Looking into the Dark
The unconventional narrative of Andrzej Stasiuk's 'Dukla' invites us into the dark to explore the nature of memory and imagination.
Dry Spell is the Graphic Novel You’ll Love to Hate
Writer and artist Ken Krekeler's second book is not a story that cares if you like it. It’s a story that wants to make you recoil inside, and, in so doing, examine the very things that repel you.
Yes, You Can Trust Him
Stephen King is one of those writers self-proclaimed literary authors avoid reading. He must be doing something right, however, because as of this moment, King has written 49 novels and sold more than 350 million copies.
Subtle Adventures in Nihilism
Because the most adept of readers loves nothing more than to turn the pages; because we don’t let things like prose style or plausibility creep into our consciousness... because one prefers caricatures to characters, The Help is the most remarkable novel we’ve come across in years.
The Myth of Morality
Where The Pale King is concerned, everyone agrees that David Foster Wallace enshrines boredom. What has been glossed over, however, is how fiercely and unrepentantly American these pages are.
The Pleasure and Pain of Lovers and Readers
Love is something beyond us—something just within our fingertips but always taking that one extra step to elude us. In the end we begin to realize that this is perhaps for the best—that it is maybe more fortunate than we realize.
Drawing out the Truth: Creative Nonfiction as Comic
In Syncopated: an Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-Essays (Villard, 2009), editor Brendan Burford seeks to expand the dialogue that works like Maus have begun. Within this large-format collection, Burford has assembled an ambitious collection of comics-as-essay ranging from personal narrative, to biography, to literary journalism and more.
Death with Interruptions: A Glimpse of the Literary Philosopher
In an unnamed European country, the first day of the new year is cause for both alarm and celebration. It is the first day in that country’s history that passes without a death.
The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English: A Linguist’s Quaint Passion
It’s one of those concepts that has driven men and women to compose treatises in verse, drink themselves comatose, start fights, and maybe even die young. Unfortunately we have nothing to show for it.
Lost and Found: Adolescent Obsession in Hannah Pittard’s Debut Novel
Comparisons to Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides are unavoidable and complimentary: here, too, is a Greek-style chorus of boys grown to men, as well as their obsession with a female classmate and the reconstruction of a life from supposition.
The War Against Cliché: What We Can Learn from Martin Amis
Chess, football, even famous writers. Martin Amis can write about anything.
The Limits of Motherhood