The Passivity Project The Passivity Project
In Rachel Cusk’s fiction, the self is suppressed to the point of destruction.
Jul 2, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Nobody Else Sounds Like Lydia Davis Nobody Else Sounds Like Lydia Davis
Because nobody else thinks like her.
May 13, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Adler’s Way Adler’s Way
The slowly panic-making power of Renata Adler’s novels Speedboat and Pitch Dark.
May 15, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Nikolai Leskov’s The Enchanted Wandered and Other Stories; Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself...
Apr 30, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
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
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Joan Didion’s Blue Nights, Peter Van Buren’s We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.
Jan 18, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Obscure Objects of Desire: On Jeffrey Eugenides Obscure Objects of Desire: On Jeffrey Eugenides
In The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides can’t explain what happens to his characters without throwing in every last why.
Nov 22, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Jean-Patrick Manchette’s Fatale, Binyavanga Wainaina’s One Day I Will Write About This Place, Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s The History of Costaguana
Oct 5, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Daniel Orozco, Orientation and Other Stories; Mercè Rodoreda, The Selected Stories of Mercè Rodoreda.
May 18, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Empty Rooms: On Nicole Krauss Empty Rooms: On Nicole Krauss
Nicole Krauss's Great House swings from the evocative to the overcharged.
Jan 12, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz