Blackout, the recent memoir by Sarah Hepola, chronicles the author’s long struggle with reckless drinking. The title references the total loss of memory she experienced after some of her worst benders. At The Morning News, Rosecrans Baldwin talks with Hepola about her book, amnesia and the nature of memory.
What Happened
David Du-cow-vny
If I told you a famous actor wrote a book called Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale, would you be able to guess the person’s name? The truth is out there.
●
●
Reading from the Man Booker Shortlist
We recently announced the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize. At Granta, you can read an excerpt from Sunjeev Sahota’s The Year of the Runaways, included on the list.
●
●
Little Is Known
Recommended Reading: Anne Boyd Rioux on J.D. Salinger, Harper Lee and the private lives of writers.
●
●
Bodies in Public
Édouard Louis discusses his third book, Who Killed My Father, as well as violence, poverty, and the gilets jaunes movement.
●
●
●
My Many Selves
Recommended Reading: This incredible profile of Maggie Nelson by Hilton Als for The New Yorker. Nelson’s The Red Parts saw a paperback reissue earlier this month.
●
●
Appearing Elsewhere
I have a short story in the latest issue of Avery, a young literary magazine I’ve written about before. Avery 4 also includes fiction by Hannah Tinti, Kevin Canty, Rumaan Alam, Samar Fitzgerald, Sophie Rosenblum, Scott Garson, Callie Collins, James Iredell, Jessica Breheny, Sean Walsh, Anna Villegas, and Michael Bourdaghs. It’s wonderful to have found my story such a sleek and beautiful home, filled with so much good company.Here’s the opening of my tale, called “A Love to Calm the Body”: My grandmother fell in love with her doctor. She liked the way he scrubbed his hands. He also washed his forearms, held them wet in front of his body before taking them to the towel. My grandmother had a weekly appointment; she’d been diagnosed with Hysteria – an excess of emotion, a deep feminine sadness. This was in 1899, when my grandmother was twenty-three, two years married. My mother was only an idea then, hovering at the edges. I wasn’t anything at all.Want to read more? You can order the issue online here.
●
●