“Meghan O’Gieblyn’s essays are ‘personal’ in that they are portraits of the private thoughts, curiosities, and uncertainties that thrive in her mind about selfhood, meaning, moral responsibility, and faith. There’s nowhere her avid intellect won’t go in its quest to find, if not ‘meaning,’ then the available modern tools we might use, today, as humans, to create it. O’Gieblyn is a brilliant and humble philosopher, and her book is an explosively thought-provoking, candidly personal ride I wished never to end. This book is such an original synthesis of ideas and disclosures. It introduces what will soon be called the O’Gieblyn genre of essay writing.” –Heidi Julavits, author of The Folded Clock
“One of the best essayists to emerge recently on the scene has written a strong and subtle rumination on what it means to be human. At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future.”
—Phillip Lopate
“O’Gieblyn’s loosely linked and rigorously thoughtful meditations on technology, humanity and religion mount a convincing and occasionally moving apologia for that ineliminable wrench in the system, the element that not only browses and buys but feels: the embattled, anachronistic and indispensable self. God, Human, Animal, Machine is a hybrid beast, a remarkably erudite work of history, criticism and philosophy, but it is also, crucially, a memoir.” --Becca Rothfeld, The New York Times
“A fascinating exploration of our enchantment with technology.” —Eula Biss
INTERIOR STATES: ESSAYS
Winner of the 2018 Believer Book Award
“Meghan O’Gieblyn’s deep and searching essays are written with a precise sort of skepticism and a slight ache in the heart. A first-rate and riveting collection.” –Lorrie Moore
“One of the most consistently absorbing collection of essays I’ve read in a long time. Meghan O’Gieblyn is at times rueful, at times hard-hitting, but hers is a distinctly independent-minded and nuanced voice.” —Daphne Merkin
“For insight into America's eschatological mind-set, and into fundamentalist culture generally, there may be no more eloquent guide than Meghan O'Gieblyn, who was raised in the faith and then—painfully, reluctantly—abandoned it... What she captures most vividly here is Christianity's indomitable reach... Thrillingly alive, her essays are testaments to exquisite attentiveness, each painstakingly stitched." — The New York Times Book Review
"Comparing O’Gieblyn’s writing on the Midwest to Didion’s essays on California might seem too easy, but the comparison is apt. Both authors seem to be looking for a way out of their homeland, even as they admit they’ll probably never leave." —Naomi Huffman, Bookforum
“In a time when few voices are willing to engage with positions they disagree with, O’Gieblyn writes with refreshing sensitivity about subjects and institutions with which she often has foundational disagreements.”—The Believer
"An essayist of uncommon vision... [O'Gieblyn] displays a knack for noting the traces of the religious in the supposedly secular, as well as the inverse... An inquiry into the very heart of contemporary American life." —Nathan Goldman, Los Angeles Review of Books
“Often stunning, always measured... a wry, ambitious catalog of what happens when a writer abondons belief yet retains a religious language and latitude... O'Gieblyn is a writer worth trusting, a writer who audaciously, and stylistically, seeks truth." —Nick Ripatrazone, The Millions
“Interior States offers an implicit rebuke to the idea that the region is defined by sentimentality for the old days when ‘America was great.’ It’s one of the most idea-rich collections I’ve read in recent years, its title indicative of O’Gieblyn’s ability to straddle both analysis of Midwestern ethos and a far more cerebral excavation of modern thought.” —Cameron Shenassa, Electric Literature
"Armed with a crackling intellect, a dry wit, and a lucid, precise prose style, O’Gieblyn shows how difficult it is to truly leave behind the faiths we once inhabited... [An] insightful and poignant debut." —Jospeh Kuhn, The Rumpus
"Consistently, exquisitely though-provoking... the collection of essays is at once challenging and lyrical, and portrays a nuanced, complicated look at faith, secularism, and evangelical culture in 2018." —Vox
"[A] standout." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[A] delightful debut... well-crafted and enjoyable... [O'Gieblyn's] individual essays flow due to the moving prose, her sense of irony, and her deep insight into and affection for her topics." —Publishers Weekly
"What we need is a new literature of empathy, a canon that is more representative of the people who make up the country. Such a canon would include Interior States... If we are fortunate, we will all doubt everything we have been told and have the opportunity to redefine ourselves. At her best, O’Gieblyn offers a guide book about how to survive such a time." —Don Kelly, Spectrum Culture
"A unique compendium of contemplative musings... thought provoking... A solid choice for intellectually curious readers." —Library Journal
"O'Gieblyn's contemporary, hip voice is one people need to hear." —Kirkus Reviews
"Genuinely empathetic... [O'Gieblyn] conjures midwestern angst... with humor and dread... Other themes she considers with grace, wit, and compassion." —Booklist
"[O'Gieblyn] displays a hyper-awareness of her region’s place in history... Interior States can be taken as a record of the neuroses of a cradle evangelical... Can anything replace religious belief? This is the question that haunts O’Gieblyn’s book, even at its end." —Joseph Hogan, The Point