In our morning reading: Nicole Krauss and Jenny Erpenbeck talk books, thoughts on the recent adaptation of “Alias Grace,” and more.
Afternoon Bites: The Dismemberment Plan Gets Pasta, National Book Award Finalists, Gaitskill on Gaitskill, Lower East Side Memoirs, and More
Cooking with Travis Morrison; checking out the National Book Awards finalists; Kathryn Davis gets interviewed; Lower East Side memoirists in conversation; and more.
#tobyreads: On the Aesthetics of Absence — Doubles and Disappearances from Calle, Bioy Casares, Blackwell, Davis, and Chaix
There’s something uneasily evocative about a character defined by their absence. In the novel I’m working on now, I’m trying to summon up one of the central characters via the narratives of others, and it’s not an easy task. When this is done well, it can be breathtaking: consider Michael Kimball’s Dear Everybody, in which the assemblage of the novel turns the (offscreen) character into as vividly rendered a figure as the book’s ostensible protagonist. The books discussed this week make […]
Underwater New York and Significant Objects Team Up
A pan flute, a kangamouse deity, and a little yellow bear: the Significant Objects/Underwater New York team-up has yielded three great stories by Deb Olin Unferth, Kathryn Davis, and Chris Adrian in as many days.