Maritime Food and Literary Inventiveness: Matthew Gavin Frank at Book/Plate

The email from Jeff Waxman had said that there would be one more Book/Plate event this year, and I had to read it twice: “a literary supper series at Peck’s Specialty Foods in Clinton Hill.” The rest of Jeff’s missive was charmingly dictated in the style of Moby-Dick, and then I finally came to the name: “Matthew Gavin Frank, author of Preparing the Ghost.” A dinner with squid, starring the author of a book about giant squids—what else would I […]

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Working Titles, Midwestern Winters, and the Allure of the Squid: An Interview With Matthew Gavin Frank

“So,” you think to yourself. “I’m looking to read a long essay–one that riffs on the fictionalization of history, music in the Borscht Belt, and the way that authors can become obsessed with history. Oh, and it should have squid in it. The giant squid, if at all possible.” And lo: you seek out Matthew Gavin Frank‘s Preparing the Ghost, a fascinating meditation on all of the topics in question. Frank begins with a photograph taken by Moses Harvey of a […]

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