When We Fell In Love – Robert Anasi
JE: I met Robert Anasi at a conference in Wenatchee, which was every bit as sexy as it sounds. That’s just how I roll, dawg.…
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Author: Three Guys One Book
May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
JR: I found myself stuck for something to read years ago while on vacation in Newport, RI. I happened upon Music for Torching, and my life has never really been the same.…
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Conversations: Jason Rice & Very Unphotogenic
JR: To know me is to know I love Mad Men. It’s not even the time period; it really is more the characters and how fucked up they are.…
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From Stag Preston to Smoking Eyebrows: Why Rock Novels Rarely Work
It usually goes like this: Rockstar is born not a rockstar, but to a dismal family of chicken farmers or garbage pickers or libertarians.…
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Canada by Richard Ford
JR: Being a devout Richard Ford fan, a Frank Bascombe junkie (I had the nom de plume Frank Bascombe for over ten years, as the book reviewer at Ain’t it Cool News) , a lover all things Ford, despite what Colson Whitehead has said, and believe me, he is entitled to his opinion.…
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When We Fell In Love – Bruce Holbert
JC: I’m reading Bruce Holbert’s Lonesome Animals now and enjoying it. The marketing materials told me it would be like True Grit and The Sisters Brothers, which is a damned happy reading place. …
Read MoreAmbition & the Writer
Imagine the young writer as a paradox whose ambition leads to a hunger to be recognized that is so urgent that it’s physically painful.…
Read MoreP.E. by Victor Lodato
The new story in the April 2nd issue of the New Yorker rocked me. It’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed a New Yorker story and there have been one or two near misses in the past several months.…
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When Robots Can Read, Will You Still Want To?
One think-tank book that has been under the radar is The Lights in the Tunnel by Martin Ford. You come across the ideas in smart journals of opinion; I think that will increasingly be true; but in most commercial media, the deep sources of creative thought are usually obscured to give more legitimacy to the middlemen.…
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New York Diaries
New York Diaries is edited by Teresa Carpenter who has done an excellent, sensitive job. The form is mathematically elegant and, I would think, an editor’s dream.…
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The Odds by Stewart O’Nan
JE: It’s no secret around here that I’ve long been a big fan of Stewart O’Nan....
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When We Fell In Love – Dan Barden
Dan Barden is the author of The Next Right Thing, a kind of fresh spin on something like a West Coast mystery or suspense novel, coming in March from Dial Press.…
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Best of 2011, Part 4: Jason Chambers
The Bee Loud Glade by Steve Himmer – I loved this short novel about Finch, a corporate drone fired from his job creating fake lives in the blogosphere to promote his company’s products.…
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Vivian Maier: Street Photographer
Are you your job? That’s the way most casual acquaintances judge us: “What do you do?” I’m wondering how Vivian Maier fell into being a nanny.…
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Flatscreen by Adam Wilson
The rumor around town is that debut novels have to have that “what’s next”quality, something to care about, even compelling. I have been stuck on the “compelling” issue of late, probably because a friend read something of mine and said, “there is nothing at risk here, nothing to care about.”…
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The Perfect Gift
Everyday on the way to work, I pass a cove that’s subject to a strong tide. When the cove’s bed is exposed, the sea birds go on a quest for any morsel that might have been left behind by the receding water.…
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420 Characters by Lou Beach
420 Characters Lou Beach HMH $22.00/Higher in Canada (it actually says that on the book) The first thing you notice about this package is just how beautiful it is.…
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Montaigne Reads A Book
I’m blogging Montaigne’s essay On Pedantry, mining it for clues on how to read a book. It’s a pleasure to find a writer finding their footing in an early work.…
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Dispatch from the Story Prize Underdog
In January 2010, I received an email from my newly assigned editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, letting me know that out of 78 story collections, including many by authors I revered and studied (Mary Gaitskill, Antonya Nelson, Aleksander Hemon), Drift had been selected as one of three finalists for the 2009 Story Prize.…
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The Bees by Dan Chaon
From his forthcoming collection Stay Awake, Ballantine – February, 2012. I remember reading Chaon’s collection Among the Missing on the train to and from work.…
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Interview with M. Allen Cunningham
I contacted M. Allen Cunningham after reading his essay about rejection “In the Absence of Yes” in the Nov/Dec issue of Poets & Writers. …
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The Stain by Tessa Hadley
Marina needs a job. She has a toddler son, Liam, and a husband, Gary, who is not doing too well. He works with his brother installing patios and other construction projects.…
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Thinking and Feeling: Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men
I’ve been focusing on novels inspired by real life personages. An editor I admire suggested Robert Penn Warren’s 1947 Pulitzer Prize winning All the King’s Men.…
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Interview with Drew Magary
If you missed it yesterday, and you’d like a little context, go back and read JR’s review of The Postmortal. Here’s his chat with Drew Magary: JR: The Postmortal, where did you get the idea to write this novel?…
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