Professor Díaz

“I was being paranoid, but those of us who write memoirs should never underestimate the damage they can cause. I’ve seen close relationships rocked by a memoir. I’ve seen parents stop speaking to their children for years. Memoirs pose a natural threat to the family mythology, those portraits framed on the mantel piece that say everyone is happy and nothing is wrong.” Sarah Hepola asks her mother and father what it felt like to be portrayed in her memoir, Blackout.

The Critterati pets-in-literary-garb contest ends at midnight tonight!  You can view a gallery of the submissions as they appear, and some of them are phenomenal.  I especially like Humbert Humbert.  I don’t know how these people got their animals to cooperate (drugs, probably).  Big Ed and Nadine, aged six months, made it quite clear that under no circumstances would they be dressed up as Lata and Kabir from A Suitable Boy (what am I supposed to do with this tiny cardboard cricket bat now?)  Henry and June was also a non-starter, but that might have been unkind to do to siblings, anyway.  No one wants to see his sister chew up a garter belt. Evidently I’m not the only one to encounter massive opposition.

Hachette Audio has composed a 56-hour long audiobook version of Infinite Jest. In case you’re wondering: no, they don’t read the endnotes; they’re provided as a “bonus PDF.” Also, The Huffington Post gathered two audio excerpts.