Pynchon Defends McEwan
America Central
Newsweek Senior Writer (and Millions contributor) Alexander Nazaryan has a new interview with William T. Vollmann up on Newsweek’s website. To start things off right, he reports that if Vollman were to win the Nobel Prize, he’d enjoy giving a decent chunk of the prize money to prostitutes.
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Resolution
“I almost understand why God laid this affliction on him.” A new piece of fiction by Annie Proulx is always worth a read. Fun fact: there was a time in her career when Proulx had to pretend she was a man in order to be published.
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Speaking with Whitehead
Colson Whitehead sits down with Boris Kachka at Vulture to discuss The Underground Railroad, Ferguson, and coming of age in New York City. You could also read our review of Whitehead’s Zone One.
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Beyond the Pale
Nowadays, Lord of the Flies is a byword for savagery, a book that illustrates more potently than any other just how low it’s possible for humanity to sink. In The Guardian, Robert McCrum ties the book’s conception to the second World War, arguing that its view of the world was “unimaginable” without Nazi Europe.
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Twain and Keller
Recommended Reading: An excerpt from The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2 in which the author has dinner with Helen Keller.
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How White Are Your Comp Titles?
The publishing industry is roughly 86% white. Yet comparative titles, or “book comps,” are whiter still, the L.A. Review of Books has found, arguing that this makes it exceptionally difficult for writers of color to place their books with imprints at Big Five publishers. “Comps,” in other words, “perpetuate the status quo.” Here’s how.
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