Book Review, Books, Featured

Revisiting the Comedy of Manners: On “The Default World”

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"The Default World"

Jhanvi, the protagonist of Naomi Kanakia’s novel The Default World, refers to an ongoing project of hers as a “marriage plot” a few times over the course of the book. This is an eminently accurate description of what Jhanvi is up to: she’s in the process of trying to marry a tech-bro friend of hers so that his health insurance will cover her gender-affirming care. But it’s also a nod on Kanakia’s part to the territory she’s entered with this book. On the one hand, it’s a spot-on satire of a certain segment of the tech world; on the other hand, it’s a book that’s in the grand tradition of, say, Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country.

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Featured, Film

“Y2K,” “Austin Powers,” and the Art of Retro Comedy

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A still image from "Y2K"

The trailer for the new film Y2K gives viewers a pretty good idea of the structure of the film it’s promoting: what begins as a high school comedy abruptly shifts gears into horror — a mash-up of American Pie and Maximum Overdrive, maybe. When I went to the Alamo Drafthouse on Tuesday to watch it, I thought about another point of comparison during much of the film: Attack the Block, another movie that effectively blends comedy, horror, and science fiction. But it wasn’t until Y2K’s climax that I realized that the best point of comparison wasn’t any of these films. Instead, it was Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

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Book Review, Books, Featured

Transcendence Has a Cost: On Tara Isabella Burton’s “Here In Avalon”

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"Here In Avalon"

In October, I sat inside James Turrell’s installation Hind Sight for the first time. This is what it was like: I followed a railing along a winding pathway before arriving at a chair, where I sat. I then stared across the room at something imperceptible: something made out of light, something not designed to be perceived by human eyes under normal light. I left the room with a greater understanding of friends and family who have had genuinely religious experiences. In Hind Sight, there was the sense of perceiving something utterly ineffable and yet utterly present.

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Book Review, Books, Featured

Constant Delirium: Reading Jean-Pierre Martinet’s “With Their Hearts In Their Boots”

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"With Their Hearts In Their Boots"
Credit where credit is due: I picked up Jean-Pierre Martinet’s With Their Hearts In Their Boots (translated by Alex Andriesse) in no small part due to the fact that its introduction was by William Boyle. Boyle’s cultural recommendations, whether literary or cinematic, are often spot-on, and reading his description of this “[h]hard-boiled, funny, dangerous” short novel piqued my interest for what was to follow.

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Book Review, Books, Featured

Political Histories: On Ronnie A. Grinberg’s “Write like a Man”

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"Write like a Man"

Increasingly, the podcast Know Your Enemy has become one of my go-to sources for book recommendations. Sometimes this involves going to the backlist, particularly when it comes to Garry Wills; sometimes it involves checking out a more recent work, particularly when its author was a KYE guest. That’s how I came to read Ronnie A. Grinberg’s Write like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals. That’s an imposing title, but the book itself is eminently readable; more than that, it’s also deeply relevant, chronicling a compelling blend of literature, politics, and interpersonal rivalries.

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Books, Featured, Interviews

Restless Ghosts and Haunted Places: An Interview With Corey Farrenkopf

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Coret Farrenkopf

When I first encountered Corey Farrenkopf online, it was due in part to his literary profile — he’s a writer, an interviewer, and a librarian with a wide-ranging sense of the uncanny. This year brought with it the release of his deubt novel Living in Cemeteries, set in a world similar to our own with one key difference: restless spirits sometimes take revenge on the living for the sins of their ancestors. It’s a wonderfully disquieting book, and we discussed its origins, its evolution, and what’s next for him.

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Books, Featured, Interviews

J.M. Tyree on Hitchcock, Horror, and “The Haunted Screen”

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J.M. Tyree

There’s a long and storied history of tales of American academics becoming unmoored far from home. J.M. Tyree’s The Haunted Screen is an impressive entry in this literary lineage: its protagonist is dealing with the erosion of his marriage and a the echoes of a past relationship, even as he muses on the influence of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. There’s also a possibly malevolent presence lurking in the woods and a sense that several characters know more than they’re letting on; it’s a concentrated dose of heady musings and travels into the uncanny. I spoke with Tyree about writing the book, the ways film can inform literature, and the nature of haunting.

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