{"id":2495,"date":"2026-08-16T10:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T17:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2495"},"modified":"2026-08-16T11:09:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T18:09:16","slug":"bookshelf-the-oyster-diaries-nancy-lemann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2495","title":{"rendered":"Bookshelf \u2013 The Oyster Diaries, Nancy Lemann (2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">Born of money in aristocratic New Orleans and married into millions more in the Washington power bubble, Delery Anhalt nonetheless arrives at middle age nagged by disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TheOysterDiaries-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2496\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TheOysterDiaries-203x300.jpg 203w, http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TheOysterDiaries-693x1024.jpg 693w, http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TheOysterDiaries-768x1135.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TheOysterDiaries.jpg 1015w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She is encaged, albeit behind gilded bars, by marital deception, professional irrelevance, waning maternal influence and the inexorable erosion of her past, one nearly wholly defined by her father, a demanding, adventurous, eccentric man who devoted as much time to learning ancient Greek as he did to rearing his daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Delery dissects her dilemma in this diaristic collection of introspective essays. Often acerbic in tone, they display a keen eye, a polished intellect, and, ultimately, an enduring realization bordering on sadness that what she expects would be most impactful in life (say the death of a parent) pales in comparison to other random moments (for instance, the self-possessed magnificence of lions in repose).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As testament to the authenticity of Delery\u2019s narrative voice \u2013 or perhaps to my own naivete \u2013 once I stopped reading to search whether \u201cThe Oyster Diaries\u201d is indeed fiction. (It is.) Thereby assured, I continued on and encountered what always happens when someone, whether in print or at a dinner table, bares his or her soul: a pendulum of interest swinging from fascination to indifference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The New York Times, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nancy_Lemann\">in an effusive review<\/a>, says Lemann\u2019s books are \u201cfor the misanthropes, the anti-socialites, those with negative self-regard.\u201d (Me, checking the mirror. Yep.) It is also a book for readers capable of forgiveness, in this case of pardoning the less-fulfilling excesses of Lemann\/Delery, and enjoying the overall clarity of language, vision, and humanity that makes \u201cThe Oyster Diaries\u201d worth your time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Born of money in aristocratic New Orleans and married into millions more in the Washington power bubble, Delery Anhalt nonetheless arrives at middle age nagged by disappointment. She is encaged, albeit behind gilded bars, by marital deception, professional irrelevance, waning &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2495\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[770,1004,1005,1003],"class_list":["post-2495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-book-review","tag-diary","tag-nancy-lemann","tag-new-orleans"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bookshelf \u2013 The Oyster Diaries, Nancy Lemann (2026) - Tim Porter&#039;s Second Draft<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Born of money in aristocratic New Orleans and married into millions more in the Washington power bubble, Delery Anhalt nonetheless arrives at middle age nagged by disappointment.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2495\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bookshelf \u2013 The Oyster Diaries, Nancy Lemann (2026) - 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