Apart from calling up visions of a Carver–Mailer axis of literary minimalism, these remarks by Joyce Carol Oates upon winning the Mailer Prize convince us that Mailer had quite the unflappable ego.
“Norman was the very antithesis of minimalism”
No Bill the Butcher?
If Martin Scorsese develops a TV series based on Gangs of New York but it doesn’t feature Daniel Day-Lewis or Leonardo DiCaprio, will anybody watch it?
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Who She’s Writing For
Dispatch From the Future and The Fallback Plan author Leigh Stein explains that she is writing her forthcoming memoir, Land of Enchantment, for “everyone who’s been to more funerals than weddings, everyone who lurks on the Internet late at night looking at pictures of their lost loves, everyone who cries when a certain song comes on the radio because they think it must be a sign.”
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No Bastion for Books
"She gathered books to display for attendees and discovered that inside the cover of one, 'The Koran for Dummies,' someone had written “lies cover to cover,” drawn a swastika and made a disparaging remark about the Prophet Muhammad." The president of the American Library Association reports “startling increases” in 2016 of vandalism, including hateful messages, at libraries. The Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom has begun formally tracking such incidents to determine whether the increase is “a blip or a trend.”
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Tell Us More About Yourself
A few weeks ago, I wrote about an event at which Don’t Kiss Me author Lindsay Hunter teamed up with songwriter Holly Miranda for an interesting reading-cum-concert. Now, at The Nervous Breakdown, the writer conducts an interview with none other than herself.
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Internet Participation
Recommended Reading: The New Republic on public participation and the Internet. “Did you know that as originally conceived the web was supposed to be writable? That is, you wouldn’t just read a web page, but you’d be able to edit it, too, from right inside your browser.” Our own Elizabeth Minkel writes about fanfiction and its influence on academics.
Old Favorites
Looking for more thoughts on My Life in Middlemarch to supplement today's interview? At Salon, Laura Miller reviews Rebecca Mead’s book, which she calls a "moving demonstration" of Middlemarch's power. (You could also read Adelle Waldman's Year in Reading piece about the novel.)
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Marty the Monster
True Detective ended weeks ago, but someone once told me, “Time is a flat circle,” and that everything we've ever done or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over again. And this piece on the show’s finale by Lili Loofbourow is going to be the best one you’ll read on the internet again and again and again forever. (Bonus: Our own Ujala Sehgal crafted a reading list based on one of the show’s [missing] elements.)