“The poor boy losing the rich girl is a common theme in Fitzgerald’s work, and the original model was surely his relationship with Ginerva King.” AKA the real Daisy Buchanan, who, might I note, looks nothing at all like Carey Mulligan.
The real Daisy Buchanan
The Real Deal
“Now, I’m not going to lie. It’s annoying, to have to take time out of my incredibly busy writing schedule in order to spell it all out for young people, just because they spend most of their daylight hours being urged by hoary old theorists in threadbare sweaters to write experimental fiction that will never sell. But I care deeply about the young—all of them, the world’s young—so of course I am humbled and honored to share the trade secrets embedded in my rigorous daily work schedule.” Heather Havrilesky on her writing life.
Book Discoverability
Millions staff writer Patrick Brown put together a case study (featuring graphs!) on how books get “discovered.” Spoiler alert: there’s no “magic bullet.”
Stephen Fry’s Culture Shock
Stephen Fry uses the Alabama-Auburn Iron Bowl to summarize the state of America.
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Fences
Growing up in California, our own Michael Bourne didn’t have a full sense of his own privilege until 1981, when a chance encounter with a group of teenagers dressed up as skeletons woke him up to the realities of segregation in America. In a long essay for Orange Coast Review, he goes over the meaning of that incident, complete with meditations on Marin County, his abandoned early novel and his family’s history in Danville, Virginia. Pair with: Michael’s piece for The Millions on Tess Taylor’s The Forage House.
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“The Snowy Day” Gets a Stamp Series
Iconic illustrations from Ezra Jack Keats‘ The Snowy Day will become part of the United States Postal Service’s “Forever” series. The four stamps will feature Peter, the little brown boy in his famous red snowsuit, in various states of play. See also: our own Edan Lepucki on children’s books and their grown-up counterparts.
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Only Connect
Recommended Reading: Anything that Vivian Gornick writes. Here’s an essay from The New York Times on how literature ages and rereading E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End. Our own Lydia Keisling also wrote a fantastic piece on the Forster classic.
Yes, Kate
Recommended (Revolutionary) Reading: On why Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics remains so relevant to today’s most heated literary arguments, despite its being nearly fifty years old at this point.