Self-styled music critic Patrick Bateman, the protagonist of Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel American Psycho, certainly had a lot to say about 80s mainstays like Genesis and Huey Lewis and the News. Over at The New Inquiry, J. Temperance argues for Steve Winwood as Patrick Bateman’s musical doppelgänger. Go ahead and take a look at this essay by Bill Morris of The Millions on The Canyons, a film for which Ellis wrote the screenplay.
Back in the High Life Again
Making a Documentary
Recommended Reading: This essay from The Rumpus on Netflix’s Making a Murderer and “bad families.”
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Dubus on Love and Class
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Google Hangout with Gene Luen Yang
If you like comic books, diverse characters and / or our recent article on Gene Luen Yang, pay close attention to the internet on Monday afternoon. Yang will be part of a Google Hangout on the 4th to talk about his book Boxers & Saints with a reporter TIME for Kids and BookUp, two outlets for young readers, and the chat can be streamed live beginning at 2pm EST.
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The Open Destiny of Life
“How can you write a complete story without a conventional plot? We often hear that in short stories, the main character must change. But in some stories, including some by Grace Paley, the characters don’t change. Instead, her stories change the reader. You’re different by the time you reach the end.” We’ve told you about The Atlantic’s “By Heart” series plenty of times before. This week, it’s Alice Mattison, who touches on everything from character development to the strange stories of Grace Paley.
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Overlooked Heroines of the African-American Press
"Ida B. Wells was part of a much larger network of black women journalists who dared to wield their pens in the names of truth and justice."
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What’s So Great?
“Diversity matters. Not only in what we look like, or what religion we practice, or in whom we love, but also in how we live our lives, including the order in which we go about things, the seasons in which we are able to create art.” Robin Black wonders “What’s So Great About Young Writers?” in a piece for the New York Times. Pair with our own series celebrating writers who got their start after 40.
“A Native Son” in Ferguson
“It is early August. A black man is shot by a white policeman. And the effect on the community is of “a lit match in a tin of gasoline.” No, this is not Ferguson, MO.” Laila Lalami reports for NPR on rereading James Baldwin‘s Notes of a Native Son in the context of Ferguson. Pair with Teju Cole‘s essay in The New Yorker about rereading Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village.”
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