Between the Crackups, by Rebecca Lehmann
Rebecca Lehmann’s collection, Between the Crackups, is a glittering, furious book. Many of its poems inhabit a childhood world full of violence and anger. Others showcase adult voices that range…
Features & Reviews
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Ye Olde Fart Jokes
Meanwhile in England, a troupe of 24 modern day pilgrims re-enacted Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, walking the 1637 pilgrimage route and raising money for the National Literacy Trust. The group stopped…
Ninety Days: A Memoir of Recovery by Bill Clegg
There is a moment in Junky in which a psychiatrist asks William Burroughs’ narrator why he needs narcotics. His answer is to get out of bed in the morning, to…
The Trouble With Prince Charming or He Who Trespassed Against Us
I enjoy fairy tales because I need to believe, despite my cynicism, that there is a happy ending for everyone, for me.
Pulitizer Do-Over
NYT Magazine asked writers and critics which novels deserved this year’s “lost” Pultizer Prize. DFW’s The Pale King was a repeat hypothetical winner. “The Pale King, my favorite work of…
Tiny Beautiful Things
Library Journal interviews Cheryl Strayed about Tiny Beautiful Things, her forthcoming collection of Dear Sugar columns. Strayed reveals the best and worst advice she’s ever received. The best? From her mother:…
Voices of the Rainbow: Contemporary Poetry by Native Americans
Visiting the Taos Pueblo (“an ancient community continuously inhabited for 100 years”) on San Geronimo Day, I was frightened by the Sacred Clowns (Koshares). The list of rules for visitors…
The Rumpus Interview with Damion Searls
To say that Amsterdam Stories is a pleasure to read is a vast understatement. This pearl of a book, containing all of the Dutch author Nescio’s greatest stories, evoked in…
“Super Sad True Habits”
At Tin House, Rumpus contributor Courtney Maum introduces us to the writing habits of “highly effective writers.” Part-one features many people we love, including Rumpus essays editor Roxane Gay and…
Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung
In Catherine Chung’s Forgotten Country, Janie, the eldest daughter of a Korean immigrant family and a graduate student in mathematics, has always carried the responsibility of appeasing and protecting her…
“Fuck Friday Night Lights“
“It’s just very hard when you write something that young and it becomes that successful, for reasons of luck, or having the right timing or the right execution. I was…
Absolution by Patrick Flanery
Patrick Flanery is not South African, and neither is his debut novel, Absolution. This is not to say that Flanery does not know South Africa or its politics, history, landscape,…