Did Dorothy Parker Try to Steal ‘Lolita’ from Nabokov?

A literary mystery: Soon after Vladimir Nabokov began shopping his novel Lolita, Dorothy Parker published “Lolita,” a short story in The New Yorker with a very similar story and characters:

Edmund Wilson was a friend Nabokov shared with many people in American literary circles—including Dorothy Parker. Wilson had first learned about Nabokov’s Lolita in the summer of 1953, when he was contemplating an article about Nabokov and asked the novelist whether he had a new project in the works. “Yes,” Nabokov responded, “I will have … кое что [“something”] published by the fall 1954. I am writing nicely. In an atmosphere of great secrecy, I shall show you—when I return east—an amazing book that will be quite ready by then.” A year later, Nabokov offered to let Wilson read his new novel, which he said he considered “to be my best thing in English.”

Published: Nov 24, 2013
Length: 9 minutes (2,475 words)

What Does the Book Business Look Like on the Inside?

Memories and bad math from Menaker’s life in the publishing business, excerpted from his memoir My Mistake:

“We make about $3 for each hardcover sale, $1 for each paperback.”

“So if we sell 10,000 hardcovers, that’s $30,000.”

“Right.”

“And say 10,000 paperbacks. That’s $40,000.”

“Right—so the P-and-L probably won’t work. So we have to adjust the figures. But remember, you can’t change the returns percentage.”

“Increase the first printing to 15,000 and the second printing to 7,500?”

“That ought to do it. Isn’t this scientific?”

Published: Nov 16, 2013
Length: 10 minutes (2,535 words)

La Belle Simone

Simone Levitt was once married to one of the richest men in America: real estate tycoon Bill Levitt, who is widely credited as being the father of American suburbia. Simone now lives in a rented one-bedroom on New York City’s Upper East Side, where she told a reporter about her husband’s rise and fall:

“In the morning, I’m in the bathroom brushing my teeth and I say, ‘Honey, don’t forget the jewelry.’ And he said, ‘What jewelry?’ He told me not to put it in the safe! I said I took it off and put it right there. There was no jewelry.”

At the time, Simone believed the diamonds and rubies that had disappeared from her bedside had been stolen by a hotel employee or other intruder as they slept. But suddenly, as she spoke to me, a doubt appeared, a further mystery. “Something was put in my drink,” she said. “Whether something was put in Bill’s … until this second, I assumed he had it too! Because the minute I hit the pillow … but in the morning, come to think of it, he said ‘your jewelry’ as if he wasn’t surprised. All of a sudden, this is hitting me. Why wasn’t he surprised? Why wasn’t he upset for me?” She’ll never know.

Author: Rich Cohen
Published: Nov 10, 2013
Length: 20 minutes (5,153 words)

Orders of Grief: Newtown, 11 Months Later

The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary brought an outpouring of sympathy and money from around the world—and along with it, a new set of complications for the grieving families:

The biggest fund by far was the one set up by 9 p.m. the day of the attack, under the auspices of the United Way of Western Connecticut. By April, it held $11 million, and local psychiatrist Chuck Herrick was named president of the board of the fund, a position that has made him one of the most unpopular men in town. It was Herrick, along with a handful of others, who had to help calculate the disbursements to the parents of murdered children, and who had to defend those calculations when the bereaved accused the United Way of being unfair, insensitive, condescending, elitist, paternalistic and, in a mantra recited by the grieving, of “raising money on the backs of our dead.”

Published: Nov 3, 2013
Length: 26 minutes (6,599 words)

Him and Her

A Longreads Guest Pick from Rebecca Hiscott, a graduate student at NYU and a features writer for Mashable:

“I’m still marveling at ‘Him and Her’ by Mark Harris from the Oct. 14 issue of New York magazine. The piece is both a nuanced profile of director Spike Jonze — despite Joaquin Phoenix’s stony-faced cameo on the cover — and an eye into the making of Her, the quasi-sci-fi movie that aspires to be ‘a cautionary meditation on romance and technology’ and ‘a subtle exploration of the weirdness, delusiveness, and one-sidedness of love.’ The narrative follows Jonze through the process of writing, shooting and editing the film, and his subsequent efforts to correct a cinematic gamble that hasn’t paid off. Harris’s lush prose mimics Jonze’s aesthetic as a filmmaker, which the author describes as ‘disarmingly sincere, and melancholy in surprising places”; the article also has an evocative opening scene that perfectly captures the spirit of the film and its enigmatic director.”

