The American Book Review has a list (pdf) of the 100 best last lines from novels. I can’t think of mine; I keep getting “last line” confused with “end.” Thoughts? (Thanks Shakesville).
Best Last Lines
American Book Awards
The 2014 National Book Awards were just announced earlier this week. In celebration, The Paris Review took a look back at the American Book Awards, which “serve as a reminder that ostensibly prestigious institutions—institutions whose authority and taste depend on their perceived stability—are just as susceptible to whims and trends as the rest of us, which is to say very.”
Raised on B-Movies
I’ve loved old sci-fi B-movies forever, and a staggering number of my childhood memories involve Ray Harryhausen. For this reason, I’m really geeking out over The New Yorker’s entire science fiction issue, but in particular this piece by Colson Whitehead deserves your time.
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Fiction by Wes Anderson
Before making films, Wes Anderson used to write fiction. His university literary journal Analecta posts a short story he wrote as an undergraduate in 1989. Did he make the right career choice? (via The Paris Review Daily)
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This is the way the film ends
Blasphemy Alert: They’re giving the film version of August: Osage County a “less downbeat” ending. Curse you, Harvey Weinstein! Is nothing sacred? Can a woman not lament the disintegration of her life, family, and mental stability while the final lines to T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” are read by her housekeeper? Has America gone soft?
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I love this list; I give it to my students when we talk about revision. We spend a lot of time agonizing over the first line, and with reason–but that last line also needs to pack a punch. I don’t know how many of these I’d have been able to generate off the top of my head, but when I read them, I definitely recognize them–and get that little chill down my spine.