“I didn’t want to like Jess Walter.” Ann K. Ryles interviews Jess Walter about his new short story collection We Live in Water, fatherhood, poverty, and what he daydreams about while waiting in line at the grocery store at The Rumpus.
Grocery Shopping with Jess Walter
Does this mean Will Ferrell will play Steve Eisman?
The man who directed such Will Ferrell vehicles as Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers is turning toward the world of finance for his next movie project. That’s right. Adam McKay is adapting Michael Lewis’s The Big Short for the big screen.
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It Was Happening
“Stop smoking, first of all, and then don’t hold your breath, don’t cough, do not for any reason pick up heavy packages, boxes, suitcases. Never lean over, or dive headfirst into water. The carnal throes of passion were forbidden, because even an ardent kiss could cause my veins to burst.” At long last, Lina Meruane’s semi-autobiographical novel Seeing Red has been published in English. Meruane has long been hailed as one of the most brilliant South American writers that American readers had probably never heard of.
“The quality of detaching itself from its period”
“For a man who is making his living as a critic to write about Scott Fitzgerald without mentioning The Great Gatsby just means that he doesn’t know his business. Many people consider The Great Gatsby one of the few classic American novels. I do myself. Obviously such a judgment is debatable.” The New Republic digs up a tribute by John Dos Passos.
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McSweeney’s Issue Release Party
L.A.-based readers might be interested in the McSweeney’s Issue 37 release party at 826LA West on Monday, May 9th at 8 pm. I’ll be reading, along with fellow contributors Kevin Moffett and Larain Newman. The event will be hosted by Josh Bearman, and musician Tristen will perform.
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“An index also lays out the complexity of the book into pristine statements”
In a neat little essay for Vouched Books, Kyle Winkler advocates indexing as a means of tempering the “fuckstorm of reading.”
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