Here are the first lines of the new Gary Shteyngart novel, Super Sad True Love Story, forthcoming in July: “Today I’ve made a major decision: I am never going to die. Others will die around me. They will be nullified. Nothing of their personality will remain. The light switch will be turned off.”
First Lines of the New Gary Shteyngart
Twitter and its Relationship to Language
A group of researchers from the University of Cambridge is using Twitter to help research the rapidly disappearing Welsh language “[because] tweets don’t follow the conventions of written language” and instead “provide an authentic snapshot of spoken language.” (Bonus: Twitter’s stunning visualizations of “tweet geography.”)
●
●
Blake Butler on Submitting Writing
HTMLGiant's editor Blake Butler, author of There Is No Year, has compiled a list of things he's learned from submitting his writing.
●
●
An Interview With Helen DeWitt
Helen DeWitt talks to Bookforum about the origins of her long (as in really long!)-awaited second novel, Lightning Rods.
●
●
3 comments:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
The Joys of Air Travel
"In college, I didn’t realize I was the face of the Diaspora, the embodiment of all the women they thought I was, and who I knew I was. I was from Africa, east and west, a sojourner through the islands of the Caribbean, a daughter of the Second Great Migration of African-Americans from South to North. Perhaps Chaka said it best—to these young men, I was 'every woman.' To airport security, I was that woman. The one to be stopped and searched. The one who was suspect. A long-lost daughter whose lineage crossed through Kush—was I carrying Kush now, perhaps, in my hair?" If a 'Pat-downs, Pissing, and Passport Stamps' headline isn't enough to get you to read this great piece from The Literary Hub, hopefully the quote will do.
Another Place and Time
Edmund White considers writers’ obsession with New York City in the 1970s, with photography by Peter Hujar. As White puts it, that was “a place and a time in which, rich or poor, you were stuck together in the misery (and the freedom) of the place, where not even money could insulate you.”
●
●
Necesito Oscuridad
"Whenever the latest woe is me commercial came on hawking the newest painkiller, Mami commanded our attention: 'That’s me!'" Go check out this piece of new fiction, "I Am A Rock," by Ricardo Nuila at Guernica Magazine.
Joke’s On You
"How many male novelists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" At The Toast, Mallory Ortberg writes some great jokes to use at your next cocktail party.
●
●
I like this whole first line from upcoming books thing you have going on. These first lines do not make me want to read this book, though. Too precious.
I can’t tell you how happy I am to see the phrase “new Gary Shteyngart novel”!
It wasn’t on most of those “books we’re excited about next year lists”, so a welcome surprise. Plus, it’s a heckuva sentence.
Oh boy! Another kinda creepy, sorta funny, odd, quirky wild ride. Never underestimate the guy who wrote the greatest circumcision story of all time.