literary
The Joy of Being Elusive and Unstable: An Interview with Author Rivka Galchen
What one moment seems to me like nothing, the next moment, through Rivka Galchen’s eyes, becomes the world. I think one could ask nothing more from a her collection of stories.
Does American Political Poetry Have a Future?
On any given night there are dozens of poetry events in New York City, and among these younger poets the air is thick with a heightened sociopolitical awareness. It would seem likely that we are brimming over with a new political poetry. Maybe, but not...
The Most Intimate Sense: Notes from a Fragrant Book Party
Master perfumer Mandy Aftel delighted us during the party for her new book, Fragrant: The Secret Life of Scent. “Scent is about luxury,” she says. “It’s tied to emotion and memory, to the irrational.”
'I Never Saw Him Drunk': An Interview with Bukowski’s Longtime Publisher
John Martin was Bukowski's publisher from 1965 until the author's death, in 1994. Despite knowing him for almost 30 years and serving as the best man at one of his weddings, Martin says he never saw the Buk hammered. But that's not to say others didn't.
Underappreciated Masterpieces: Javier Marías’s 'Dark Back of Time'
I ordered Dark Back of Time from an online bookstore, based almost entirely on the title. I know that goes directly against traditional book-buying advice, but that’s really a hell of a title, and it turned out to be one of the best things I’ve...
Some Books Can Watch You Read Them
Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched? Sometimes, when I’m sitting there in front of the computer, naked for whatever reason, I see the eye of the camera and the wires leading out of my house, and wonder whether or not someone is recording...
If I Can’t Be Brain Damaged I Don’t Want to Read
When I was a kid my primary goal in life was to find a book that was alive. Not alive in the human sense, but like a thing that would send me to a place not otherwise accessible on Earth. Ed Steck's latest novel, The Garden, comes close to that...
It's Time to Rethink the Crime Genre
Everybody loves stories about crime, particularly murder, and the uncanny rituals and oddities that go along with any profane act. It’s so effective as source material that most books or shows don’t bother to play with the form itself at all. I've...
Hill William Sings Ghost Country
Writers are traditionally very bad singers, but author Scott McClanahan is an exception to this rule. I’ve watched him silence a whole bar full of drunkards by belting out a spontaneous a cappella number more than a few times. Now his musical prowess...
American Art Needs More Holes
The biggest hindrance to American art is the inability to see anything outside our own walls. We’re proud of being a “melting pot,” but when it comes to culture not inherently American, it’s hard to convince us that we should care. Thankfully...
Travel Writer Elisabeth Eaves Embarks on Her First Novel
This winter, travel writer Elisabeth Eaves isn't in Mexico to write about shirtless men she meets on the beach—she's escaping the cruel winter to write a draft of her first novel, which is set in the Middle East.
The Uncanny Puzzles of Jesse Ball
I bought Jesse Ball’s first novel, Samedi the Deafness, in 1997 entirely because of the book jacket’s description, which compared it to Hitchcock, Kafka, and David Lynch. His latest novel, Silence Once Begun, expands the meditative, eerie...