“The cause of death/was living/the immediate cause/of death was/living in Moscow.” At n +1’s website, Ainsley Morse and Bela Shayevich excerpt their translations of the Soviet poet Vsevolod Nekrasov.
Opiates
Genre: A Map
This week in book-related internet graphics: Penguin has created an interactive map of literary genres, complete with some very creatively shaped “countries”. As Electric Literature points out, “the fact that the map is aimed at current self-publishing authors explains why YA is it’s own continent while genres like Gothic fiction don’t exist.”
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Smiley; Pittard; Donohue; Cook; Gavron; Roth; MacFarlane; Barthelme; Rankine; Robinson
Out this week: Some Luck by Jane Smiley; Reunion by Hannah Pittard; The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue; Man V. Nature by Diane Cook; The Hilltop by Assaf Gavron; The Hundred Days by Joseph Roth; The Figures of Beauty by David MacFarlane; There Must Be Some Mistake by Frederick Barthelme; Citizen by Claudia Rankine; and Lila by Marilynne Robinson. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
●
●
Rejecting Tidy Narratives
For Lenny, Lidia Yuknavitch talks about suffering, art, and her path to writing. “I believe in art the way other people believe in God,” she says. For more of her writing, check out her Millions essay on grief that births art.
In the Middle of the Affair
“We look to lovers to heal us, to complete us, to give us the kind of comfort that can only be found in the work that we do inside of ourselves. It’s an inside job, as they say in twelve-step programs.” Talking with Melissa Febos about her memoir, Abandon Me.
●
●
A Return to Form
“As a writer, it’s not like all experience is useful, but when something is troubling, a form can present itself as a way to think. To put what is essentially chaotic into a container where it can be what it is.” The Rumpus interviews John Freeman, the Executive Editor of LitHub, about his recent literary projects, the death of his mother, and empathy. Pair with: Contributing Editor Nick Ripatrazone‘s Year in Reading which includes Freeman’s debut poetry collection, Maps.
The Opposite of Slouching
“Aspiring journalists tend to worship at the altar of Joan Didion,” writes Heather Havrilesky (who some of you may know as Polly) in the latest issue of Bookforum. The fact that so many writers look up to Didion as an example necessitates that the lit world find at least one offbeat alternative. In Havrilesky’s eyes, that alternative is obvious: the late Nora Ephron was the anti-Didion, she argues.
I “Love” This.
I’m glad someone started this blog of unnecessary quotations marks for me. (via @narrativemag).