Deadly Pleasures to Read and Watch

An “If you like this, then you might like this” algorithm probably wouldn’t pair English writer Janice Hallett with Oklahoma City’s Lou Berney. Superficially, they don’t have much in common.

When it comes to style, Hallett is the more unconventional. She’s created an idiosyncratic epistolary method that involves assembling e-mails, text messages, group chats, legal documents, and so on, into meticulously constructed narratives. The dysfunctional group dynamic is key to Hallett’s books, whether acted out by a community-theater troupe or the students in a master’s art program.