Suspicious Minds: On Timothy Melley Suspicious Minds: On Timothy Melley
How thrillers inform spycraft, and the fictions that belie them both.
Dec 19, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Peter C. Baker
Ragged, Unkempt, Strange: On William Faulkner Ragged, Unkempt, Strange: On William Faulkner
For all the ways it is rife with tenderness, fury and ugliness, William Faulkner’s fiction is stubbornly persistent in its artistry.
Nov 20, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Joanna Scott
Motives and Apprehensions: On Edward P. Jones Motives and Apprehensions: On Edward P. Jones
Edward P. Jones’s characters know that everything they’ve worked for might suddenly be taken from them.
Nov 20, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier
I’m Nobody, Who Are You? On Zadie Smith’s ‘NW’ I’m Nobody, Who Are You? On Zadie Smith’s ‘NW’
If you get to the top, only to find that the voice hounding you with charges of inauthenticity is your own, what then?
Nov 20, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
The Letters of Kurt Vonnegut The Letters of Kurt Vonnegut
Says editor Dan Wakefield, hIs writing “is done with such seemingly simple language and style that it sometimes seems shocking.”
Oct 31, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Kurt Vonnegut
Singularly Adaptable: On Alain Mabanckou Singularly Adaptable: On Alain Mabanckou
In Black Bazaar, characters vent and stumble over their shared obsession with the colonial past.
Oct 30, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier
The Master’s Servants: On Henry James The Master’s Servants: On Henry James
Nothing ages faster than the idea of an “ageless” writer. Consider the posthumous career of Henry James.
Oct 23, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Leo Robson
Uninvisible: On Dorothy B. Hughes Uninvisible: On Dorothy B. Hughes
In The Expendable Man, the story of an innocent under suspicion is given a racial twist.
Oct 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Charles Taylor
Shelf Life Shelf Life
A.M. Homes’s May We Be Forgiven; Sherman Alexie’s Blasphemy.
Oct 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Maureen F. McHugh's After the Apocalypse; Joshua Cohen's Four New Messages
Sep 18, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier