Jeff Jackson is the author of Destroy All Monsters, a heady yet visceral take on rock music, violence, and the nature of communities. Jeff Jackson also plays music in Julian Calendar, a postpunk band whose music could also be described as heady yet visceral. Since 2017, the group has released 5 records, including 4 EPs in the Crimson Static series.As an admirer of Jackson’s work in both spheres, I reached out to him about discussing the evolution of his foray into music, and how it’s affected his writing.
Artifacts, Merch Tables, and Hauntings: Mairead Case on “Tiny”
Mairead Case’s first novel, See You In the Morning, was a moving and unpredictable coming-of-age story; I spoke with her about it in 2015. Her new novel, Tiny, uses a more formally inventive structure to tell a story of family, grief, and community. (It’s also a retelling of Antigone.) It’s a fantastic work in its own right and an impressive demonstration of what Case is capable of, a work that’s simultaneously intimate and epic. We checked in via email to talk about the book’s origins and the ways in which it resonates right now. Experimental post-punk bands/art projects came up as well, as they tend to do.
A Season in Words: Notes on Nina MacLaughlin’s “Summer Solstice”
What does it mean to channel a season into art? The world of music composition is full of seasonally-themed work, some taking cues from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Max Richter had a go at reimagining Vivaldi’s composition, while the likes of Anna Meredith (with ANNO) and Philip Glass (with Violin Concerto No. 2) have worked to create music that exists in a kind of seasonal musical dialogue. In the literary world, Ali Smith recently concluded her own seasonal quartet, and Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book remains a touchstone for many readers.
Collaboration, Poetry, and the Surreal: Dominique Hecq on the Making of “Speculate”
Speculate, the new book from Eugen Bacon and Dominique Hecq, offers a fascinating and often gripping look at literary collaboration. The book is divided into two halves: in each, one author responds to the prose poetry of the other. How those responses work make for one of the book’s most thrilling elements; the other is the stylistic range involved, meaning that some of the prose poems read like dispatches from a more surreal locale and others feel compellingly candid. I spoke with Hecq about the book’s origins and the ways in which it came together.
Shot, Chaser, Chased: A Review of Cody Goodfellow’s “Gridlocked”
The last time I read something of Cody Goodfellow’s, it was the novel Unamerica, a book which would accurately be described as “sprawling.” From extensive riffing on national borders to psychedelic passages, Unamerica covered a lot of ground; it was both keenly political and mind-bendingly psychedelic. What do you do for an encore, once that’s out in the world? Zig where one might expect a zag, apparently. Goodfellow’s latest book, Gridlocked, brings together two novellas about punk rock, traffic jams, cults, and werewolves. As befits the punk band featured in the book’s second novella, “Breaking The Chain Letter,” these are short, fast, and meant to be played loud.
The Ethics of Fiction, the Ethics of History: An Interview With Kristen Millares Young
Claudia, the protagonist of Kristen Millares Young‘s debut novel Subduction, is in a complicated place when the book opens. Her marriage has fallen apart, and she’s en route to conduct ethically fraught anthropological work in the Makah Nation. What follows is a haunting work about intimacy, tradition, and trust — and a thoroughly lived-in portrait of a place and a community. I talked with Young about the novel’s origin, its evolution, and how her own work echoed that of her protagonist.
A New Documentary Explores the Lasting Appeal of the LP: Inside “Vinyl Nation”
Few musical formats have had the comeback narrative that vinyl has in the last decade or so. A new documentary film, Vinyl Nation, explores the enduring appeal of LPs and the subculture that’s grown around them recently — including the rise of Record Store Day. I talked with directors Kevin Smokler and Christopher Boone to learn more about the film’s origins and how the project came to fruition.
“This History Has Not Had its Reckoning Yet”: An Interview With Maaza Mengiste
Since mid-2019, it’s been a busy literary time for Maaza Mengiste. Her novel The Shadow King, recently released in paperback, is set in Ethiopia in 1935, when Italy invaded. Blending a bold historical scope with questions of identity and gender, the result is a thrilling read — and one which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. This year also saw the release of the new anthology Addis Ababa Noir, which Mengiste edited; it’s a taut collection of thrilling stories that encompasses modes from the realistic to the uncanny. I spoke with Mengiste about her recent work, translation, and what’s next for her.