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A polarizing, provocative French novelist says he’s written his last book
Michel Houellebecq says Annihilation will be his last novel.
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Early in Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission, its professor hero talks about what makes a writer worth reading: “[A]n author is above all a human being … and whether he writes very well or very badly hardly matters — as long as he gets the books written and is, indeed, present in them. (It’s strange that something so simple, so seemingly universal, should actually be so rare …)”
Few writers are more present than Houellebecq, the international literary superstar who’s one of a handful of writers who invariably jangles my nerve-ends. Trenchantly ironic about our self-centered society, his novels are barracuda-toothed provocations, idea-laced fictions filled with dodgy sex, joyless masculinity, swipes at Islam, derision toward ’60s freedoms, contempt for the media elite, attacks on the EU and casual misanthropy. Houellebecq is surely the most acclaimed literary figure to have praised Donald Trump. In France, he’s routinely called a genius — or a creep.
In fact, his fiction is brainier, trickier and more stimulating than his polarizing reputation suggests. It’s not just that his novels have been eerily prophetic about what’s happening in society. He cuts to the heart of things in a way that makes most of his American counterparts look like well-schooled functionaries doodling prettily on the margins of life.
A sense of doom — social and personal — looms over his new novel, Annihilation, which the 68-year-old Houellebecq has said will be his last. Although far from his best, it’s a fascinating book tinged by mortality. You can feel this one-time bad boy crawling out of his comfort zone to do something he’s pointedly not done before: explore middle-class family life and the healing power of love.
As usual, Annihilation features a de-centered male hero. Fiftyish Paul Raison is a high-level Paris bureaucrat who’s in a sexless marriage to another bureaucrat, Prudence. Bored and vaguely disaffected — he doesn’t believe in much of anything — Paul’s going through the motions, when his world starts falling apart.
In the public sphere, there’s a series of cyberattacks designed to send seismic shocks through the existing global order. In his personal life, his father has a stroke, and Paul’s forced to engage with his family, especially the devoutly Catholic sister he’s been largely ducking for years. Even as he’s confronted by an often-byzantine medical system, he must deal with a group of anti-government radicals, and a health crisis of his own.
Although deftly translated by Shaun Whiteside, Annihilation is slow getting started and too diffuse by half — I began skipping the boring dream sequences. But Houellebecq has always had one of those narrative voices that draws you in, as in this book’s opening line: “Particularly if you’re single, some Mondays in late November or early December make you feel as if you’re in death’s waiting-room.”
Houellebecq’s major works — Atomized, Platform, Submission and Serotonin — were all worshiped or reviled for their seeming cynicism. Yet beneath their dryly funny, sometimes shocking surfaces, they’re the work of a radical conservative — to borrow a description Norman Mailer used of himself. Houellebecq’s books dissect how, in our modern society, people, in particular men, feel hollowed out. “Anything can happen in life,” says the hero of Platform, “especially nothing.”
No longer bound by the old religious, national and tribal belief systems, Houellebecq’s characters inhabit an atomized world whose individualism leads to the bleak consolations of technology, consumerism and the soulless sex typified by pornography. His great satire, Submission, in which Islam takes over France, was pilloried as an attack on that religion. In fact, it’s a book about a French culture so decadently anemic that it finds a kind of comfort living under the certainties of Sharia law.
Dismissive of both the Left and market-driven society, Houellebecq is such a sly and ambiguous writer that I’m not always sure when he’s kidding. I often identify with his characters, and even when I find certain pages repellent, Houellebecq challenges my perceptions. He gets me asking whether I’m in touch with my real self, or whether I’ve unthinkingly donned a set of attitudes passed on by our culture.
And in Annihilation, he surprised me. After a career spent, as he puts it, “clearing away the sources of hollow optimism,” he ends Paul’s story with some of the tenderest pages — and tenderest sex — of his career. This is a book about discovering the ties that bind and about letting yourself be bound by them. Filled with acceptance if not serenity, it has the happiest ending you can have in a book by a writer who doesn’t believe in happiness.
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By Vanessa Friedman, Chevaz Clarke, Gabby Bulgarelli and Jon Hazell
January 12, 2026
My husband and I live in Pasadena. We moved from Los Feliz about 10 years ago. We have struggled to find LGBTQ+ events this far east. We can only hit up Boulevard so many times (although we love it). Any advice for finding LGBTQ+ events in Pasadena, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Glendale or the SGV? I feel like there are bars out here that may host weekly events that I just don’t hear about. — Will Birnie
Looking for things to do in L.A.? Ask us your questions and our expert guides will share highly specific recommendations.
