In The New York Times Magazine, Heather Havrilesky cautions against “The Divorce Delusion,” or one of modern drama’s most unrealistic tropes. “Infidelity, a love child (or two), dalliances with prostitutes, lewd online behavior; we’ve watched so many spouses bounce back from hell,” she writes, “that maybe we’re beginning to believe that there’s no trauma so great that it can’t be quickly metabolized into a courageous determination to sally forth against the storm.”
Patty and Walter, anyone?
Keep Hope Alive
“Your opponents would love you to believe that it’s hopeless, that you have no power, that there’s no reason to act, that you can’t win. Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away.” This seems a better time than most to revisit Rebecca Solnit‘s Hope in the Dark, an excerpt of which ran in The Guardian earlier this year. You can also read our review of Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby here.
Audio Conversation With Paul Harding
At Bloom this week, a spotlight on Pulitzer-Prize winner Paul Harding, whose second novel Enon has just been released. Plus a special treat: Joe Schuster speaks to Harding by phone in this two-part interview.
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Pinckney and Smith from the NYPL
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The Pleasure of Eavesdropping
Recommended Listening: Poet Rachel Zucker has just launched Commonplace, a bi-monthly podcast featuring conversations with poets (and other people) about quotidian objects, experiences, anecdotes, advice, and obsessions.
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Fantasies of Desires
“(The Great Gatsby) is often considered the greatest American novel of the 20th century—I waver on that sometimes but I love the beauty of its writing, its tabloid immediacy, the high body count, its modernistic touches, the relentless drama put into its novella-length form.” Bret Easton Ellis’s top ten favorite books doesn’t include many surprises, but it’s worth a look.
Appearing Elsewhere
Fence has a new web site. And a new fall issue! My story “The Art of Forgetting” appears online, alongside new work by Ariana Reines, Mary Jo Bang, and Thomas Israel Hopkins.
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A Prodigal Daughter
“We lived in the Midlands, and when I moved to Dublin for university Frank liked to call me up and talk to me about my late mother, whom he informed me was ‘no saint’.” Sally Rooney’s short story from the New Irish Writing issue of Granta is now available on the Literary Hub website.