who can sputter out some obviously-bogus non-explanation for why she fled her last boyfriend and all Jeff can say in reply is, “Baby, I don’t care.”

There is a SENSATIONAL Hays-Code-workaround for a sex scene in here that I will not spoil for you but it involves a rainstorm and a slamming door and it’s going right to the top of my not-a-sex-scene cinema list.

Also: Robert Mitchum is practically never not smoking in this thing. A truly incredible range of cigarette use is on display here. An incomplete catalog: Smoking to be romantic and sexy; smoking to resist the undeniable allure of the femme fatale sitting before you; smoking to buy time when you’ve been asked a straightforward question by a guy who won’t take an obfuscation for an answer; smoking to show that hey, you’re not scared, what do you have to be scared of?; smoking to keep your hands from shaking with the terror sets in.

This was a very fun one for me as someone who (as longtime TRR readers know!) previously saw Robert Mitchum as the single most terrifying man in the single most terrifying film I have ever seen, The Night of the Hunter.

The Night of the Hunter is a film I ALSO watched because it was ~90 minutes long and I was scrolling through Criterion and thought “why yes that is exactly what I have time for” and then got the shock of my LIFE. Even though i am a scaredy cat, TNOTH, which could not have frightened me more, immediately earned a spot as one of my favorites of all time. Will I ever watch it again? I don’t know (too scary) BUT I will never stop thinking about it!

If YOU haven’t watched it yet, treat yourself to a Mitchum double feature :) Do the scary one first and thank me later.