In April’s Atlantic, Joseph O’Neill tries to separate Philip Roth from his perpetual themes of family, Newark, and Judaism, and from his many authorial personae. The task proves unmanageable, but the attempt sheds light on the man destined to become Roth’s greatest critic: Roth himself.
Roth v. Roth v. Roth
“The reader emerges … refreshed but crippled”
Emily Gould champions Barbara Comyns's overlooked novels at The Awl. One more deserving mention: Comyns's haunting Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead.
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Hamming it up with Scott McClanahan
Is writing an inherently performative medium? Scott McClanahan thinks so. "I think my favorite writers are hams," he said in an interview for The Rumpus. He also discussed staying at hotels with pimps during his book tour, indie presses, his book Crapalachia (which our own Nick Moran recommends), and his aversion to tote bags.
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RIP Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel -- Auschwitz survivor, Nobel Laureate, political activist, and author of Night -- passed away yesterday at the age of 87. Here's a quote that perfectly captures Wiesel's essence, from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: "I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe."
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Writing Catholic
Over at the New Republic Year in Reading alum William Giraldi writes his "Confessions of a Catholic Novelist," and they include ruminations on Graham Greene, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy, as well as on the inevitable impact being raised in the Church has on his own work and the writing of many, many others. Giraldi's essay pairs very well with the work of our own Nick Ripatrazone, who has reviewed Giraldi's Hold the Dark, written about teaching Flannery O'Connor to high school students, and just this week discussed the current state of independent Catholic literature.
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Do You Even Want to Know How?
Did the phrase “screw the pooch” originate in 1950 in a Yale dormitory?
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Sullivanless Sullivan
John Jeremiah Sullivan is working on abandoning the "slightly exaggerated pastiche of himself as narrator" that's driven most of his essays so far.
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Tot Tales
Have you ever wondered how memoirists remember their childhoods so well when we can barely remember what we ate for breakfast this morning? Although losing your earliest memories is a common phenomenon called childhood amnesia, we're more likely to remember childhood if we fashion it into a story.
Scrappy Little Nobody
Anna Kendrick (Into the Woods, Pitch Perfect) is releasing a collection of essays, Scrappy Little Nobody, this November. If it’s anything like her Twitter, I’m sure we’ll be laughing. For fans of Kendrick, check out our own Sonya Chung’s review of Up in the Air.
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