Mama, There’s Wolves in the House: Quality Time With Literary Werewolves

At their core, werewolves are about a loss of control. They’re the person who finds themselves in a fight for no good reason; who screams and apologizes long after that would mean anything. At their core, the werewolf is the abusive spouse; the guy who takes a swing at you in the bar; the hooligan whose night won’t be complete until something gets broken. This is where the repressed is (literally) made tangible, often horrifically so. Alternately? If you’re thinking […]

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Afternoon Bites: What Scares Benjamin Percy, Gun Outfit’s Latest, Monica Drake, Ben Greenman’s Playlist, and More

Ben Greenman’s Book Notes playlist for The Slippage has a particular emphasis on songs about the suburbs. “Gun Outfit’s connection to folk music is also clear; those albums’ radical bent came through on occasional anti-capitalist lyrical statements, like Sonic Youth covering Woody Guthrie.” Jenn Pelly on Gun Outfit’s Hard Coming Down. Benjamin Percy on what he considers to be the scariest passage in all of literature. That time Charles Mingus toilet-trained his cat. “My belief is that if we put up an arbitrary […]

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Morning Bites: Philip Roth on Mentors, Benjamin Percy Interviewed, Adapting “Midnight’s Children,” and More

“The ethereal flute-like piping of Michael Jackson’s voice is what I wish I sounded like, but I’ve been burdened with a subwoofer that sounds a little like a drunk Darth Vader imitating the ringside monologue of a professional wrestler.” Benjamin Percy talked with The Nervous Breakdown. Alexander Nazaryan looks at the Caucasus in literature. “Like all great teachers, he personified the drama of transformation through talk.” Philip Roth pays tribute to his onetime homeroom teacher and mentor. Talking with Salman Rushdie about […]

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