Here’s what we suggest:
Will, you are so right. While there are several queer bars around your former neighborhood (Hi Tops in Los Feliz, Akbar in Silver Lake, Club Bahia in Echo Park and Honey’s at Star Love in East Hollywood), they are few and far between in the eastern part of L.A. County. But your question sent me down a rabbit hole and I’m proud to report that I’ve found a handful of spots and regular events that you should check out in your area. (Shout out to my colleagues and everyone who responded to my request for help on Instagram.)
Highland Park is home to the Offbeat, which is one of my friend Jaycen Mitchell‘s favorite bars in the area. The beloved dive bar hosts karaoke nights, drag shows, live music performances, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” screenings and other themed nights throughout the week. “I’ve been able to see all of my favorite drag queens there in more intimate settings, and the DJs have had me and my friends dancing until we were the last ones there,” Mitchell tells me. Also in Highland Park is Blind Barber, a speakeasy that hosts Homo Happy Hour on Thursdays. Mitchell says the happy hour is always a good time and a chance to “show up as your authentic self, be in community and queen out with your girls.”
Then in Glendale, there’s Junior High, a nonprofit art gallery and inclusive gathering space that hosts a variety of events, including music shows, artist showcases, comedy nights, pottery workshops and more. A standout event is Fantasy Suite, a pole dance show that features queer dancers with varying body types. Cherry Jayne and Jax “Lil Sumthin” launched the queer strip club experience in 2022 after struggling to find work due to “fatphobia that plagues traditional strip club hiring,” they told me. The next event will take place Feb. 7 and will feature Valentine’s Day songs of love, lust and heartbreak.
At Footsies in Cypress Park, Latino queer artist and DJ Mino Sanchez and his boyfriend, Ivan Castaneda, who also DJs, have been hosting Gay Night for nearly four years. The event, which happens on the second Saturday of each month, features BIPOC queer DJs who spin house, disco, Spanish dance music, electronica, pop and international sounds. There’s also a drag performance at midnight. In El Monte, the San Gabriel Valley LGBTQ Center hosts Gayme Night on the third Thursday of every month. The all-ages event features karaoke along with video and board games.
And you already know and love Boulevard — it really is a gem (and it’s the only gay bar in Pasadena). Though it was at risk of closing during the pandemic, the 45-year-old bar survived and continues to host a drag trivia night on Tuesdays and a drag show on Friday nights hosted by Borgia Bloom Facade. Times food columnist Jenn Harris writes that the Boulevard bar has served as a “safe haven for the gay community in the area and an alternative to the West Hollywood bar scene.”
If you’re looking for a different type of community beyond bars and events, my colleague Jaclyn Cosgrove recommends Throop Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena. “My pastor, Rev. Tera Landers, likes to say she doesn’t like religion, but she loves church,” says Cosgrove, who also lives in Pasadena. “That’s in large part because of the community we have at [the church] including our choir, which has a large number of transgender and queer members. It is where I go to refill my cup every Sunday.”
I hope this list helps you and your husband find more spaces around your neighborhood to build community and have a great time.
Ariana Grande arrives at the 83rd Golden Globes on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif.
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The brightest stars in TV and film kicked off the 83rd annual Golden Globes tonight in Beverly Hills, Calif. with Ariana Grande, Noah Wyle, Teyana Taylor and George Clooney are just some the names who walked the red carpet. This year’s ceremony was hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser.
Here’s a glimpse of what some of the attendees are wearing tonight.
Michael B. Jordan
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Ryan Coogler and Zinzi Evans
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Jean Smart
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Owen Cooper
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Sara Wells and Noah Wyle
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Claire Danes
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Stellan Skarsgård and Megan Everett-Skarsgard
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Amy Poehler
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EJAE
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Amanda Anka and Jason Bateman
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Paul Mescal
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Adam Brody and Leighton Meester
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Laufey
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Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons
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Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song
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Rose Byrne
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Snoop Dogg
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George Clooney and Amal Clooney
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Michel Martin
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Steve Inskeep
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Leila Fadel
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Nikki Glaser
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Queen Latifah
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