In the Boston Review, Jess Row wades – slowly, interestingly, not always coherently – into the perpetually roiling waters of Theory of the Novel, taking on the canon wars, realism vs. the avant-garde, etc. Is it really “a safe bet that your average well-informed critic today has never read a single work of criticism by a writer of color?” Probably not, even granting Row’s exception. But possibly worth arguing about. If you like that sort of thing.
Theories of Theories of the Novel
Sense and Senility
What kind of writer would Jane Austen have been if she’d lived beyond her forties? We can never know, but Freya Johnston has some ideas.
“There’s your enemy in bed beside you”
In The New York Times, T.C. Boyle tells Andrew Goldman about his pact with his wife (who “rarely leaves the couch”) and his view of writers who date other writers (dim). The author came out with a new novel, San Miguel, in September.
●
●
Love and Blue Globes
Recommended Reading: “Three Things I Have Never Told Anyone,” an essay on love, blue globes and things unsaid by Ayşe Papatya Bucak.
●
●
Morgan Jerkins on Letting Your Mind Run to the Surreal
Morgan Jerkins discusses her new novel, Caul Baby, a story set in Harlem that has elements of both the fantastical and the familiar.
●
●
●