Does This Nearly 1,000-Page-Long Sentence Encapsulate the Anxiety of American Life? Does This Nearly 1,000-Page-Long Sentence Encapsulate the Anxiety of American Life?
Lucy Ellmann’s novel Ducks, Newburyport provides a comprehensive diagnosis of one citizen’s very modern alienation.
Sep 19, 2019 / Dustin Illingworth
Sally Rooney and the Millennial Novel of Manners Sally Rooney and the Millennial Novel of Manners
Her second book, Normal People, mines the travails of Irish youth to tell a decidedly contemporary love story.
Sep 17, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Hannah Gold
What Inspired ‘Lolita’? What Inspired ‘Lolita’?
Sarah Weinman’s new book traces the true crime that influenced Nabokov and the writing of his novel.
Sep 10, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Jennifer Wilson
Transfixing and Repellent: Susan Steinberg’s Fictions of Insidious Masculinity Transfixing and Repellent: Susan Steinberg’s Fictions of Insidious Masculinity
Her debut novel, Machine, looks at how the language, codes, and culture of men subordinate one teenage girl on vacation.
Sep 5, 2019 / Kyle Paoletta
Chia-Chia Lin’s Haunting Immigrant Novel Chia-Chia Lin’s Haunting Immigrant Novel
Set in a dreamlike Alaska, The Unpassing examines the hope and tragedy of a Taiwanese-American family.
Jul 30, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Larissa Pham
Bruno Schulz’s Dream Worlds Bruno Schulz’s Dream Worlds
Born in turn-of-the-century Poland, Schulz lived both longer and better in his books than in real life.
Jul 29, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Becca Rothfeld
Colson Whitehead Opens Up Colson Whitehead Opens Up
In a wide-ranging conversation with The Nation, the author talks about political writing, zombies and horror stories, American history, and his new novel The Nickel Boys.
Jul 19, 2019 / Nawal Arjini
The Migrant Crisis, Through the Eyes of Human Traffickers The Migrant Crisis, Through the Eyes of Human Traffickers
Emiliano Monge’s novel Among the Lost leads a reader through the hellish migrant trail from the perspective of its most amoral agents.
Jul 17, 2019 / Books & the Arts / John Washington
The Worlds of Kathleen Collins The Worlds of Kathleen Collins
The quiet brilliance of her films and fiction was found in her ability to to place the interior and subjective in the context of the social and political.
Jul 15, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Farah Jasmine Griffin
Namwali Serpell’s Postcolonial Epic Namwali Serpell’s Postcolonial Epic
The Old Drift tells the multigenerational story of Zambia coming into being.
Jul 2, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Nawal Arjini