On the Couch
The protagonist of this novel about addiction, therapy, and recovery, confronts many of the same issues as its author.
Features & Reviews
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Magic Gardens
“I’m a stripper, rocker, bartender, and writer. I had a lot of plans last year, but none of them involved breast cancer. The disease sidetracked my livelihood, threatened my life,…
Exactly Like Liz Phair, Except Older. And With Hypochondria.
I told myself she reminded me of Liz Phair, but without the marijuana-steeped tomboy, devil-may-care, laid-back attitude of Liz Phair. This is the type of thing you tell yourself when…
An Open Letter Concerning The Authors Guild vs. Google, Inc.
The lawyers will get $30 million—does that mean the authors are getting screwed?
Meet Mario Bellatin
“A few years ago the Mexican novelist Mario Bellatin attended one of those literary conferences here where writers are asked to talk about their own favorites. Unwilling to make a…
We’ve Always Been Postmodern?
“And while postmodern books would, you’d think, have to be published after the modern period — in the 20th or 21st centuries — could postmodernism exist without “Tristram Shandy”? We…
“What does a science fiction writer know about?”
“I can’t claim to be an authority on anything, but I can honestly say that certain matters absolutely fascinate me, and that I write about them all the time. The…
The Limits of Narrative
In a post on The Guardian (UK), books writer Alison Flood writes about the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series of books and how she would skip ahead to find out…
A Reaction Sauce
Yesterday we linked to Malcolm Gladwell‘s most recent New Yorker essay, “The Courthouse Ring,” in which Gladwell discusses Atticus Finch, Alabama Governer “Big Jim” Folsom, race, and “the limits of…
The Last Book I Loved: Inner China
Eva Sjödin’s poem-novel maps in swift, uncanny sentences the dark marvels of being little. I am a sucker for tales of sisters, especially when an older must defend a younger…
Lethem on the “Squandered Promise” of Science Fiction
“In 1973 Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow was awarded the Nebula, the highest honor available in the field once known as “science fiction” — a term now mostly forgotten. “Sorry, just…
“Edmund Wilson Regrets That It Is Impossible For Him To:”
Writer and famed literary critic Edmund Wilson wasn’t a fan of giving interviews, doing any kind of editorial work, reading manuscripts, and a number of other things according to a…