March 5, 2019
On Novels that Span a Lifetime
There’s a famous theory (attributed to Aristotle, though in reality the result of misinterpretations of his work made by Renaissance humanists) that a good tragedy should follow the three unities, […]
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 […]
November 30, 2017
Because That’s Real Life: An Evening with Margaret Atwood
On November 16, Margaret Atwood, the grande dame of all things literary (and of dystopian nightmares that have revealed themselves to be unnervingly prescient) graced Cleveland with her presence at […]
May 27, 2016
Books Fall Apart
Over the last week, loose pages from The Bluest Eye have been appearing outside my house. Page 156 in the front garden. Page 147 caught under the chain-link fence. Page […]