by Larissa Pham
First published 2021
Larissa Pham sits in a New York City apartment, tracing the contours of her emotional landscape through pop culture artifacts and personal remembrance. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, "Pop Song" weaves between personal encounters and broader reflections on desire, technology, and belonging. Pham investigates how music, digital images, and art become conduits for understanding personal experience, moving between intimate moments and broader social contexts. She interrogates connection—with lovers, with cultural icons, with herself—through a series of lyrical, fragmented encounters that blur the lines between criticism and confession. Her gaze shifts between personal vulnerability and sharp cultural analysis, exploring how individual experiences refract through broader social patterns. At its heart, "Pop Song" is an exploration of how we construct identity through the media we consume and the relationships we forge.
Genres: art, memoir, biography-memoir, music, 21st-century, cultural-studies
Vibes: emotional, intimate, lyrical
Tropes: blurred-lines, cultural-analysis, personal-vulnerability
Setting: New York City
Period: 21st-century
288 pages · Hardcover · Serpent's Tail