Recommended Reading: Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Nervous Breakdown self-interview. (FYI, you can read an excerpt of Nguyen’s latest book over at Bloom.)
Much to Sympathize With
Living Characters
“I don’t think writing the truth makes you strong by default. I think it makes you vulnerable, which in turn can make you strong.” Amy Jo Burns writes for Ploughshares about the difficulties of “Writing About Other People” and the upcoming publication of her debut memoir, Cinderland.
Times: New Film and Book Claim Five New J.D. Salinger Books to Be Published Starting in 2015
The Times is reporting that a new film and companion book (Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno) “include detailed assertions that Mr. Salinger instructed his estate to publish at least five additional books — some of them entirely new, some extending past work — in a sequence that he intended to begin as early as 2015.” One of the books is said to include a retooled version of Salinger’s unpublished (but available at the Princeton library) story “The Last and Best of the Peter Pans.” Kristopher Jansma (The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards) wrote about the story for us in 2011. Bonus Link: Garth Risk Hallberg on Salinger’s legacy.
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Fight the Dad-Bod
Is the “Dad-bod” a harmless internet trend or an organizational principle of patriarchy? Vishnu Strangeways at The New Inquiry sides with the latter. Our own Edan Lepucki wrote a particularly relevant piece for The Millions on Beyoncé and the problem with feminist anthems–here it is.
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Faking It
Photography was fake long before Photoshop came into the picture.
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My Life You’re Writing
“Blackness in the white imagination has nothing to do with black people.” Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American Lyric, is interviewed over at The Guardian on everything from Serena Williams to her emotionally volatile book signings to the inescapability of racism.
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Thanks for Nothing, Dickens
Want to publish anonymously (and then stay that way)? Be thankful you’re not friends with Charles Dickens.
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