Three years ago, I bought Rebecca Solnit’s essay collection, Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics, on a lark. At that time I was beginning to write, trying to…
The problem with writing about Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is that I can’t discuss the plot. A blend of science fiction and literary narrative, the novel hinges on a secret, a secret so all-encompassing and imposing, so carefully revealed, that if I were to divulge it, I would ruin the book.
That being said, here’s what I can tell you…
What would the man who said, “I’d rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph,” think about becoming a museum piece? The quote, by Ken Kesey, appears in the first…
I’m trying to tell you that there’s something steady inside each of us, something unconcerned with expectation or gender or fear. There’s a center, and it’s like a friendly ghost of every person we’ve ever been.
The Rumpus Book Club has been having a great time with this month’s selection, Elizabeth Crane’s We Only Know So Much, and the Poetry Book Club has been taking Allan…
I am here to do two things: scream the praises of James Salter, and throw a few questions about his place in the larger scope of literature into the mix. How did I make it through a college lit class that taught authors from the second half of the twentieth century and never hear of James Salter?