The trailer for City on Fire, Garth Risk Hallberg’s highly anticipated 944-page debut novel, is finally here. The trailer features a new song by Paul Maroon and Year in Reading alumnus Hamilton Leithauser. Also check out the opening paragraph of the novel.
New York City on Fire
Happy Days
In the late fifties, an old flame of Samuel Beckett, Ethna MacCarthy, fell ill and died of throat cancer in Dublin. Around this time, female voices began to enter Beckett’s work, which up until that point had featured almost exclusively male characters. Was there a connection? In a review of a new edition of Beckett’s letters, Fintan O’Toole suggests that there was. You could also read Elizabeth Winkler on the author’s bilingual oeuvre.
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Children Coming Together
Lynda Barry illustrates Carrie (of horror fame) and Heidi (of childhood book fame) meeting for the first time.
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Working Title
Our own Hannah Gersen writes for Catapult on titling her debut novel, Home Field. As she puts it, “The idea that a title could dissuade a reader was not something I had even considered.” Pair with Bill Morris’s Millions interview with the author.
The Trouble with Explainers, with Making Things Smaller
“There’s much to be commended in the work done by FiveThirtyEight, or even Vox,” writes Millions contributor Brian Ted Jones. “But making problems seem smaller then they are is a harm that outweighs all the good.” He goes on to tie together the rise of “explainer” sites, the problem with “hashtag activism,” and also references to Louis C.K., Teju Cole, and Leslie Jamison.
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The NYRB Classics Spring 2014 Preview
NYRB Classics just released the first installment of their Spring 2014 Preview, and it features the likes of William H. Gass, Jean-Patrick Manchette, and Qiu Miaojin. Stay tuned for the second installment, which they say will come soon.