Published: Oct 6, 2013
Length: 25 minutes (6,477 words)

The Vulture Transcript: ‘Arrested Development’ Creator Mitch Hurwitz

Hurwitz offers serious advice on creativity and writing, as well as a brief history of how he came to cast actors like Jason Bateman and Michael Cera:

“And Michael Cera, I had seen him in a pilot and I reached out through the casting director, like, ‘there was this kid in this pilot, can you please try to track him down.’ Two weeks went by, and we’d seen all these — you know, kid actors in Hollywood, a lot of them come up through that Disney channel, or through — back then it was Barney. So you get really, like, these hammy kids. Precocious, you know. So I’m waiting to hear, and finally the casting director says to me, ‘great news, Michael Cera likes the script.’ And I’m like, ‘who’s Michael Cera?’ ‘The kid that you wanted us to get.’ ‘That was Michael Cera? We’ve been waiting to see whether this 12-year-old likes the material? Good, uh, I’m glad he likes the material.’ And, you know, that’s Michael Cera — you know what I mean? Only Michael Cera would be as a 12-year-old, ‘Yeah, I like this. This is good.’ It’s such an important part — television is so much about continuing to work with people, and I mean, that was just fortune. All of them.”

Published: Oct 23, 2013
Length: 39 minutes (9,861 words)

My Life As a Young Thug

Mike Tyson reflects on a childhood spent on the streets of Brooklyn, being bullied, getting into fights and stealing—and then meeting a man who would change his life:

"We sat down, and Cus told me he couldn’t believe I was only 13 years old. And then he told me what my future would be. ‘If you listen to me, I can make you the youngest heavyweight champion of all time.’

“Fuck, how could he know that shit? I thought he was a pervert. In the world I came from, people do shit like that when they want to perv out on you. I didn’t know what to say. I had never heard anyone say nice things about me before. I wanted to stay around this old guy because I liked the way he made me feel. I’d later realize that this was Cus’s psychology. You give a weak man some strength, and he becomes addicted.”

Author: Mike Tyson
Published: Oct 20, 2013
Length: 20 minutes (5,061 words)

In Conversation: Antonin Scalia

The Supreme Court justice on his legacy, gay rights, his belief in the Devil, and the TV show “Duck Dynasty”:

“Maybe the world is spinning toward a wider acceptance of homosexual rights, and here’s Scalia, standing athwart it. At least standing athwart it as a constitutional entitlement. But I have never been custodian of my legacy. When I’m dead and gone, I’ll either be sublimely happy or terribly unhappy.

You believe in heaven and hell?
Oh, of course I do. Don’t you believe in heaven and hell?

No.
Oh, my.

Does that mean I’m not going?
[Laughing.] Unfortunately not!”

Published: Oct 6, 2013
Length: 25 minutes (6,354 words)

‘Chivo’s Favorite Phrase Was “This Is a Disaster”‘

Dan P. Lee profiles director Alfonso Cuarón and the difficult journey making his new film Gravity:

“When Cuarón first dreamed up Gravity, he thought that he’d essentially hacked the Hollywood system: Here was a potentially audience-friendly adventure movie, and as long as they landed an A-list actor, production would fall into place. He and Jonas wrote the screenplay at lightning speed. They attracted immediate interest from studios, and, crucially, Angelina Jolie. They began preparing for a shoot. ‘And then very soon we find out that the film was not going to be achievable with the existing technology,’ Cuarón said.

“So, I wondered, what did he do next?

“He laughed, smiled broadly. ‘Waste four years of my life.'”

Author: Dan P. Lee
Published: Sep 25, 2013
Length: 24 minutes (6,018 words)

The Plot to Kill Obamacare

Why are Republicans still fighting it? A history of the conservative strategies to repeal or weaken the Affordable Care Act, and what’s left in their playbook:

“The right’s actuarial guerrilla war begins with the underlying reality that hardly anybody knows about the exchanges. Polls show that fewer than six in ten Americans even know the law still exists, with the remainder believing it’s been repealed or struck down, or unsure. Of those aware that the law remains in effect, few understand how it works. Yet to succeed, Obamacare requires a critical mass of uninsured Americans not only to grasp what the law does but to act on it.”

Published: Sep 15, 2013
Length: 18 minutes (4,700 words)