My Father’s Suicide and “The Days of Abandonment”

“They cut you open to get at your heart, sounds like a metaphor for something but it’s not” -Juliana Hatfield   In the The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante, narrator Olga describes her reaction to her husband of nearly two decades’ abrupt decision to abandon her and their two young children. “I couldn’t calm down. Was it possible that Mario should leave me like this, without warning? It seemed to me incredible that all of a sudden he had […]

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A Year of Favorites: Jason Diamond

I felt the need to go back and revisit some of the books on this list I’ve been compiling since January 1st to see how these titles stood up since I spent the first six months of 2014 reading for work, and the second-half mostly for pleasure. What I came away with was the realization that I couldn’t think of another year where new literature brought me so much joy as much as 2014 did. Sure, I was reading a lot […]

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