An excerpt from the 1970 novel by Paula Fox: Status-conscious Sophie and Otto Bentwood attend a dinner party in Brooklyn Heights in the late sixties, shortly after Sophie sustains a bite on her hand from a stray cat.
fiction
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Marilynne Robinson on Writing and Discipline
INTERVIEWER Do you keep to a schedule? ROBINSON I really am incapable of discipline. I write when something makes a strong claim on me. When I don’t feel like writing, I absolutely don’t feel like writing. I tried that work ethic thing a couple of times—I can’t say I exhausted its possibilities—but if there’s not […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
When Blondes Go Wrong
After I found out about the Blonde Fury, I thought I’d better colour my hair again. I bought the dye at the same drugstore where I’d bought the pregnancy test, only this time its shelves were half vacant. There was an inventory girl with dark blueberry hair who stood in front of the selection with […]
Posted inFiction, Quotes
John Keene’s ‘Rivers,’ A Speculative Huck Finn-Inspired Short Story
Huckleberry seized my hand, clasping it so tight he brought back in a quick flood of feelings those years with the Widow Watson, and whispered as if he wanted only me and not his friend to hear, “You take care of yourself, Jim, and keep out of all that trouble, please, cause this world is […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction
Between Generals: A Newly Translated Short Story by Antonio Tabucchi
The complicated history of one of New York City’s immigrants, a former Hungarian General who realizes he spent one of his best days with his worst enemies.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Story
Between Generals: A Newly Translated Short Story by Antonio Tabucchi
The complicated history of one of New York City’s immigrants, a former Hungarian General who realizes he spent one of his best days with his worst enemies.
Posted inBooks
House Heart
“I love this story for its wryness and subtlety, but most especially for its willingness to take me where I don’t want to go.”
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
Escape from Baghdad!: Saad Hossain’s New Satire of the Iraq War
In his debut, Saad Hossain brings a much-needed cynicism to our literature of the Iraq War. An absurdist protest novel in the vein of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 or Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Escape from Baghdad! relentlessly focuses the reader’s attention on the folly of war.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Escape from Baghdad!: Saad Hossain’s New Satire of the Iraq War
In his debut, Saad Hossain brings a much-needed cynicism to our literature of the Iraq War. An absurdist protest novel in the vein of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 or Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Escape from Baghdad! relentlessly focuses the reader’s attention on the folly of war.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
A Conversation With Writer Colm Tóibín on the ‘Close Imagining’ of Fiction
“A really good idea might come to you at night and seem really wrong in the morning. So you’re always testing things.”