Rumpus Original
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SKETCH BOOK REVIEWS: Three Faves
A roundup of great books that didn't make it into Sketch Book Reviews this year
A World Where We Are Known and Loved: Shelley Wong’s As She Appears
to be seen is not the same thing as being known
A joyful expression of femininity and play: Talking dolls with Maria Teresa Hart
In which one Samantha interviews another.
Anecdotal and Harsh
The thing about trauma is that it can split a person right down the middle. And J. was, indeed, bifurcated in this way. That is, she occupied multiple timelines simultaneously.
Take Your Divagations Seriously: Geoff Dyer’s The Last Days of Roger Federer
The Last Days . . . has nothing much to do with tennis or with Roger Federer, who appears sparingly in these pages . . . [nor is it] “intended to be a comprehensive study of last things, or of lastness generally.”
Rumpus Original Fiction: On the Farm
On the farm, I understand exactly the degree to which I have come to depend on alcohol, since in the first three weeks I think about it frequently and get worried and even look for it twice in the farmer’s house, and on the fourth week I am less interested, and on the fifth week I do other things.
The Answers Usually Come from Somewhere Unexpected: An Interview with Emma Winsor Wood
If you go to a poetry reading, the aphoristic moments are usually where the audience lets out a collective “hmmm” or “ahhh”—almost before the poet has finished the sentence.
ENOUGH: Landlines
Before my father killed her, my mother spent her evenings telling me the story of how she came to America. Every night, the way she started was with something new.