“Many writers write vexed introspection, or detail-oriented reporting, or counterintuitive cultural commentary, or lifestyle journalism. But so far only Didion has done all four in perfect synthesis, a prose that, at its best, can fire on every cylinder and work on multiple fields of the imagination at once.” In support of the Kickstarter project for the documentary on Joan Didion, We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, Nathan Heller looks back over Didion’s writing career, her “imaginatively seductive” nonfiction writing and her carefully constructed confessionalism in a piece for Vogue.
Didion’s Perfect Synthesis
Talking with Daniel Woodrell
Winter’s Bone author Daniel Woodrell has a new book out, and to mark the occasion, he talks with Dwyer Murphy of Guernica about his upcoming book tour, Southern poverty and the rejections Winter’s Bone received. Sample quote: “When my family started doing better and my parents encouraged my brothers and me to succeed beyond them, we started asking why our parents were telling us to strive so hard to live in these neighborhoods full of people they clearly resented—and feared too, I think.”
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“His parents were like, ‘Robert!’ / His friends were like, ‘Bob?'”
Kick off your Monday morning with this Aaron Belz poem honoring Evel Knievel, you daredevil, you.
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End of an Era
Fifteen years later, Salman Rushdie and John Le Carre have ended their feud.
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“Jeux de mot-dièse”
The Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologisme – the division of the French government responsible for preserving the integrity of the Gallic language – ruled last week that enough is enough when it comes to “hashtag.” They feel the word is just too English for the banks of the Seine. They recommend instead using the decidedly softer “mot-dièse” (pro: ‘Mo-Dee-YEZ’). Previously the group asked residents to replace “email” with “courriel.”
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I created an internet buzz when I smiled
The Amherst College Archives have discovered what could be the second photograph in existence of Emily Dickinson.
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Interview with John Darnielle
Recommended viewing: John Darnielle talks about his debut novel, Wolf in White Van, in a video for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
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