“It suddenly went off: ‘Oh, fuck, I’m going to try it as a novel, aren’t I?’ A terrifying realization because John Lennon is such an iconic figure—and the feeling I get out around there, this kind of eeriness, this kind of strange haunted reverberation. I mean, the fuckin’ Atlantic is a really weird thing to grow up right beside.” Millions staff writer Bill Morris sat down with Kevin Barry to talk about his new book, Beatlebone, and about the trouble of getting John Lennon’s voice right on the page. Morris has brought you a bit on Barry in the past.
Imagine All the Islands
Viva the Memoir!
Deb Olin Unferth’s memoir Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War hits shelves today. To celebrate the genre, she’s curated a special section in this month’s Guernica, with selections by Joshua Cohen and Rozalia Jovanovic, and forthcoming pieces by Porochista Khakpour and Clancy Martin.
Press Play
The New York Times unveiled a new music blog entitled Press Play. Each week, the blog will “present tracks from an upcoming new album.”
Seeing Van Gogh
“‘What pleases the PUBLIC is always what’s most banal,’ he wrote to his brother in 1883. But nowadays Van Gogh pleases the public enormously. So has he become banal?” Julian Barnes reflects on Van Gogh’s life and work and how our perception of him has changed over time in a London Review of Books podcast. Interested in contemporary art? Check out our own Bill Morris’s piece on the Whitney Museum.
Nowhere, Indiana
“Only the moon can judge Indiana. It’s a state that mostly gets ignored, and occasionally ridiculed, by the rest of the country, but no matter. Anyone is welcome to come here and see a reflection of themselves in the unlikeliest places, no matter what any law says.” Adam Fleming Petty on “Writing from the Nowhere State.”
Compressed Madness
In a conversation from Upstairs at the Strand, Year in Reading alumnus Junot Díaz and Hilton Als discuss masculinity, science fiction, realism and truth, and representations of Latino culture. Pair with Paul Morton’s Millions interview with Díaz.
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A Writer at Heart
“Vivian Lee is the kind of editor you want on your team: a writer at heart who understands the sometimes painful creative process, a fierce advocate when it comes to supporting her authors, and always at the ready with a hilarious tweet up her sleeve.” Check out an interview with Lee at The Rumpus. You could also read a piece in which a few editors share their experiences with their first acquisitions.
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Stalker Sunday
In celebration of Geoff Dyer‘s Zona, discussed on The Millions here and here, Galley Cat is hosting an online viewing party of Tarkovsky‘s Stalker this Sunday.