“I feel nothing. I think: What an ugly place for it to happen. I call it The Accident. I didn’t hear, or see, or feel any of it, or if I did, I stored it somewhere irretrievable even to me.” Gloria Harrison‘s essay “Where the Highway Splits” stuns over at The Rumpus.
In Search of Lost Self
The Perils of Being a Hermit
It might not be a good idea to tell this to bookish readers, but it looks like loneliness can kill you.
Phonies
The case against The Catcher in the Rye. But what will all of the hip high school teachers assign now? (Our own Garth Risk Hallberg disagrees.)
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A Chinese Finnegan
"May God give me the courage to finish it:" The London Review of Books profiles one woman's attempt to translate Finnegans Wake into Mandarin Chinese.
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“I wanted to write about the feeling of life. Not life as an intellectual process, or a concept, but as a feeling.”
Tom Murphy, arguably Ireland's greatest living playwright, joins The Paris Review for an interview about his life, his influences, and his rage.
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Joyless
Poor Emily Schultz. Her debut novel is getting trashed on Amazon -- not because it’s a bad novel, but because a number of reviewers have confused her with Stephen King. (It doesn’t help that her magazine also shares a name with King’s novel.)
Appearing Elsewhere
You should totally go to Edan's reading tonight. But if Brooklyn is inconvenient for you while Manhattan is somehow more manageable, Millions founder and editor Max will be appearing with several other editors at the National Book Critics Circle panel "How to Publish Book Reviews & Features" at The New School at 6:30pm.
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