As part of his ongoing campaign to atone for his sin of helping Trump, ghostwriter Tony Schwartz is consulting for the Clinton campaign. And dear god if ever we’ve wished a writer well, it’s now.
Are You There God
Snap Shot
As Alden Jones puts it, a “sex-death-art trifecta” is the core of The Small Backs of Children, the new book by Lidia Yuknavitch. At The Rumpus, he talks with the author about the novel, which centers on a war photographer who takes an iconic photo in Eastern Europe. You could also read the author’s Millions essay from last week.
An NBA Highlights Reel
The WaPo‘s Ron Charles delivers a rapid-fire video review of the National Book Award nominees.
The Great American Sneaker
For every book lover who also values comfortable footwear, New Balance has announced a line of sneakers inspired by great American literature.
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On Social Novels
“What if, instead of simply critiquing Go Set a Watchman’s failure, we tried to analyze it? The new, older work makes more sense if we read it as an attempt to accomplish two tasks: first, to master—unsuccessfully, it turns out—the smart-magazine style that Harper Lee developed in her student journalism; and second, to write in a genre that often relied on the ironic elisions typical of ‘smart style’: the midcentury social-problem novel.” Tom Perrin on Harper Lee and the social novel. Pair with Michael Bourne’s Millions review.