…Is Another Man’s Fertility Fetish
The main character in Karan Mahajan’s novel, Family Planning, is a man who is only attracted to his wife when she is pregnant. “He liked the smooth, alien bulge of…
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Rumpus Articles
J.G. Ballard’s Pre-posthumous Memoir
After eighteen novels and even more short story collections, J. G. Ballard directly approaches autobiography in his latest book Miracles of Life. (Read the London Guardian review here.) Though known…
The Unhappy Writer, Links by Mark Pritchard
A recent entry on the publishing blog Galleycat told of the writer Molly Jong-Fast and how she was quitting writing to become an agent. Jong-Fast’s somewhat privileged complaints — she…
You Never Knew It Could Be Like This
Koert van Mensvoort is transforming the Internet and the culture around it. A Dutch artist and professor, Mensvoort challenges how we experience the world around us, especially, but not only,…
The Eyes of Our Skin Are Closed
The enchantment of Dangerous Laughter is not merely a function of the tales themselves, but also of the way in which Millhauser tells them – with careful, attentive prose that…
The Boss from the Hell Bosses Already in Hell Get Sent To
From the self-employed comfort of my couch and a distance of about thirty years, oil company CEO Edward “Tiger Mike” Davis gives excellent memo; his contemptuous, petty rants read like…
The Evolution of Female Promiscuity
“Darwin was a prude” for failing to consider the possibility of female promiscuity, an omission that delayed the study of sperm competition for 100 years. But don’t blame him —…
Mortals—Norman Rush’s Novel For Grown-ups
If I have learned anything from years of recommending this book, it’s this: enthusiasm, by itself, accomplishes nothing.
The Rumpus Interview With God-des & She
“We really are grateful to be able to do this for our job, and we’re grateful we’ve been able to travel and meet all these weirdos.”
Reading Online
Fact: The Internet changes how we read. But is reading on the internet not really “reading” at all? In a recent column in The New York Times Virginia Heffernan analyzes…
Adam Serwer’s “Hip-Hop from Pop Charts to Politics”
Adam Serwer peels back the layers of how hip-hop has helped to repropagate traditionally American ideals, even while struggling against the stereotype of being a race-related, superficial youth genre.