The terrific Gary Amdahl (Visigoth, I Am Death), talks shop with A Public Space.
Meta-Dialogue
Tuesday New Release Day: Grossman; House; Gaffney; Montefiore; Tanweer; Leslie-Hynan; Brooks; Gordon; Livings; Schottenfeld; Kennedy; Bertino; Gay
Out this week: The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman; The Kills by Richard House; When the World Was Young by Elizabeth Gaffney; Secrets of the Lighthouse by Santa Montefiore; The Scatter Here is Too Great by Bilal Tanweer; Ride Around Shining by Chris Leslie-Hynan; Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks; The Liar’s Wife by Mary Gordon; The Dog by Jack Livings; Bluff City Pawn by Stephen Schottenfeld; Beneath the Neon Egg by Thomas E. Kennedy; 2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino; and Bad Feminist by Year in Reading alum Roxane Gay, who also came out with a novel a few months ago.
Dubliners, 100 Years Later
At Flavorwire Jonathan Sturgeon considers what we’ve learned from Dubliners in the hundred years since it was first published and argues that “when it comes to realism, Dubliners, more than even Chekhov’s short fiction, is the model we routinely fail to live up to.” Sturgeon’s reflections on Joyce‘s free indirect discourse pair well with Jonathan Russell Clark‘s Millions essay on close writing, and his essay isn’t completely without hope: he concludes with a few books that, “on the surface, look nothing like Dubliners, but, in spirit… show that Joyce’s book still lives 100 years on.”
The Starship Lands
Sarah Blake has completed her twelve-part illustrated epic poem, The Starship, at Berfrois. Pair with our essay on why Americans read poetry but won’t buy poetry books.
New Bechdel Memoir
Yesterday we learned Alison Bechdel won a MacArthur grant, and we thought we couldn’t be happier. Then we heard there’s a new Bechdel graphic memoir in the works, The Secret to Superhuman Strength.
Putting the Fiction in Nonfiction
While researching In Cold Blood, Truman Capote took pains to get the story right, so much so that the final product was, he claimed, “immacutely factual.” The tale of his labors is so well-known that Bennett Miller used it as the basis of his movie Capote. So when allegations surface that the author made deliberate errors, the story gets a little bit… awkward.
Vanity Fair’s Beautiful Game
Vanity Fair’s latest cover is proof that we live in an era in which men have the privilege of being just as objectified as women. Nominally a celebration of the 2010 World Cup that kicks off in South Africa in June, the magazine’s gay porn-ish cover features soccer superstars Didier Drogba of the Ivory Coast and Portugal’s Christiano Ronaldo in nothing but their flags, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Within (oh, my stars & stripes!) you can behold the U.S.’s Landon Donovan, as well as Brazil’s Kaká, Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon, England’s Carlton Cole, Germany’s Michael Ballack–all in their undies. Cheers to you, Vanity Fair: Your enterprising shamelessness truly knows no bounds.