TORCH: The Reunion
He was and still is a stranger, uninhabitable and distant like a whisper in a language I don’t quite understand.
...more
Posts Tagged: mothers and sons
Rumpus Exclusive: “Blue Tears”
On certain nights, if I’m lucky, wisps of the shore begin to glow blue, an unearthly electric color, like someone in the sea has a flashlight and is shining it upward.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Dead Eyes and Bob Barker Crocs
Broken people are drawn to other broken people. Comparing scars. Laying belly to belly. Two similar pieces of different puzzles.
...more
After the Telling
We want to protect our children from everything, even sometimes ourselves.
...more
Disease Cloaked in Ambition: Gorilla and the Bird by Zack McDermott
Gorilla and the Bird is an important resource for anyone impacted by the scope of bipolar disorder, as well as those who want to learn more about it.
...more
Heartbeat Detected
I don’t want to say “calculated conversations.” I don’t want to say “I push my needs away.” I don’t want to admit I can’t control how our interactions go.
...more
An Erasure of Distance: Traveling in Circles with Nathan Englander
Nathan Englander talks about his new novel, Dinner at the Center of the Earth, the experience of being interviewed, and why he believes books can save lives.
...more
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Raising A Feminist Son
I think about the birth of Mosley, and all of the dreams I already have for him at the ripe age of one. I know how I want him to see me—strong, smart, capable of anything and everything. This is how I want him to see all women, but me especially.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Summer of Families
“What do you think about this,” he said, measured and cool. “What if we offer a service where people can pay to be in our family, but only for a few hours.”
...more
Conversations with Writers Braver Than Me: Jason Diamond
Jason Diamond discusses his memoir Searching for John Hughes, confronting his childhood abuse, avoiding his parents, and writing about all of it.
...more
Voices on Addiction: A Bad Night
Trying to protect him from himself is like trying to protect atmosphere from weather.
...more
Swinging Modern Sounds #77: People Give Me Things, Part One
[T]he thing about receiving music from other people is this: there is always some grace associated with the transaction.
...more
Fitting Characters and Scripts
Unwittingly, my mother teaches me in this conversation her generation’s word for gay: 同性恋. I look it up in an online dictionary, three characters in my mother’s tongue. Same, sex, and love.
...more
This October Sunday
Here we are again, another one-run game, another last chance.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Leland Cheuk
Leland Cheuk discusses his novel The Misadventures of Sulliver Pong, dark humor, cancer, morally corrupt characters, and his mother.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Too Much Hope
I wanted more time with him, but I didn’t want to hope. Too much hope will mess you up.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Jamie Brickhouse
Jamie Brickhouse discusses Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir of Booze, Sex, and My Mother, a memoir that chronicles his intimate, near-fatal journey through alcoholism, and living HIV positive.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Garrard Conley
Garrard Conley, author of the new memoir Boy Erased, discusses growing up in the deep South, mothers, writing for change, and political delusions.
...more
Breaking and Burning
They pin him down and I stick him. I am relentless. This disease is relentless. And I am so pissed off.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Mark Leyner
Mark Leyner discusses his new novel, Gone with the Mind, about a failed novelist, Mark Leyner, who gives a reading to his mom in an almost-deserted food court.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Baby’s Home
I got to thinking about home. What the fuck is home anyway?
...more
Deep Conditioning with Wilson Phillips
“Don’t become a professor,” he said. “I’d rather you become a garbage man. They get paid more and have better benefits.”
...more
Albums of Our Lives: The Mountain Goats’s The Sunset Tree
I knew if I could make it out of town, make it to college, I would survive. But I wasn’t sure I would.
...more
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Defeat
It never occurred to me to try to write poems without the guidance of other poets and poems.
...more
Guildtalk #4: The Rumpus Interview with Saeed Jones
Saeed Jones talks about his forthcoming memoir How Men Fight For Their Lives, his new fellowship program at BuzzFeed, and making peace with the phantom.
...more
Something Small and Heavy
This is not a biography, photograph, or method of cloning, not footage, not a transcription—in short: this is not faithful.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with George Hodgman
Editor and author George Hodgman talks about his new memoir, Bettyville, what makes for a good memoir, and returning to his hometown of Paris, Missouri from New York to take care of his aging mother.
...more
The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Ottessa Moshfegh
Ottessa Moshfegh talks about her book McGlue, inventing a character from an 1850s newspaper article, and revisiting her work years after she finished writing it.
...more