From the Archive: What to Read When You Want to See a World More F**ked up Than Ours
Reading suggestions from author Celeste Ng for these f**ked-up times: worlds more—or, okay, just differently—f**ked up than ours.
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Posts Tagged: California
Voices on Addiction: The Gray Area
The unspoken family sentiment: If everyone worked hard and the bills were paid, that was all that mattered. There was no room for emotions.
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The Big, Mangy One
I am transfixed with the probability of earthquakes.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Inheritance
When she was seven years old, Lottie killed her first rattlesnake. As long as she could remember, her grandfather had instilled in her that The Good Californian killed the rattlesnake, spared those behind him the danger of snakebite, the venom sapped from their future. She thought it was allegory until she came face-to-Western-face with a Mojave rattlesnake in the scrub out by the foothills.
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Joe at the Aquarium
I pushed him so he glided through the fish, the eels, the boxed-in worlds of blues.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: My Mother Fires Guns
You are never really at peace with what you haven’t gotten.
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Searching for Sleeper Trains
There aren’t enough trains in Los Angeles. Not enough for me to sleep.
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The Ugly Side of Ambition: A Conversation with Joy Lanzendorfer
Joy Lanzendorfer discusses her debut novel, RIGHT BACK WHERE WE STARTED FROM.
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Voices on Addiction: Safety in a Blue Light
Television babysat our family—our thirteen-channel set, reception via a rooftop antenna.
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A Mother Is an Intellectual Thing
I hope, by writing this, language can jar a wound.
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Westward, Onward
It comes down to this: I feel the need to prove I belong here.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Reina with White Roses
A block away from my house, Reina killed herself.
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This Week In Indie Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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When Background Becomes Foreground: Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown
Chinatown comes to vivid life in Yu’s hands.
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Constant Motion: Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
More than a longing for an origin story, Hernandez Castillo’s memoir is an attempt to bring the invisible to light.
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This Is Joy: A Conversation with Gabrielle Civil
Gabrielle Civil discusses EXPERIMENTS IN JOY.
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Variants of Unknown Significance
My gynecologist won’t stop bothering me about getting a genetic test done.
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Bodies Are Not Metaphors: Talking with Brit Bennett
Brit Bennett discusses her second novel, THE VANISHING HALF.
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Losing Paradise
What my mind cannot yet fathom, my body already knows.
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This Week In Indie Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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The Joypain of Parenting: Lydia Kiesling’s The Golden State
This is both the exercise and exorcism of motherhood.
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Chelsea Bieker
Chelsea Bieker discusses her debut novel, GODSHOT.
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Panning for Gold: A Conversation with C Pam Zhang
C Pam Zhang discusses her debut novel, HOW MUCH OF THESE HILLS IS GOLD.
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Keeping Time in Los Angeles
Music was noise, and noise was music, and George Antheil was on his way.
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Father Time Is Undefeated
It’s a strange thing, seeing a reliable machine fail. Seeing a hero crash to earth.
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Deleting Your Photos in a Poppy Field
It took all of the world’s beauty for me step forward, once more.
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Poetics of Lineage
I see the birds. I feel my body, splitting from its spirit, lying in the grass.
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Stay Free: Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha
Cha constructs a Los Angeles sharply different from most representations of the city.
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Sentence by Sentence: Talking with Nicholas Mancusi
Nick Mancusi discusses his debut novel, A PHILOSOPHY OF RUIN.
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Butcher Knives at the Ready
For many years, I tried to civilize myself.
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