Object narrative (n): a story told through meditations on various physical objects. Examples include Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes; Neil MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects; and Paula Byrne’s The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things.
The Materialist
New Fiction by a Classic Writer
New Directions has just released The Complete Stories of Brazilian legend Clarice Lispector, newly translated by Katrina Dodson and edited by Benjamin Moser. There are eight stories in the collection that had never before appeared in English: “Covert Joy,” “Remnants of Carnival,” “Brasília,” “Beauty and the Beast or The Big Wound, “One Day Less” (one of the two final stories left in manuscript at Lispector’s death), “Gertrudes Asks for Advice,” “Another Couple of Drunks,” and “The Escape.” Check out Magdalena Edwards‘s Millions review of the collection.
●
●
Quiet Creature
“João Gilberto Noll frustrates attempts to foresee the plot or to craft stories as they are traditionally understood and written. The series of events that appear in them are as tenuously linked into a broader narrative as those of a dream.” An interview with Noll translator Adam Morris.
●
●
Colson Whitehead on Making Eccentric Ideas Plausible
Colson Whitehead reflects on the fantastic fiction he consumed as a child and how it made the most eccentric ideas seem plausible.
●
●
●
RIP William Gay
I am very sad to report that William Gay, whom we featured in our “Post-40 Bloomers” series last fall, died on Friday, at the age of 68. From Clarksville Online: “At first, I would send a story to the New Yorker and when it came back, I’d send it to The Atlantic, or Harper’s or Esquire. I didn’t know about the college literary magazines but when I found out about them, I started getting published. After I finally got published in the Georgia Review, I got a call from the editor at The Atlantic. He asked why I wasn’t sending them something because they’d like to publish my work. I told him I’d been sending things for years. He said they never got to his desk. I had to wonder what kind of operation they were running.” Look for his final novel The Lost Country, hopefully coming soon.
●
●
From the Dept. of Whaaa?
Mystery author James Patterson has written a novel called The Murder of Steven King that apparently describes the eponymous author’s death at the hands of a deranged fan. While King declined to comment on the book, he has in the past said of Patterson that the latter is “a terrible writer but he’s very successful.” And now you must read our editor-in-chief Lydia Kiesling’s essay, “Everything I Know About America I Learned from Stephen King.”
Two Dollar Radio Moving Pictures
Indie press Two Dollar Radio announced today that they’re launching Two Dollar Radio Moving Pictures, a micro-budget film division. They’ll open with three new projects (announcement video here) funded by a newly-opened IndieGoGo campaign. Donors will not only be contributing to a worthwhile venture from one of America’s best small publishers, but they’ll also be in line to receive a heap of sweet perks from the likes of Grace Krilanovich, Karolina Waclawiak, Joshua Mohr, and Scott McClanahan. Bonus: publisher (and Millions contributor) Eric Obenauf spoke with Paul Martone for the Late Night Library podcast.
●
●