The Mundane and Alienated Life of a Freelancer The Mundane and Alienated Life of a Freelancer
Kavita Bedford’s novel Friends and Dark Shapes explores the false promises and precarity of writing in the age of the gig economy.
May 13, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
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
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
Graham Greene’s God Graham Greene’s God
As a new biography shows, the British novelist was always haunted by, and uncertain about, his own faith.
May 4, 2021 / Books & the Arts / John Banville
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
Richard Wright’s Lost Novel Richard Wright’s Lost Novel
In The Man Who Lived Underground, Wright offers a gothic tale of police violence and urban surrealism.
May 3, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Elias Rodriques
The Rise of Adjunct Lit The Rise of Adjunct Lit
How a bleak future in and out of the academy has produced a new kind of campus novel.
May 3, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Maggie Doherty
Philip Roth and His Defensive Fans Are Their Own Worst Enemies Philip Roth and His Defensive Fans Are Their Own Worst Enemies
Why did it take a sexual assault scandal to raise red flags about a deeply flawed biography?
Apr 30, 2021 / Jeet Heer
The Craft of John Edgar Wideman The Craft of John Edgar Wideman
A conversation with one of the greatest living Black American writers on work, life, and why good fiction is like a game of basketball.
Apr 26, 2021 / Q&A / Elias Rodriques
B. Traven: Fiction’s Forgotten Radical B. Traven: Fiction’s Forgotten Radical
The enigmatic author’s anarcho-communist politics seep into his novels about wage labor, class consciousness, and the violence of capital.
Apr 14, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Clinton Williamson