New books this week: Adam Johnson’s much talked-about novel The Orphan Master’s Son, Shalom Auslander’s first novel and Hope: A Tragedy.
Tuesday New Release Day: Johnson, Auslander
The Great American Novelist
"And that might be the best way to understand Erdrich’s artistic project: as a celebration of beauty and a testament to the redemptive power of art — which, of course, includes storytelling." Rumaan Alam interviews Louise Erdrich about her illustrious writing career for Buzzfeed Reader. Erdrich's newest novel Future Home of the Living God was featured in our November Preview.
5-Year-Old Library Thief
A Massachusetts mom said police went too far when they paid her and her 5-year-old daughter a visit for failing to return their library books on time.
Send In the Clowns
Coulrophobes take heed! You’re not scared of clowns because they’re inherently dark, or even because you caught a few minutes of Stephen King’s IT on television. In fact, you probably owe your fear of clowns to a fellow named Joseph Grimaldi, the “Homo erectus of clown evolution.” When this progenitor died in 1837, a young Charles Dickens “was charged with editing his memoirs.” The resulting portrait, relays Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, was what ultimately “water[ed] the seeds in popular imagination of the scary clown.”
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Wood on JJS
Critic and occasional Millions commenter James Wood has added his own two cents to the growing collection of Pulphead reviews.
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Welcome Jacob!
We're welcoming another regular to The Millions. You'll recognize Jacob Lambert from his ongoing series "The Road (A Comedic Translation)," and he'll be doing more humor pieces for us as well as whatever else he comes up with. Jacob has written for MAD Magazine for several years. He also has a regular column in Philly Weekly and freelances for various other publications. Welcome Jacob!
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Stay Away from the Semicolon
“The Crested Asterisk camouflages itself in poor syntax, relying on this tactic to confuse its predators and prey. It is the only specimen known to cause injury by way of over-emphasis.” Introducing a field guide to rare punctuation.
Scribblenauts
In a digital age, what’s the point of handwriting? It may seem like there isn’t much point to honing one’s penmanship these days. In Hazlitt, Navneet Alang suggests that handwriting, far from being a lost art, is in fact a “useful alchemy” that retains particular uses. You could also read our own Kevin Hartnett on writing by hand.
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Knausgaard: Horror and Delight
The third volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle was released on Tuesday. In a recent review for The Daily Beast, Ted Gioia argues that "we read [My Struggle] with horror and delight, because the protagonist—who is Karl Ove Knausgaard himself—is determined to reveal every embarrassing and shameful detail of his past life. Imagine a literary novel with grand Proustian ambitions, but combined with the ethos of those creepy Jackass-type reality shows in which contestants get a dose of renown by making fools of themselves. That’s the spirit of My Struggle." For a second opinion, be sure to check out our own review of the novel's earlier installments.