Lior Torenberg’s propulsive debut Just Watch Me introduces Dell Danvers, a reckless New Yorker living in a former walk-in closet and scrambling to keep her comatose sister on private life support. Freshly fired and fourteen thousand dollars short on rent, she launches a 24-hour livestream to raise money for her sister’s healthcare and stave off eviction. Dell soon discovers she has a knack for eating brutally hot peppers on camera. The jalapeño leads to the habanero, to the ghost, to the Carolina Reaper, and her viewer count climbs with each new stunt. Her life narrows into a nonstop freak performance, the stream dictating her moods, her meals, her identity. But when a persistent troll surfaces, he threatens the fragile world she’s constructed and forces her to face the past she’s been trying to outrun.
Torenberg writes with an unruly wit, capturing the addictive frenzy of online chatter and the tension involved in watching a woman push her body to its limits for strangers’ approval. Just Watch Me is ultimately a tragicomedy about the extremes we’ll go to hold onto our loved ones.
Describe Just Watch Me in three words.
Red hot chaos.
If Just Watch Me were a song, what would it be?
“Von Dutch” by Charli xcx.
Who do you want to play Dell in the adaptation?
Rachel Sennott. Can we make this happen?
Favorite time and place to write?
Early in the morning, at home, when no one else is awake.
What media were you consuming when you wrote Just Watch Me?
“My Year of Rest and Relaxation” by Ottessa Moshfegh and “Milk Fed” by Melissa Broder.
Did you outline or wing it or somewhere in between?
I tend to wing a first draft in order to find out what I’m even trying to say. Once I have that “thesis,” I make a simple outline. My outlines get progressively more complex with each draft until they’re basically novel-length on their own.
Best writing advice you’ve received?
Press on the bruise.
What are your most overused words?
I wish I knew, then I would stop using them! DM me and tell me, readers.
Are there any books Just Watch Me is “in conversation with” as they say?
Books like “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” by Rufi Thorpe and “If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant For You” by Leigh Stein.
If you could get a drink with any fictional character, who would it be?
Tom Ripley from “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” We would get Aperol Spritzes on the Italian coast and then he’d probably murder me.
What’s a book that made you want to write?
“Self-Help” by Lorrie Moore.
What’s your relationship to self-promotion?
Allergic!!!
What author’s (dead or alive) persona is aspirational?
Margaret Atwood! She has been publishing consistently for nearly 60 years. And she writes whatever she wants to write, genre-wise.
Favorite recent read?
“Rebecca” by Daphne du Maurier and “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt were two fall reads that gave me all the correct fall feelings.
One word to describe what you’re working on now?
SAD.
But I don’t want to end on “sad,” so let’s go with: CROWS.
Is that any better?
