What if the Tour de France nearly ground to a halt due to fiction? Imagine the best bikers in the world reading themselves into injury. At The Morning News, our own Matt Seidel imagines the chaos, making clear what happens when professional athletes meet page-turners. You could also read Matt’s essay on Tim Krabbé’s book The Rider.
Zen and the Art of Failing at the Tour de France
A Bolaño Gallery Show
“Rockslide Sky,” an exhibition of art inspired by Roberto Bolaño‘s story “Gomez Palacio,” has just completed its run at Fordham University’s Center Gallery/Lipani Gallery…but a slideshow lives on in cyberspace. (I like feel this one would have made a nice cover for Last Evenings on Earth, but Bolañophiles may want to click through all 18.)
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The Slow Cookers
Dwight Garner, writing in the current issue of The New York Times Magazine, laments that so many high-end American novelists seem to be working on “the nine-year plan,” delivering a new novel roughly once a decade. He cites Jeffrey Eugenides, who will be out soon with The Marriage Plot, his third novel in 18 years, along with such slow cookers as Jonathan Franzen, Donna Tartt and Michael Chabon. One name Garner neglected to mention is the Pulitzer Prize-winner William Kennedy, who will be out next month with Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes, the eighth installment in his Albany cycle and his first novel since Roscoe appeared nine years and nine months ago. Look for our review of it here next month.
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F-O-R-T-E
When spelling bees are so fun you think they might be your calling, it’s understandable that a serious loss might haunt you for quite some time.
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An Interview With Helen DeWitt
Helen DeWitt talks to Bookforum about the origins of her long (as in really long!)-awaited second novel, Lightning Rods.
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