“One of the advantages to being a novelist is removing oneself from the chatter of the fray and trying to get a read and a historical context on what’s happening in one’s own time.” The Guardian interviews Rachel Kushner about women’s prisons, remorse, and her new novel, The Mars Room. Pair with: our review calls Kushner’s latest a “brutal, unforgiving, and often grimly funny tour de force of wasted lives.”
Life on Mars
Branching Out
Is it possible to read fiction by an actor without thinking of them as the character that made them famous? It’s a question many people asked when reading James Franco, and it’s a question they’re likely to ask again when reading One More Thing, a new book of short stories by The Office star B. J. Novak. At Open Letters Monthly, Justin Hickey reviews Novak’s collection.
Agustina Bazterrica on Cannibalism and Dystopian Fiction
Agustina Bazterrica discusses her novel, Tender Is the Flesh, and reflects on fiction’s ability to raise questions and open minds.
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Trigger Warning: Literature
Students at the University of California Santa Barbara, Rutgers, Oberlin, and others have been requesting “trigger warning” labels on literature from The Great Gatsby to Huck Finn. In The Guardian, University College London Professor John Mullan snipes, “You might as well put a label on English literature saying: warning – bad stuff happens here.”
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Street Preachers and Tacos
“Even if I bought cars in department store parking lots, and even if I followed small children down wooded paths, I still knew better than to accept tuna fish from strangers in national parks.” At The Hairpin, Jami Attenberg writes about meeting a street preacher in Moab. For more Attenberg, read her not-quite-a-restaurant review of Café de La Esquina at The Morning News.
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There Once Was a Girl from Secaucus
“Who cares if I really hate sports
And for work, he writes ‘baseball reports’?
It’s only one date
I mean, this could be fate!
Nope, nevermind, he’s the worst.”
Limericks for lost online dates.
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The Mythical Susan Sontag
Benjamin Moser's new book, Sontag: Her Life and Work, shows the ways Susan Sontag fled into her own mind to escape an awful reality.
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Draw It With Your Eyes Closed (On The Internet)
Draw It With Your Eyes Closed, which has been a fixture on our Top Ten lists of late, has launched a companion website to “expand on the previously published content, allowing a broader range of teachers, students, and artists to access, share, and contribute to the project.”
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