“It just goes to show you: it’s not just luck you need to have a successful literary career. It’s luck, piled on luck, piled on luck again, and around the corner, you need another sprinkling of it” says Michelle Dean, after investigating Stephen King’s rise in response partly to Dwight Allen’s “Snob Notes” on the author. Colin Dickey and Sarah Langan have both previously weighed on on Allen’s essay and King’s particular strengths.
King’s Critics
Beach Reads
From Ian McEwan to Iris Murdoch, The Guardian offers a list of the 10 best seaside novels. Pair with our own Mark O'Connell's account of a close encounter with John Banville, whose The Sea makes the #8 spot.
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Wallace’s Former Student
David Foster Wallace's former student, Adam Plunkett, recounts studying with the polite, Midwestern, sometimes embarrassing professor whom he knew as Dave during the spring of his junior year at Pomona College, where Wallace worked until his death that September.
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Today in Irish Poetry
Need a dose of new Irish poetry in your life? The Irish Times (naturally) has you covered. In the Saturday edition, John McAuliffe reviews two new and notable collections: The Boys of Bluehill by Eilean Ni Chuilleanain and The Days of Surprise by Paul Durcan.
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Story from Lucia Berlin
Recommended Reading: “The Musical Vanity Boxes” by Lucia Berlin at Electric Literature.
Addendum: Though I hadn’t seen it by the time I wrote this post, Alan Jacobs also has a pointed defense of Stephen King (in response to Allen’s snobbery) over at The Atlantic.