What Can True Crime Offer Us? What Can True Crime Offer Us?
Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You tries to understand popular culture's fixation on two lurid things: podcasts and murders.
Sep 13, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Bekah Waalkes
Nora Ephron’s Divorce Plot Nora Ephron’s Divorce Plot
Her only novel, "Heartburn," looked beyond the love story to uncover the limits of bourgeoisie life and marriage itself.
Aug 28, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Dilara O’Neil
The First Great Novel About Virtual Reality? The First Great Novel About Virtual Reality?
Colin Winnette’s disorienting Users examines the limits of morality and imagination as they exist online and in video games.
Aug 16, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
Why Did Tom Hanks Write a Novel? Why Did Tom Hanks Write a Novel?
And can we understand his vision of Hollywood from this strange artifact?
Aug 10, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Adam Nayman
Brandon Taylor’s Sweeping Novel of Class and Campuses Brandon Taylor’s Sweeping Novel of Class and Campuses
The Late Americans works the way that university towns do. People move in, move out, move on—not everyone gets to meet, but everyone temporarily occupies the same spaces.
Aug 7, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Sarah Chihaya
Black Refuge and the Novel of Ideas: A Conversation With Maya Binyam Black Refuge and the Novel of Ideas: A Conversation With Maya Binyam
“Fiction is so incredibly rife with ethical questions.”
Aug 3, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Rosemarie Ho
What Happened to Peter Handke? What Happened to Peter Handke?
How an artist obsessed with interiority and language become a literary pariah.
Jul 26, 2023 / Books & the Arts / David Schurman Wallace
In the Shadow of Sappho In the Shadow of Sappho
Selby Wynn Schwartz’s After Sappho is a unique work of fiction that resembles a group biography on the travails of 20th-century queer feminist artists.
Jul 13, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Lily Houston Smith
The Strange Legacy of “Francisco,” a Novel of Black Bohemianism The Strange Legacy of “Francisco,” a Novel of Black Bohemianism
Over the years, Alison Mills Newman has become disillusioned with her work of experimental fiction. Its story is now caught between radical aesthetics and conservative politics.
Jul 12, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Kearse
Ron DeSantis, American Psycho Ron DeSantis, American Psycho
The Florida governor’s irony-poisoned ad uses far-right memes to sanction homophobic and transphobic violence.
Jul 10, 2023 / Jeet Heer