Chris Ruen’s Freeloading — out soon on O/R Books — is a smart look at digital distribution and culture. What makes Ruen’s approach particularly interesting is his willingness to engage with questions of morality, and his willingness to examine where current trends might lead. In advance of his marathon reading of the book, we conducted this interview via email.
Frank Hinton is the editor of the online literary journal Metazen. She’s also the author of the new novel Action, Figure, which follows Frank and Lili, a pair of young Halifax residents numbing themselves over a handful of days. Juxtaposed with their story are a number of sections labeled “Rapunzel,” which focus on a character recuperating from an injury during wartime. The Rapunzel sections are as oblique as the Frank-and-Lili ones are realistic, and the juxtaposition of the two leads to […]
I first met Ned Vizzini at a Literary Death Match a few years ago in the East Village. He’s the author of a number of acclaimed YA novels, along with some smart essays on fiction and genre. Earlier this year, I spoke with his screenwriting partner Nick Antosca; the two are now on the writing staff of the show Last Resort. Our conversation focused on Vizzini’s new novel The Other Normals, which follows a summer in the life of Perry, a […]
IFC’s Comedy Bang! Bang! is, on some level, a talk show hosted by comedy veterans Scott Aukerman and Reggie Watts and loosely tied to Aukerman’s hit podcast of the same name. But it seems to occupy a terrifying reality that only bears a loose resemblance to our own: on any given episode, a lovable talking bird might get eviscerated, Scott might accidentally send himself to hell, or an attempt to show a movie clip might devolve into a disorienting feedback […]
There’s something profoundly dystopian about Bunk, the not-exactly-game-show that’s finishing up its first season on IFC. On it, stand-up comics and sketch performers are forced into improv-based challenges that include insulting puppies or drawing new appendages to the crotch of Michelangelo’s David. And all the while, the barefoot host — played with terrifying confidence by New York-based comic Kurt Braunohler — will do things like force his intern to sift through glass shards or threaten to murder his viewers. […]
Is Joe Meno known for his range as a writer? Because if he isn’t, he ought to be; his books have covered everything from politically-charged dissections of family (The Great Perhaps) to brutally honest coming-0f-age novels (Tender as Hellfire) to surreal and emotionally honest breakdowns of pulp archetypes (The Boy Detective Fails). Meno’s latest, Office Girl, is a seemingly straightforward narrative, following the intersecting lives of two art-obsessed Chicagoans in their early 20s. And yet, there are subtle complexities present, […]
Leni Zumas’s debut book, the collection Farewell Navigator, earned acclaim from the likes of Joy Williams and Miranda July; it split the difference between wrenching realism and surreal moments of clarity. Here was an artist equally comfortable achieving emotional truths and spending time in post-punk bands. Her first novel, The Listeners, released in May on Tin House, takes up the promise of that collection and turns it into something even more stunning. It follows Quinn, a onetime musician now living […]
What does it mean to affix the “alt” tag to something? Is it a reaction? A sign of the changing times? That’s the very question we’re asking about alt lit.