Sound the Franzen alarm! The Corrections and Freedom author will release a new book in 2015. Called Purity, the book will supposedly feature elements of magical realism (or something like it). Head over to Vulture for more.
New Franzen in 2015
Hard Time
One of the more common questions that comes up in The Nervous Breakdown’s self-interviews is what the subjects consider to be the hardest part of the writing life. The most recent edition sees Jac Jemc, whose latest came out last week, admit that time is what foils her: “Everything takes longer than I think it will, more drafts than I think it will.” This might be a good time to look back on some earlier examples of the form.
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What Was the Hipster?
n+1 posts several amusing excerpts from their “What Was The Hipster?: A Sociological Investigation” piece to be released in full later this month: “Like ‘douchebag,’ ‘hipster’ was a name that no one could apply to oneself. But the opportunity to call someone else a ‘douchebag’: that offered the would-be hipster a means of self-identification by a name one could say, looking outward. In the douchebag, the hipster had found its Other.”
Punctuation Party
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Matt Kish on his Heart of Darkness Illustrations
In November, Matt Kish will write a series of guest posts for Tin House’s Open Bar Blog. He’ll be “exploring some of the ideas and processes behind five of [his] Heart of Darkness illustrations.” Over on his personal blog, however, he’s asking for readers to help him select which five pieces he should discuss. Kish, who has previously illustrated the pages of Moby Dick, was recently mentioned in our Great Second-Half 2013 Book Preview.
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Hooray! 10 months of ridiculous JFranz hype!
The “magical realism” bit is just hilarious. A hit of intellectual crack for the boring-ass upper crust white folks he writes his entertainments for.
And the title – I think he’s eventually just going to start arrogantly titling every book “Life”.
The only silver lining? Perhaps this will present an opportunity for critics to revisit Freedom, realize how utterly terrible and dated that entertainment is, and retract the insane praise previously lavished upon it.