September 16, 2019
What Makes a Character Human?
It’s been almost twenty years ago now since James Wood penned (metaphorically speaking, of course, since I’m sure he used a computer) his famous critique of a genre of literary […]
July 26, 2019
On the Importance of the Authorial Voice
In his book The Art of Perspective, part of Graywolf Press’s series of craft books on writing (which I’ve written about a few times before on this blog), Christopher Castellani […]
July 30, 2018
On Endings
In 2014, when I was still entertaining hopes of being a screenwriter as well as a fiction writer, I went to the Austin Film Festival and heard a lecture on […]
June 11, 2018
Against the Nineteenth-Century Novel
In a negative review last fall of Nathan Hill’s The Nix, Brianna Rennix of the leftist magazine Current Affairs critiqued what she described as the novel’s “postmodern” elements and argued […]
September 22, 2016
Just a Kid from the Bronx: DeLillo on The Power of Language
When Don DeLillo first learned that a conference in Paris would be devoted entirely to his work, his initial reaction was: “How can that be? I’m just a kid from […]
July 22, 2016
Libraries, Little and Free (Part One)
I live in a town, Ann Arbor, that values reading. We have a handful of lovely bookstores; we have several handfuls of excellent university and public libraries. We also have […]
October 30, 2015
Holograms and Hurricanes (Part Two)
Last week I wrote about Don DeLillo’s prescience in forecasting the return of Redd Foxx and Andy Kaufman. (They’re back! As holograms.) This week I thought I’d shift from holograms […]
October 25, 2015
Holograms and Hurricanes (Part One)
In yesterday’s New York Times, a story caught my eye: Redd Foxx and Andy Kaufman are heading back on tour. Sure, they’ve been dead for decades (Foxx died in 1991, […]
April 30, 2015
Hitler. Toklas.
Hitler took his last foul breath on this date, seventy years ago. He doubled down on his leave-taking: cyanide capsule, bullet. I think we can all agree he was a […]