There’s no official protocol for responding to a disappointed fan, but that may change after more writers get wind of this response, written by Threats author Amelia Gray, to a man who complained that her book was “nothing more than conversations among insane people.” Gray admitted that the man’s gripe did, in fact, have merit, after which she urged him to buy a copy of A Time to Kill.
Not Enough Thrills
“The point is not satisfaction”
“The peace may be holding, but the process is faltering,” writes Colum McCann, forty years after the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, in his evaluation of Ireland’s present relationship with the “Troubles.” “It is, of course, naïve to expect total reconciliation,” he continues. “Some grievances are so deep that the people who suffered them will never be satisfied. But the point is not satisfaction — the point is that the present is superior to the past, and it has to be cultivated as such.”
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Dear and Dirty
Haven’t read our own Mark O’Connell’s great new essay at Slate? To mark the hundredth anniversary of Dubliners, Mark paid a visit to the James Joyce House, which led him to reflect on life in his native city. “If you live in Dublin, if you are yourself a Dubliner,” he writes, “no matter how many times you read the book, it will always reveal something profound and essential and unrealized about the city and its people.”
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Unavoidable Anachronism
What can we learn from anachronisms? That mistakes are "ultimately unavoidable – the best you can hope for is to keep them to a minimum and noticeable only by a tiny coterie of demanding experts" - and that if those mistakes are big enough, they can eventually turn into "enduring ideological constructs."
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The Cartoon Curator
Didn't find the latest New Yorker cartoon funny? Take it up with The New Yorker's cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff, who discusses the magazine's "idea drawings" and humor in his TED talk, Anatomy of a New Yorker Cartoon. Bonus: check out Mankoff's favorite New Yorker cartoons.
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BOMB’s Biennial Fiction Content
Have a short story manuscript and you're not sure where to send it? BOMB Magazine's Biennial Fiction Contest, judged by Sheila Heti (who wrote How Should a Person Be? and was interviewed by The Millions here), is accepting submissions until the end of the month.
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Mutual Self-Interest in Bad Decline
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, America needs George Saunders. Fortunately, the editors at The New Yorker's Shouts and Murmurs blog appear to understand this.
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This reminds me of the debut of the ‘MONTY PYTHON’ TV series over forty years ago. Its full title was ‘MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS’ and one disgruntled viewer wrote in to complain that it had neither a character called Monty Python nor any aerial display whatsoever!