Dear Ruins of Our Future Selves
Wetzsteon’s formal style mixed with her populist vernacular is unmistakable and unforgettable.
Rumpus Original
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Crows and Taxis: Writing to the South Sudan
Crows circle, straight out of a novel by Kenya’s Nobel-nominee Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Only, the crows are circling the hotel pool, not the bush.
The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
Levithan’s rhapsody is just that: an ode to desire written as an account of the traces such desire leaves behind.
Heart Healthy
On Wednesday, I wake a little after ten. This isn’t intentional. It’s not like I set an alarm. I stumble from the bed to the bathroom to take a long,…
Two Books from Helen Vendler
Long time Rumpus Reviewer Barbara Berman examines the two latest offerings from critic Helen Vendler, one on Emily Dickinson and the other on the last books from five of the…
Why Are You a Prostitute?
This is a response for Bedelia, who commented profusely about sex work, house moms, and her experience as a hooker for ten years on an earlier piece I wrote…
FUNNY WOMEN #42: The Best-Selling Story of All Time
The five most popular words in best-selling books are (source: Time magazine): 1. man 2. diet 3. house 4. woman 5. sex/sexual
The Known World
Reviewing Sunset Park, I am behaving like a Paul Auster character, imagining a dialogue with a famous author, wondering about the ways fiction and reality overlap…”
Suppose I Kept on Singing Love Songs Just to Break My Own Fall
I don’t remember what I was doing when my aunt called to tell me my father was dying.
Ted Wilson Reviews the World #69
DANCING WITH THE STARS ★★★★★ (4 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Dancing with the Stars.
Surely Some Revelation Is at Hand
(Yet Another) Rumpus Lamentation: It’s a sunny winter day in Tucson, Arizona. There’s an event being held in the parking lot of a supermarket called Safeway.
The Complicated World of Adults
A volume of new and selected stories by Edith Pearlman reveal the subtleties of her characters’ inner lives—and the surehanded mastery of their author.