Ling Ma’s 2018 novel, Severance, is popping up on everyone’s pandemic TBR pile, due to parallels between the fictitious “Shen Fever” and the current-day coronavirus. For the Ringer, Jane Hu looks at why this novel resonates so deeply with our contemporary situation. “While I do not begrudge anyone the catharsis of readerly projection—especially during these bizarre times—that doesn’t mean that ‘Severance: it’s just like us’ hot takes are missing the point,” Hu writes. “For as the pandemic precipitates spikes in xenophobic sentiments, any over-identification with Ma’s novel based primarily on its ethnic coordinates […] should give us pause. That its author, a Chinese American immigrant, has refrained from all media requests is perhaps telling.”
The Many Layers of Ling Ma’s ‘Severance’
Best Last Lines
The American Book Review has a list (pdf) of the 100 best last lines from novels. I can’t think of mine; I keep getting “last line” confused with “end.” Thoughts? (Thanks Shakesville).
Shepard’s Final Word
“He wrote the first drafts by hand, and when that became too difficult, dictated sections of the book into a tape recorder.” Before his death in July, playwright and actor Sam Shepard wrote a novel called Spy of the First Person, which is forthcoming from Knopf in December. From our archives, a list of writers who also act.
Excerpt from Good on Paper
Rachel Cantor’s pub day for Good on Paper (included in our first-half preview) was this Tuesday. Check out an excerpt from the novel at Lit Hub.
The Pandora of Books
In The Atlantic, Johnathan A. Knee writes about how curation and aggregation can be more profitable than content creation. That is the idea behind BookLamp, a new search engine based on books’ content and writing style, not sales data. “At times, being able to ignore the marketing data can be good for the recommendation,” explains CEO Aaron Stanton.
No Word on Receipts Yet
“Ms. Gitelman’s argument may seem like an odd lens on familiar history. But it’s representative of an emerging body of work that might be called ‘paperwork studies.’ True, there are not yet any dedicated journals or conferences. But in history, anthropology, literature and media studies departments and beyond, a group of loosely connected scholars are taking a fresh look at office memos, government documents and corporate records, not just for what they say but also for how they circulate and the sometimes unpredictable things they do.”
Instapoetry Month
We’re in the thick of National Poetry Month now, and Tweetspeak has a full round-up of ways to participate online. In particular, I think the Virginia Quarterly Review’s “Instapoem” series is especially rad. (Gee, I wonder why.)
Big Ideas and Bigger Books
Carving Out a Legacy
Recommended Reading: On Raymond Carver’s birthday, his brother James stopped by Electric Literature to share his memories of what it was like growing up with the man behind such works as Will You Please Be Quiet, Please and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.