April 6, 2018
In Defense of “Show Don’t Tell”
Part One of Mark McGurl’s The Program Era (2009), the now-classic history of the influence of writing programs on twentieth-century American literature, uses as its title two of the hallmark […]
January 31, 2018
Like Sisters
Two years ago, for my first-ever post on this blog, I wrote about Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels—but really I wrote about my lost friend. When I return to that post […]
January 8, 2017
Snowstorms and Speculation: My Abbreviated 2016 Reading List
I generally don’t make New Year’s resolutions, and I also don’t go out of my way to eat black-eyed peas or sauerkraut on January 1, but I do have a […]
February 4, 2016
Inclining toward Obscurity: On Ferrante and Lost Friends
1. Not long ago, I came to the last page of the final book in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series. I had put off that moment as long as possible—nursing the […]
August 14, 2015
Mix tape: Marquez’s remains, a letter from Ferrante, and the John Green book generator
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s remains have been returned to Cartagena, Colombia. This city is not just the author’s birthplace, but also the setting of Love in a Time of Cholera. His […]