The Story Prize has announced its nominees for the 2011 prize, We Others by Steven Millhauser, Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman, The Angel Esmeralda by Don DeLillo. Our review of the latter was published today.
The Story Prize 2011 Shortlist
A Tale of Murder
Over at The Atlantic, Terrence Rafferty claims that women are writing the best crime novels. “Their books are light on gunplay, heavy on emotional violence. Murder is de rigueur in the genre, so people die at the hands of others—lovers, neighbors, obsessive strangers—but the body counts tend to be on the low side,” he writes. Pair with this Millions piece on novels where women are true detectives.
●
●
Remembering Sue Grafton
Crime novelist Sue Grafton passed away earlier this week from cancer. Lit Hub and Vulture both have touching tributes to her and her detective series starring Kinsey Millhone. “Grafton belonged to a cluster of female authors who viewed the private-detective subgenre, previously dominated by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Grafton’s own hero, Ross Macdonald, in desperate need of subverting” and “The annual release of her latest Kinsey Millhone novel was, for generations of devotees, one of the year’s premier literary events. ” Rest in peace Ms. Grafton.
“I decided to stage an event: Robot Wars.”
Recommended Reading: Got a ton of spare time and a nostalgic interest in killer, mechanized war machines? Cool. Me too. Here’s an oral history of Battlebots.
Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts
Recommended Reading: Clare Cavanagh on the experience of translating the work of Polish poet and Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska.
●
●
Not the First Ebenezer
Our own Kevin Hartnett has an interesting theory as to how Charles Dickens came up with the idea for A Christmas Carol. At The Boston Globe, he looks at the evidence that Dickens got inspiration from the amateur writings of millworkers in Massachusetts.
●
●
Dead Ends
Recommended Reading: Enrique Vila-Matas on rock ‘n’ roll, anti-artists, and the central motor of his work.
●
●