With the preliminaries out of the way, The Morning News Tournament of books unveils its first head-to-head matchup today, Teddy Wayne’s Kapitoil versus Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. Don’t miss the commentary that accompanies each judgment (some say it’s the best part of the whole thing.)
Round One of the Rooster
First Lines of the New Gary Shteyngart
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."
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NYRB Fall Preview
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Considering the Bittersweet End of Susan Falls
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Renata Adler’s Dazzling Hurdles
Gary Indiana posits that “no current literary label appealingly describes the kind of narratives [Renata Adler’s] Speedboat and Pitch Dark are.” This might be true. However in the name of moving forward with discussion, perhaps we can all go with Matthew Spektor’s summation of Adler’s debut novel: “if it’s ‘like’ anything at all, a steeplechase of [dazzling] hurdles could be it.”
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Eleven-Year Itch
Following last year’s Pulitzer Prize, which Donna Tartt won for her first novel in eleven years, it means something when a critic draws a favorable comparison between The Goldfinch and a new book. For Laura Miller, though, it’s a natural reaction to the latest from Sarah Waters, which seems poised to “scratch the same big-novel itch” as Tartt’s novel did last year. (FYI, Sarah Waters wrote a Year in Reading entry for The Millions.)
An Unusual Inheritance
"They were still dressed for the funeral when their inheritance showed up." Granta magazine has a new short story by Amelia Gray, whose literary rise we considered back in 2012.
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