This isn’t Cazzie David’s first time releasing a deeply personal work to the public. In 2020, she published No One Asked for This, in which she wrote candidly about her struggles with panic attacks and her breakup with Pete Davidson. She also co-wrote and directed an indie film about toxic relationships, I Love You Forever (2024). And yet, true to form, neither of those experiences has helped to soften the blow of releasing another book. “I’ve been struggling to find ways to talk about it,” she says of Delusions: of Grandeur, of Romance, of Progress, which muses on turning 30 and all the existential crises therein. “It’s hard to describe a book of essays. This is so harrowing. If someone doesn’t like this book, it’s not just them saying they don’t like my writing. It’s ‘I don’t like your personality.’”
David, now 31, is also grappling with the realization that her book may very well find an audience — an audience who will read stories about her life that she wrote without fully considering the fact that they would go public. “When the time comes to turn the manuscript in you’re like wait, I haven’t decided if all this is going to be in the book! But I think that about everything in the book, so they take the whole thing. They basically kidnapped this from me and I have no choice.”
Some of the essays are benign and well-documented; tales of her own neuroses, and her obsessions with the health of her father, Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry David. Others are more pointed; her recounting of an attempt to make a new friend and the disastrous dinner party that ensued, a nightmarish experience on the set of an (unnamed) indie movie set, a nightmarish experience becoming a member of an (unnamed) celebrity and influencer gym in Los Angeles. “Please don’t say the name of the actual gym, even though it will be pretty obvious to anyone who reads it, but I’m not looking forward to dealing with the aftermath,” she says. “This gym was very convenient for me and I don’t think I’ll be allowed back there. So I will have to mourn the places that I used to go and the people I used to see.”
The fact that Los Angeles has a gym that is invite only for influencers and celebs, and is free to use in exchange for posting on social media, and everyone at the gym wears the clothing owned by the brand — it’s such perfect fodder for a humor essay that I can’t believe you’re the first person to call it out.
Yeah ,I was surprised no one had and I’m glad I got to. Again, it will impact my life deeply to do so. Anytime I’m writing about someone else, whether relationships or career stuff, I’m really scared for anyone to see it. It’s funny because when you read something, or watch a movie, about something real, it doesn’t really occur to you that the person who wrote it might not back it 100%. I’m in no way ruthless, I’m not writing this stuff like, fuck that. I’m questioning myself the whole time. It’s the braver choice to write this stuff, and I’m by no means a brave person but I try to justify it as my job as an observer of my own life. And if someone does something ridiculous, you can also tell yourself it’s their fault. I also try to make it about my experience in it; I’m not sharing something personal about someone else.
You did an interview with your dad recently, and he said that with Curb Your Enthusiasm, he is inspired by real-life interactions he has but he changes so much that no one recognizes themselves in it; that can’t be true, can it?
I don’t think that’s true either. When he said that, I was like okay. I think he’s really only been confronted about something in the show once, and he thinks he’s making little changes. But also, people are so self-involved that they can watch or read something blatantly about them and it wouldn’t occur to them.
Do you give the people in the essays a heads up that you’re writing about them?
If someone I’m close to, or someone I used to be close to, is in it then I’ll reach out and tell them even if it’s not very identifiable. But also, a lot of what’s in the book is made up for comedic purposes, or for the sake of the story. There are three boyfriends that I have turned into one new person.
So the breakup you write about is an amalgamation of breakups?
Yeah. I really wanted to talk about this thing that happens when you’re in your late twenties and early thirties, where you’re not ready to break up with someone but you feel like you have to for your future self. You want to make the right decisions by her and not waste any more time, and it feels like you can’t have a fun boyfriend anymore. That person isn’t someone who can carry their half of the burden of life with you. So to make that character, it required taking stuff from different boyfriends I’ve had in my twenties and putting them into one person.
Do you consider yourself an old soul? Those anxieties you describe are totally relatable, but I’m a bit older than you and didn’t start to notice those things among my peers until our thirties.
I think I’m really anxious about the future and I engage very earnestly with these pressures and delusions that are inherent to our modern society. I would love to be delusional enough to detach from the modern world and not think about that stuff — I don’t know if it’s rational or irrational to be reasoning my way through an unreasonable existence.
Have your parents read the entire book? There are a couple sex scenes and I’m wondering if you let them see those portions.
I tried to send a Jeffrey Epstein redacted version. My mom got impatient and just read the unredacted version, which I was very upset by. My parents read my work very differently. My mom reads it as a mother and my dad reads it as a writer, so I’m much more comfortable showing my dad. My mom was totally concerned after reading the book. My dad, the more disturbing it is, the happier he is.
Did you watch redacted versions of Curb?
I didn’t watch it until I was in college, so it was the full version. But yeah, no one wants to see that, let’s be honest.
Given how you grew up, did you ever have a period of considering another career?
Never. After college, I really wanted to get started in the TV industry and it was incredibly challenging despite all the doors I had open for me. I spent eight years in development with four different streamers and six different pilots. I thought my writing lent itself well to a 30-minute screenplay, but I needed an outlet for my ideas and that’s how I started writing essays.
A lot of people whose parents are in the industry say that it helped prepare them for the turmoils of the business, or be prepared for rejection. But I can’t imagine you saw a lot of that given your dad’s successes. Was there a particular experience that helped clarify what the business is really like, or are you still looking for that clarity?
Part of it is just getting older. Obviously, I started pretty young and I didn’t have a full understanding of what the industry was like. You meet so many writers who are struggling to get stuff made. You see some who are very lucky and don’t know about [rejection] because they’ve gotten really good opportunities. But even famous people have a hard time. I feel very aware of how hard it is, even if you have connections.
A few of your essays touch on the toxicity of Instagram; have you ever considered getting off social media?
I write about my addiction to the Internet, and even since the time I lasted edited that essay Instagram has changed so much in what they show you and how quickly they adjust your algorithm. I don’t have a healthy relationship to it at all. I’ve stopped trying to because it feels like such a lost cause. So many of us feel like we wasted our entire twenties on our phones. I thought that when I turned 30, I’ll suddenly be off my phone. And then literally when it struck midnight I was on Instagram. I was like great, I guess I’m not changing. I’m so scared to find out the truth in 10 years when the real results of what we’ve all done to ourselves come to light. It’s going to be really scary to look back on. It already impacts so many different things. Sometimes I’ll look back at an old Hollywood movie star and it’s like oh my God, it doesn’t look like they’re wearing a mask. Now, it’s like everyone has the same weird mask face.
Whose opinion about your work means the most to you?
Honestly, everyone’s opinion holds equal weight. I sent Lena Dunham an early copy because I’m obsessed with her, and she was so kind to me. So I would say her, but the man in the basement, as everyone says — he is just as important to me.
As the book comes out, what do you care about the most, especially in regard to its success?
My biggest wish is always not to be publicly humiliated, and that is the most I can ever ask for.
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