“Some books are merely luminous—this one is iridescent: with joy and pain, isolation and communion, solemnity and irreverent humor. Even the title has twin meanings. ‘All this could be different’ is a sorrowing observation of our contemporary precarity, but ‘All this could be different’ is equally—and ultimately—a declaration, an electrifying act of resistance.” 

—Susan Choi, author of Trust Exercise

“Perhaps it’s too soon to say which books we’ll look back on in 50 years as the ones that defined a generation, but All This Could Be Different, a close-to-perfect coming-of-age romp, is surely a contender. Bitingly funny and sweetly earnest, it’s one of those rare novels that feels just like life. In the manner of books that stay with you forever, All This Could Be Different is a singular story that extends beyond itself.”

—BookPage (starred review)

“Resplendent with intelligence, wit, and feeling.”

—Kirkus (starred review)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

ONE OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES TOP 5 FICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR

ONE OF TIME AND SLATE‘S TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, Vogue, Vulture, BuzzFeed, Harper’s Bazaar, and more

New York Times Editor’s Choice

“One of the buzziest, most human novels of the year…breathless, dizzying, and completely beautiful.” —Vogue

“Dazzling and wholly original…[written] with such mordant wit, insight, and specificity, it feels like watching a new literary star being born in real time.” –Entertainment Weekly

Press

Interviews and Features: Vogue / Kirkus/ Observer / ATM Magazine / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Little Village / Rolling Stone / NY Mag’s Grub Street Diet / NPR

Reviews: Kirkus / BookPage / Los Angeles Review of Books / Soapberry Review / New York Times Editor’s Choice / The New Yorker / Autostraddle / The Millions

“Mathews has a big heart and a sharp tongue…[and] a wonderful eye for the things that make friendship and community just as valuable as romance.” —The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

“A dazzling debut . . . There is so much here to chew on: economic and food insecurity, tenants’ rights, coming into one’s own, queer romance, immigration, and the vitality of friendship. All This Could Be Different is an epic and beautiful first novel from a writer to watch.” —them.

Regarding press or media inquiries for All This Could Be Different, please reach out to Sara Delozier at Viking Books

“Both lyrical and page-turning . . . All This Could Be Different, in which the lives of a group of millennials become fascinatingly entangled. . . offers us a panoramic view of mingled desires, fears, and joys that will be familiar to readers of Eliot and Austen.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“What fuels All This Could Be Different is love, a force Mathews portrays not as a panacea, but as an instrument of change.” —The New Yorker

“Mathews’ novel is written at the sustained level of a growl. It is understated, dangerous, and sexy—both warning and invitation. The sentences are taut and precise, and each layer of shame unfurls painstakingly with the reticence of a petal. All This Could Be Different is a novel that shows us the work of love in its highest form…a stunning ethos and debut from a voice I’d follow to Milwaukee, and wherever else she chooses to take us.” —The Soapberry Review

More Writing

Rubberdust from The Kenyon Review (online), anthologized in Best American Short Stories 2020 (print)

Return to Oman for AFAR Magazine (print and online)

Garth Greenwell’s Grand Romance for New York Magazine (print and online)

The Petal Farmers in AGNI (print)

The Storms from Barrelhouse: New Desi Lit (online)

The Love Song of G. Madhvi Suresh from Platypus Press (online and anthologized in print)

Edibles in Plenitude Magazine (online)

Not Writing

It’s not something I do professionally, but I’ve been lucky to organize from time to time with some of the best and smartest people I know on mutual aid, climate, and immigration.

In March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I founded the mutual aid network Bed-Stuy Strong, a group of ordinary people organized around the belief that every person deserves to have their survival needs met.

Bed-Stuy Strong raised and redistributed $1.2M dollars in grassroots donations and supported 28,000+ fellow Brooklynites with a week or more of groceries or other survival needs during the pandemic. The network has mounted multiple other civic and organizing initiatives, from bringing free Wi-Fi to public areas to vaccine access outreach to abolitionist support of incarcerated New Yorkers.

• The New Yorker: What mutual aid can do during a pandemic

• NBC LX: Explaining the past, present, and future of the mutual aid movement

• NPR: Love and solidarity: amid coronavirus, mutual aid groups resurge in NYC

• Civic Hall: Bed-Stuy Strong: Scaling mutual aid during COVID-19

• CNN: The small digital network making free food deliveries to vulnerable neighbors in Brooklyn

• BK Reader: Bed-Stuy Strong expands mutual aid efforts as one year anniversary approaches

Other work: I’m not an active part of the collective anymore, but if you’re interested in submitting to SAAG: A Dissident Literary Anthology, you can follow submission deadlines and learn more about the project here.

Photos of me on this website were kindly taken by Umar Timol and Dondre Stuetley.