Recommended Reading: “So I Went Away” by Crapalachia author Scott McClanahan.
“Years passed.”
●
●
Reproduction is a Funny Thing
“Motherhood has always been contested terrain, but for the last decade or so it’s been a virtual battleground; every year, almost like clockwork, we have another flare-up in the so-called Mommy Wars, with another Tiger Mom or Get-Back-To-Work-er or Can’t Have It all-er launching a grenade as prelude to a book tour. And as much as I have an obvious stake in these battles as a mother and a feminist, I’ve come to find them depressingly repetitive, all sound and fury but offering little in terms of the policies that might actually affect our decisions.” At the LARB, Stephanie Bower gives her take on Why Have Kids?, Jessica Valenti’s new treatise on parenting.
●
●
Franzen on HBO’s The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen dishes about the forthcoming HBO adaptation of The Corrections.
●
●
Keep It in Your Pants and out of the Plot
Terrible sex writing spans the globe according to this year’s Bad Sex Award shortlist. It includes: My Education by Susan Choi, The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood, House of Earth by Woody Guthrie, Motherland by William Nicholson, The Victoria System by Eric Reinhardt, The World Was All Before Them by Matthew Reynolds, The City of Devi by Manil Suri, and Secrecy by Rupert Thomson. The winner will be announced on December 3.
●
●
Write / Right / Night / Owl
Kathryn Schulz’s meditation on insomnia, on staying up late and writing deep into the night.
Ellis Interviewed
Ahead of the release of Imperial Bedrooms, Vice has an interview with Bret Easton Ellis. “All my friends moved to Brooklyn. The only people I know in Manhattan are rich, and it just seems like, you know, the party was fun, but it’s kind of over for me. LA seemed to be the place to land.”
●
●