Philip Connors is a former Nation intern whose essays have appeared in n+1, The Paris Review and the London Review of Books. He is at work on a book about his time as a fire lookout, to be published by Ecco.
If the words “first novel” and “arrival of a major American talent” appear on the front flap of a dust jacket, you can almost be sure that the picture on the back flap will depict some impossibly