Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers (which our own Mark O’Connell reviewed last October), expected Harry Mathews’ novel The Journalist to be a “terrible flop,” but soon found it was “every bit as great as Mathews’ more celebrated novels.”
From Flop to Top
Miéville on “Hauntology”
In a fabulously strange, illuminating, and spooky essay, China Miéville establishes the literary definition of “hauntology.”
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Colson Whitehead, Book by Book
Elevator inspectors, beach vacations, zombie movies: these are just a few of the things that have inspired Colson Whitehead's books over the years.
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The Freedom of Limits
“Limits stop you from living a life without limits,” writes Augusten Burroughs. “Of course, this is only an illusion. What limits really do is give you an acceptable excuse to avoid doing something.” (He’s talking about life, not Oulipo.) The piece is excerpted from his recent book, This Is How.