In a book that promises by its very title and opening lines that many characters will be expected to die, the author has to do some coaxing to convince readers that they can invest emotionally in the story.
The plot of Under the Feet of Jesus examines the oppression that a family of mixed status face working in an industry that at once depends on their labor and treats individual laborers as expendable.
Mona Chalabi’s op-ed for the NYTimes states that as women age, they examine the dating profiles of their contemporaries, while men, no matter their ages, peruse photos of women in their early 20’s.
In early creative writing classes, we’re often told to avoid tropes, told that they’ll make our writing cliché. It’s good advice for writers just beginning their craft, but it’s not sound advice for an entire career.
I cannot watch a documentary about Joan Didion impartially any more than her nephew, Griffin Dunne, could make an impartial film about his legendary aunt. To say that Didion, now 82, has had an impact on me is an understatement.
Poetry was never Katherine Anne Porter’s central pursuit: as Darlene Harbour Unrue notes in her introduction to Katherine Anne Porter’s Poetry, Porter was “never a first-rate poet, by her own admission.” But the pieces within are hypnotic—Porter’s distinctive and authoritative speakers conjure vast worlds in small spaces.
Carmen Machado weaves together textuality, orality, and corporeality in her brilliant short story collection Her Body and Other Parties.
Main Street holds an unusual place in my bookish heart: it is one of those novels that I love, but rarely recommend. It is dull. But listen—its dullness is part of its charm.
As the story goes, most of what American readers love about Raymond Carver is not the work of Carver at all.
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