Anonymous strikes again: On January 25th, the entity that brought us 1996’s deliciously scandalous Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics, offers a roman à clef for the Obama age: O: A Presidential Novel. Then it was Joe Klein, but this Anon. is still Anon. Perhaps better than the insider gossip: The media-fueled whodunit the novel’s sure to inspire.
Primary Colors for the Age of Obama
William Gass, 1924-2017
“He was a glutton for books who treated each text as a plate he was required to clean.” Author and critic William Gass died this week at 93, reports The Washington Post. The recipient of three National Book Critics Circle awards for criticism and four Pushcart prizes, Gass was awarded the PEN/Nabakov Award for lifetime achievement in 2000. See our reviews of Middle C, a novel that took Gass almost 20 years to finish, and his most recent essay collection Life Sentences, which amply demonstrated his background as “a former philosophy professor, but more appropriately a philosopher of the word and an esthete.” We were also lucky enough to have him pen a Year in Reading entry for us back in 2009: “I miss the leisure that let me read just for fun, not to critique, or pronounce, or even to put on a list, but simply to savor,” Gass lamented. Nonetheless, he continued,“I do, from time to time, pick up old friends who never disappoint but will promise me a page or two of pleasure between art and ordinary life.”
Excerpt from The Lives of Others
The Lives of Others by Neel Mukhergee, which was just shortlisted for the 2014 Booker Prize, will be released in the US at the beginning of October. If you just can’t wait another two weeks, an excerpt is now available online. For more about the 2014 Booker Prize, read our coverage of the longlist announcements here.
Professor Díaz
Junot Díaz has criticized MFA programs for being “too white.” So what’s on his syllabi? Salon found the syllabi for the two courses Díaz teaches at MIT. In his fantasy world-building class, students read everyone from Bram Stoker to Octavia Butler. His advanced fiction course includes stories by Edwidge Danticat and Roberto Bolaño. Where can we sign up?
What Kind
At Boston Review, check out a new poem from Maggie Nelson. At The Millions, Leslie Jamison includes Nelson’s Bluets and The Art of Cruelty in A Year in Reading.
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ Turns 50
The Clack of Great Art
Recommended Reading: this new anthology of art created with a typewriter.
What It Was Like, Down South
You may have read Darcey Steinke’s Year in Reading piece, or perhaps one of her articles here at The Millions. Or else you might have read — or at least heard about — her recent novel, Sister Golden Hair. Either way, you should read this interview at The Rumpus, in which she talks about Virginia, femininity and books that have too much plot.
Since You Asked
Recommended Reading: On terrible writing advice from famous writers.
This post seems to (inadvertently) suggest that these novels have the same author, which is almost certainly not the case.