A Prophet at the Barbecue: Larry McMurtry, 1936–2021 A Prophet at the Barbecue: Larry McMurtry, 1936–2021
Three views of a Texas giant.
May 7, 2021 / Feature / Benjamin Moser
How Theater Can Help Us Survive How Theater Can Help Us Survive
The saga of Chilean director and playwright Oscar Castro is a vivid example of how art can help us endure—and thrive.
May 6, 2021 / Ariel Dorfman
Helpful Men: Defending Philip Roth, Dismissing Virginia Woolf Helpful Men: Defending Philip Roth, Dismissing Virginia Woolf
Like most women who write, I live my life according to the firmly stated judgments of literary men.
May 6, 2021 / Alyssa Harad
The Brutal Transcendence of Tove Ditlevsen The Brutal Transcendence of Tove Ditlevsen
By resisting all of memoir’s conventions, the Danish writer tells the story of her life more painfully and beautifully.
May 6, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Marie Solis
Hello, Poetry, You ‘Lamenting Pleasure’ Hello, Poetry, You ‘Lamenting Pleasure’
Reading poetry over the phone, David Ferry and loved ones find an antidote to loneliness.
May 5, 2021 / Elizabeth Emma Ferry and Stephen Ferry
The Hedonist Bard of the Midlife Crisis The Hedonist Bard of the Midlife Crisis
Why you should and shouldn’t read the provocative poems of Frederick Seidel.
May 5, 2021 / Books & the Arts / David Schurman Wallace
The Right-Wing Outrage Cycle The Right-Wing Outrage Cycle
By the time the lie has been debunked, it’s too late.
May 4, 2021 / Tom Tomorrow
Jhumpa Lahiri’s Quietly Bracing New Novel Jhumpa Lahiri’s Quietly Bracing New Novel
How writing in Italian gave Lahiri a new sense of creative freedom.
May 4, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Jennifer Wilson
Heaven Heaven
Apricots woolly by the hospital bed, a meal of light. The light falls on my mother’s hands. So much sunlight falls and does not get up but its hands pick up the dark and go on. Thi…
May 4, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Hua Xi
The Broken Bell The Broken Bell
I like, winter nights, to find in a heat lamp That beats and fumes, old memories Rising in the banging Of church bells through snow spray. Blessed be the bell of liberty That, anci…
May 4, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Daisy Fried