“I’ve been asked what differentiates war literature as a category, and I don’t think there is anything.” The Daily Beast interviews Phil Klay about the National Book Award, Redeployment, and the concept of war literature.
Phil Klay on “War Literature”
A Bimbo, A Gold Digger, and a Fat Pig Walk Into a Bar
“The faceoff with the Tomato would be mental, not physical. He’d accuse her of being on the rag, a bimbo, a gold digger, a fat pig.” A Trump-inspired short story by Year in Reading alumna Darcey Steinke.
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Borges and Bergoglio
In an interview with America Magazine, Pope Francis admits that the authors he most admires are Fyodor Dostoevsky, Johann Hölderlin, The Betrothed author Alessandro Manzoni, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. He also goes on to share an interesting anecdote about his compatriot Jorge Luis Borges: “In the end I decided to send Borges two stories written by [the secondary school] boys [I was teaching]. I knew his secretary, who had been my piano teacher. And Borges liked those stories very much. And then he set out to write the introduction to a collection of these writings.”
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A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left
“She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye 16 times or 24 times if it was Wednesday.” In poet Neil Hilborn’s slam poem “OCD,” he discusses what it’s like for a person with obsessive compulsive disorder to fall in love and incorporates his tics in the performance.
Serial Stories
Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, launches his novel Belgravia today, and it’s bringing back serialization. Our own Garth Risk Hallberg writes on the literary pedigree of Downton Abbey.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Sayles, Mieville, Theroux, Habila, Drabble, Donoghue, Cronin
The huge, McSweeney’s-published, John Sayles novel A Moment in the Sun has been getting great reviews. It’s now out. Also new this week is China Mieville’s Embassytown, reviewed here today; Paul Theroux’s exploration of the genre of travel writing, The Tao of Travel; prizewinning Nigerian author Helon Habila’s new novel Oil on Water; and A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, the complete stories of Margaret Drabble, recently written up by Joyce Carol Oates in the New Yorker. New in paperback are a pair of Millions Hall of Famers, Emma Donoghue’s Room and Justin Cronin’s The Passage.
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