Health and Safety

A Breakdown

By: Emily Witt

Narrated by: Emily Witt

WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD PRIZE • A NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, NEW YORKER, PITCHFORK, LITHUB, AND NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • From the New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed author of Future Sex comes a memoir about drugs, techno, and New York City

"The first great book about what it was like to live through the Trump presidency"—Emily Gould, The Cut

In the summer of 2016, a divisive presidential election was underway, and a new breed of right-wing rage was on the rise. Emily Witt, who would soon publish her first book on sex in the digital age, had recently quit antidepressants for a more expansive world of psychedelic experimentation. From her apartment in Brooklyn, she began to catch glimpses of the clandestine nightlife scene thrumming around her.

In Health and Safety, Witt charts her immersion into New York City’s dance music underground. She would come to lead a double life: By day she worked as a journalist, covering gun violence, climate catastrophes, and the rallies of right-wing militias. And by night she pushed the limits of consciousness in hollowed-out office spaces and warehouses to music that sounded like the future. But no counterculture, no matter how utopian, could stave off the squalor of American politics and the cataclysm of 2020.

Affectionate yet never sentimental, Health and Safety is a lament for a broken relationship, for a changed nightlife scene, and for New York City just before the fall. Sparing no one—least of all herself—Witt offers her life as a lens into an era of American delirium and dissolution.

Bored voice

I recognize that this is what passes for good writing these days but I don't find it interesting. The author narrated her own book which was a mistake. She sounds very bored . I don't blame her. I have to respect that she writes for the New Yorker but I feel abundantly fortunate not to live her life even though I enjoy reading about all kinds of people via Audible. I think the author needs to get out of her head, go live in the Yukon , kayak glacial lakes , raise feral cats....her writing is too much New York Review of Books. A little mountain-climbing would be equally mind-blowing.

Under the rave blanket

The only book which accurately depicts the after hours deep Brooklyn scene. From the characters, types of drug use, and emotions which arise. And what/why people are attracted to it. Riveting journey from pre pandemic dance parties, to pandemic, race riots, election, and this woman’s journey through those years also dealing with age and relationships. Highly recommend

Wit, beautiful descriptions, deep feeling

Loved it! She brings you to places you never dreamed of going. She makes sharp, deeply felt, highly sensitive observations chronicling a difficult time in her life and in our collective history. Highly recommended

It was fresh and raw

It was amazing, this book and Witt’s narration had a chokehold on me . Such an unapologetic snapshot of political chaos and pulsing energy of the underground scene. Placed together, lend this deep nuanced interwoven poetry of time and space, where time feels elastic, space is unstable, and questions of health and safety blur into a larger meditation on survival, risk, and intimacy.

Such a sad book!

Beautifully written and honest chronicle of the last few years in one small corner of the world. Made me very glad to be old.