Recommended Viewing: Julian Peters illustrated T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” as a comic.
Prufrock in Panels
Six Books in Twenty Years
"Whatever the facts of her life – whether she turned out to be an ancient man living in the Icelandic interior or a woman waiting tables at a Texan diner – Ferrante writes in an autobiographical mode. That is fuel for the truthers, a sort of literary ankle-flashing. But it is also good cover for another motive: a very contemporary form of envy of another’s autonomous space and their creativity, a rage that while they give us their work, they will not also give us their person." On a new collection of Elena Ferrante's letters, interviews and short pieces.
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New from Ann Beattie
In the Fall 2015 issue of VQR, check out new fiction from Ann Beattie. You could also read our recent interview with the author.
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Baby It’s Warm Outside
“It turned out that the most successful Christmas records tended to have two common qualities: catchy, upbeat melodies and imagined unlikely scenarios for anthropomorphized yuletide characters.” Move over, Frosty! It’s beginning to look a lot like … an unseasonably warm December. Here is a brief history of Christmas songs and of their often-surprising rise from corny kitsch to global sensation.
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PW Reviews Late American Novel and More
The book I co-edited, The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, got its Publishers Weekly review this week - a very nice writeup. Also spotted this week, a longer consideration of the book at tumblr Feriatus.
Responding to Sexual Violence
“Eventually, the judicial bureaucracy begins to seem almost as destructive as the rapist.” Domenica Ruta writes on Emily Winslow’s Jane Doe January and Joanna Connors’ I Will Find You, two books that probe our culture’s failure to address sexual violence. Pair with a piece on poetry as a response to sexual violence.
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