L.A. on Fire
Nathanael West‘s The Day of the Locust tells the story of Tod Hackett, a painter trying to survive in Hollywood while planning his masterpiece, “The Burning of Los Angeles.” Hackett…
Features & Reviews
9212 posts
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys
“There’s something unique about being a member of the sex worker club, an instant camaraderie that bonds one to people who would otherwise be strangers, and this chemistry is something…
The Write Links
“Unsettled: The PW Survey on the Google Book Settlement” A Q&A with (rockstar) literary agent Georges Borchardt. Underground Library is hoping to do for the literary underground what MySpace has…
The Importance of Being Still: The Rumpus Interview With Charles Baxter
In his essay, Baxter discusses the degree to which Americans “have distrusted silence and its parent condition, stillness.”
Kubrick’s 1961 Lolita is the First 70s Movie
The other day I read a rambling but entertaining essay over on Bright Lights Film Journal, called All Tomorrow’s Playground Narratives, which analyzed Kubrick’s Lolita in terms of — well,…
How to Leave Hialeah
“Crucet is endowed with the double vision that helped Richard Wright and Salman Rushdie describe the lives of marginalized people with poignancy, humor, and rich music.”
Playing With Words
One thing that fascinates me about writing is how people play with the medium: making up games and assignments to bring us together. For example the Napkin Project at Esquire,…
Jami Attenberg: The Last Book I Loved, Everything Matters!
I was going to write this piece about A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, which is also a very good book, one that I loved, and one I recommend…
Poetics and Slaughter
2005 saw the seventieth anniversary of the birth of Danilo Kiš. He died of lung cancer in 1989.
Stand Proud
“There’s a blurb on the front of the 2008 paperback edition of Elmer Kelton’s novel Stand Proud. It’s from True West magazine, and it reads, ‘One thing is certain: as…
No Jackets
“What makes these books so unusual-looking is that, even though they’re hardcovers, their cover art is not printed on dust jackets but instead stamped directly onto the boards that hug…