In memory of Peter Matthiessen, The Missouri Review has unlocked an interview with him from 1989. Matthiessen detailed the beginning of his writing career. “I started my first novel and sent off about four chapters and waited by the post office for praise to roll in, calls from Hollywood, everything. Finally my agent sent me a letter that said ‘Dear Peter, James Fenimore Cooper wrote this a hundred and fifty years ago, only he wrote it better. Yours, Bernice.’ I probably needed that; it was very healthy.” For more Matthiessen, you can read one of his best travel essays or his new novel, In Paradise.
Matthiessen’s Beginnings
One-Night Reads
“Ever since, I have added a new layer of rules for my casual sex partners, especially when I end up in their space: I ask them for a book prior to exiting. I might phrase it more diplomatically, saying ‘I just want to read something on my train-ride back,’ or ‘I just finished my last book and I have been looking for the next one.’ Via this simple action I can estimate a lot more on a broad scale of very personal information and variation of taste than what I could possibly collect through hours of post-coital, emotional interrogation.” Seven books Elias Tezapsidis acquired through casual sex.
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Masters of Names
Georgy Manaev investigates the pen names of famous Russian writers, from Maxim Gorky to Chekhov. Pair with this Millions piece on literary names that are hard to pronounce.
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Lambda Literary Award Finalists
Congratulations to the Lambda Literary Award Finalists, who were announced this week. Finalists include Carrie Brownstein, Matthew Spender (our review of his memoir), and Truman Capote.
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Zeitgeist-y
“We get the book adaptations we deserve… We need to re-tell these stories over and over because each generation sees them in a different way, needs different things from them. We tell these stories again and again, their survival over time proof of their intrinsic value. People are writing new Zeitgeist-y things all the time of course, but we return to classics because the stories have endured for a reason.” Sky Friedlander on the “Literary Period Piece.”
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A Handful of Links
“Though statements have been issued over the years, no one has ever provided full disclosure of the alleged 1974 government experiment called OPERATION EMU (Experimental Mitigated Universe) during which an entire Hollywood film crew, contracted by the government, disappeared in a remote section of Nevada.” Is this Web site a mysterious government coverup of the ravings of a lunatic? Neither. It’s the marketing campaign of a writer shopping his manuscript. (thanks, R.J.)The University of Nebraska Press has a blog. They’ve been plugging away at the blog since January, but I hadn’t seen it until today, when I got an email about it.New issues of The Virginia Quarterly Review and Narrative Magazine are out.
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Tennessee Williams’s College Days
The Strand Magazine is publishing a previously unseen Tennessee Williams short story in its spring issue. “Crazy Night” is about Williams’s lovelorn college days when he describes sex like “vaccination the first day of school.”
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The Los Angeles Review of Books has a great interview, one of the last ones Matthiessen gave. It’s far more enlightening at this moment. I urge everyone to read it and contemplate Matthiessen’s impact.