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Photograph of a Thanksgiving dinner spread

Family Dysfunction: Some Tense Literature for Thanksgiving (Plus a Playlist)

With the holiday season comes the promise of family: good, bad, and otherwise. Think creepy Uncle Albert who always seems to be brushing up against you, or your sister Sally who has a way of pushing every button to transport you right back to middle school, or dad pickled before the turkey can even brine….

Cover art for Love and Capital by Mary Gabriel

Love and Capital

Love and Capital Mary Gabriel Little, Brown and Company, September 2011 768 pages $35.00 When Simon Montefiore reviewed Mary Gabriel’s recent, frighteningly expansive Karl Marx biography in the New York Times last month, he was generally complimentary—but for the wrong reasons. You see, Montefiore came at the book as an academic Marx enthusiast, a serious…

Cover art for We the Animals by Justin Torre and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Innovators in Lit #14: Jenna Johnson

Jenna Johnson is Senior Editor for HMH hardcovers and Editorial Manager for Mariner paperbacks. Among her books are We the Animals, Pigeon English, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, The End of Mr. Y, Man Asia Prize winner Three Sisters, and the James Beard winner Save the Deli. Among her authors are Steve Earle, Tim O’Brien, Kent Meyers, Tony D’Souza, Maggie…

Two old trees standing bare on a hill with an orange, pink, and purple sunset behind them

Raising Expectations

It happens in every great workshop. Somewhere in the first couple of weeks, you sit at your desk or on your couch and read through a story that completely and irrevocably alters your possibilities. Someone has written an amazing piece. All of a sudden, the story you were pleased with, the one you’re scheduled to…

Cover art for From the Conservatory by Julio Cortazar

From the Observatory

From the Observatory Julio Cortázar Trans. Anne McLean Archipelago Books, August 2011 130 pages $18.00 The first time I read Julio Cortázar’s From the Observatory, I thought I’d succumbed to a fever-dream. Eels slip, muscularly, into Möbius strips; the night is red-haired and the marble cold. I had no idea what I was reading or…

Cover art for Volume 1 Issue 1 of BOMB Magazine

Innovators in Lit #13: BOMB Magazine

BOMB Magazine was founded in 1981 as an artists’ and writers’ quarterly dedicated to presenting work in its own light, and artists’ and writers’ conversations in their own words. BOMB has since grown to become an international magazine with an editorial board of over 80 professional artists, writers, actors, directors, architects, and musicians serving as…

Cover art for The Vices by Lawrence Douglas

The Vices

The Vices Lawrence Douglas Other Press, August 2011 352 pages $15.95 This post was written by Walt McGough. The title family of Lawrence Douglas’ The Vices is a slowly decaying assortment of upper-crust oddballs, whose creatively rendered foibles sometimes resemble an alternate version of The Royal Tenenbaums. Older brother Bartholomew, for instance, has a room…

Cover art for You Deserve Nothing by

You Deserve Nothing

You Deserve Nothing Alexander Maksik Europa Editions, August 2011 336 pages $15.00 Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: a handsome young teacher inspires great passion in the classroom; the guys want to be him, and the girls want to be with him. There’s an affair, scandal, loss of innocence, and plenty of inspirational…