If you know that Patricia Highsmith wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley, you know that she’s an exceptional authority on the workings of the criminal mind. At The Paris Review Daily, Dan Piepenbring digs up an old interview with the author, in which she describes the act of murder as “the opposite of freedom.” You could also read Tana French on Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train.
Dark Thoughts
Tuesday New Release Day: Thiong’o; Mason; Gerard; Romm; Grøndahl; Grant
Out this week: Devil on the Cross by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o; Void Star by Zachary Mason; Sunshine State by Sarah Gerard; Double Bind, edited by Robin Romm; Often I Am Happy by Jens Christian Grøndahl; and Cave Dwellers by Richard Grant. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
A resolution
On the relative statuses of literary, mainstream, and genre fiction: a resolution. (From Stephanie Anderson, manager of WORD in Brooklyn.)
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William Gibson’s Zero History
The New York Times reviews William Gibson’s new novel Zero History: “To read Gibson is to read the present as if it were the future...” Also: Douglas Gorney interviews Gibson for the Atlantic.
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Fair Warning for Writers
Joe Hiland, The Indiana Review's fiction editor, has some advice for writers who submit to his (or any) magazine. He also lists "the three types of stories I most often reject because I feel like I’ve read them before."
Writerly Pets, cont.
And now, Writers and Kitties, untrammeled delight. Via The New Yorker Book Bench.
Good Grief
With his depressive musings, Charlie Brown was the original Morrissey. At "This Charming Charlie" tumblr, Lauren LoPrete pairs The Smiths lyrics with Peanuts comics to hilarious effect.
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