At Time, Morgan Jerkins discusses her new novel, Caul Baby, a story set in Harlem that has elements of both the fantastical and the familiar. “I think it’s helpful to work on fiction in the pandemic, because I want to escape,” Jerkins says. “I want my mind to run free as it can—and a lot of times that stretches right into the fantastic, right into the surreal.”
Morgan Jerkins on Letting Your Mind Run to the Surreal
“I guess you could call this ‘fake livetweeting’.”
The latest installment in The Believer’s “What Would Twitter Do?” series (which we’ve mentioned before) features London Review of Books editor Christian Lorentzen, whose Twitter feed, Sheila Heti writes, “seem[s] like what someone who only expresse[s] himself as a fiction writer within the universe of twitter might come up with.” Meanwhile, Heti has a review of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman in (where else?) the LRB.
Great, Just Great
Buzzfeed kicked up a storm on Thursday when its first-ever Buzzfeed Books editor, Isaac Fitzgerald, told Poynter that the site’s new vertical won’t publish negative reviews. Invoking the “Bambi rule,” Fitzgerald argued that he sees no point “[wasting] breath talking smack about something.” At The Atlantic Wire, Eric Levenson published a counterpoint, while Alexanda Petri poked fun at Fitzgerald in the WaPo.
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Jay Gatsby, Iconic American
BBC‘s Tom Geoghegan asks whether or not The Great Gatsby is “the perfect tale for modern America.”
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A Little Late
“[T]he school has calculated that the overdue fine would have been £7,446.” Granddaughter returns her grandfather’s library book after 120 years, is forgiven all late fines, reports The Guardian.
“Post-Skynyrd”
Recommended Reading: Bronwen Dickey on Ben Metcalf’s Against the Country.