About Necessary FictionsHere’s the full about page:

About Necessary Fictions

In Deadwood, David Milch argued that the stories we tell to make sense of our lives — the “lies” we “agree upon” about meaning and justice and God and power, but also about who we are to ourselves and one another — are fictions.

But they are necessary ones.

And that’s what this newsletter is about. Every week I take a movie or a show — sometimes new, sometimes one I can’t stop returning to — and follow it past the point where most writing stops. Not to review it, but to find the question it’s really asking. The kind of question we’ve all learned to live around.

Because the best movies and shows are never only about what happens in them. They’re about us — who we think we are, what we think we want, whether the life we’re living is one we chose or one that leaves us asking, “How did I get here?”

I write from what stuck: what I couldn’t shake, what I noticed but couldn’t resolve. The wager is that you’ve felt it too, watching the same things. The questions may be mine. But the necessary fictions are ours.

About me

I’m Elias Isquith — a writer and editor. I’ve worked at The Ezra Klein Show, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the Open Society Foundations, among other places.