“There was a plan a few years ago, during the crisis of unaccompanied minors arriving on our southern border, to send a copy of The Beast, Óscar Martínez’s extraordinary account of Central American migration to the U.S., to every member of Congress. How many of them read it? And how many of those who read it changed their position? Did any anti-immigrant populist show an ounce of humanity or generosity as a result?” Daniel Alarcón, author of At Night We Walk In Circles, on recommending a book to the president.
I Feel a Pang
…And If You Still Want More on The Pale King
I can’t recommend John Jeremiah Sullivan‘s 7,000-word article on The Pale King highly enough – not because he gets everything right, but because it’s what long-form writing about books should look like: passionate, lucid, wide-ranging, and awfully fun to read. I salute GQ for running it, and hope to see more literary coverage there in the future.
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Odd Bits
Pig-blood-flavored ice cream and Crispy Testicles anyone? Jennifer McLagan, Australian-born, Toronto-based author-chef, teaches us how to cook the rest of the animal in her new book, Odd Bits.
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Fiction About Failure
Despite recently winning the Booker Prize, Howard Jacobson writes a list of his favorite novels about failure for the WSJ: “This category is, of necessity, a crowded one. Novelists are drawn to failure. Those who prosper, or expect to prosper, in the world as it is have no need to re-imagine it.”
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Brief Likenesses
“Armand’s characters all seem both hugely present and in life’s juice and simultaneously dead, as if rent of brain, nerves, chest, stomach, intestines … Without gods and devils these patients feel that only fire can save them, existing eternally unless burned away.” Australian novelist Louis Armand’s newest, Abacus, is reviewed by Richard Marshall at 3:AM Magazine.
God Save the Queen
This one won’t do much to lift the Sunday spirits, but it’s an important read nonetheless. Here’s Ed Miliband’s thoughtful essay at the London Review of Books on the growing inequality problem in Britain, which should look very familiar to those of us stateside. Here are a couple of less depressing Britain-related links to bring you back around.
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Visions Beyond Imagining
“Hell-bent on researching the most microscopic pieces of a layered family history, Charles Ward burrows deeply into Old Providence. Lovecraft’s meticulous scene-setting is answered in the graphic novel with Ian Culbard drafting stately mansion exteriors and farmhouses in simple, slender strokes and never lending them more than two or three tones from his understated color palette.” On a graphic novel treatment of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
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