True Detective director Cary Fukunaga will soon turn his attention to a biopic about Alexandre Dumas’s father.
“The Black Count”
“The New York Times, the paper of record, had written a fictitious character to verify a fact.”
Patrick Somerville’s latest novel, This Bright River, was recently reviewed in The New York Times by Janet Maslin, who found the book to be, among other things, “soggy.” Unfortunately, some of her critique was based on a mistaken reading of Somerville’s work. I’ll let Patrick take it from here.
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Speaking with Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman spoke with NPR’s Weekend Edition about his issues with depth perception, his work habits, his changing art interests, and how Maus came about. Bonus: Charles-Adam Foster-Simard checked out the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Spiegelman exhibit last summer.
Now That’s What I Call an Elastic Product!
Meet the latest woman to join the “Billionaire’s Club.” Her name is Sara Blakely, and she invented Spanx.
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Poetry Can Be Anything
“He taught me that poetry can be anything and with that comes great freedom.” Reminiscences by a former student of the poet John Ashbery upon his death. And for a contemporary take on the question of just what, exactly, poetry is and/or might be, see our recent conversation between Jill Bialosky and Matthew Zapruder.
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Appearing Elsewhere
German readers of The Millions, if you’re out there (or people with friends in Germany): I’ll be reading in Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin this week from Ein Naturführer der amerikanischen familie. Please come!
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New Novel from David Mitchell
David Mitchell fans, good news! The author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas will publish a new novel called Slade House this coming October. Even better? It’s based on his short-story-via-Twitter, “The Right Sort,” which The Millions first collected and published.