The 113th anniversary of Thomas Wolfe’s birthday was last Thursday, but the author lives on in America’s cultural memory thanks to the title of his 1940 novel, You Can’t Go Home Again. Unfortunately, the titular phrase seems to be taken at face value by many people these days, and that can lead to some groan-worthy invocations. A newly-minted Tumblr blog illustrates the point.
You Can’t Go Home Again (If You Understand What This Means)
Ulin on King
David Ulin offers a brief consideration of Stephen King. King's work, Ulin writes, "exposes, with real acuity, a lot about who we are."
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Whatever was wrong with Hemingway
In the wake of Jonathan Franzen's much discussed New Yorker essay on Edith Wharton, Laura Miller defends readers who look to an author's life to aid their understanding of a given work: " Byron’s clubfoot, Flannery O’Connor’s lupus, Coleridge’s opium addiction and whatever was wrong with Hemingway do interest many readers because these factors shaped the life experiences from which the great work sprang."
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Rest in Power
"Everyone who’s been reading the manuscript is in tears by the second chapter.” Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, parents of Trayvon Martin, have signed a deal to publish a book titled Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin; its release is scheduled for January 31, 2017. Might we also recommend Ismail Muhammad's piece from earlier this week on Frank Ocean, "looking again," and the black male body – you'll feel more whole for having read it.
Lorin Stein is Drowning in Honey
Newly minted Paris Review editor (and polymorphous enthusiast) Lorin Stein runs down some recent pleasures for More Intelligent Life. To wit: Lipsyte, Dickens, Du Maurier, Nádas, Merle Haggard, newcomer April Ayers Lawson, the Lydia Davis Proust, outer-borough maniacs, and "proletarian erotica"...not necessarily in that order.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Didion, Freud, Obreht
This week's big book release is Joan Didion's memoir Blue Nights. Also out is Esther Freud's Lucky Break and new in paperback, Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife (our review).
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Introducing Stephen King
It seems slightly incredible that anyone doesn't know who Stephen King is, but sometimes "it's precisely those whom we imagine we know, in broad stereotypical terms, who require introductions," as Joyce Carol Oates put it. Luckily, The Oyster Review has provided a handy reader's guide to Stephen King, covering his works from Carrie to On Writing.
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