Norman Rockwell was an unhappy and enervated man who became iconic by painting scenes of happy, energetic people. He developed a style that became synonymous with idyllic visions of America. At Page-Turner, Lee Siegel reads Deborah Solmon’s American Mirror, a new biography of Rockwell that acknowledges the painter’s contradictions without “mocking or scolding” him for the gulf between his life and his art.
Master of Happy Scenes
“The realization that none of us can ever be free from ourselves”
Mary Ruefle wrote an outstanding essay on her development as a writer. “I remember the first time I realized the world we are born into,” she writes, “is not the one we leave.”
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Welcome to Wild West Egg
You are hotshot Nick Carraway in the 8-bit Nintendo version of The Great Gatsby. Don’t ask questions…just click “z” to shoot.
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The Nobel Curse
A simple question: has the Nobel curse killed Orhan Pamuk? You could just ask President Obama, who recently picked up a copy of Pamuk’s most recent work, A Strangeness in My Mind.
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Shenandoah Online
After publishing print editions for 60 years, Shenandoah has entered the digital game.
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Watkins’s Romantic Sublime
“Too vast for human comprehension, yet at the same time a tabula rasa for each fragile individual’s desires, it’s a classic example of the Romantic sublime, as mesmerising as it is deadly.” The Guardian reviews Year in Reading Alumnus Claire Vaye Watkins’s Gold Fame Citrus. Compare and contrast with our review of the novel.
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