Todd Dills on “Shining Man,” Southern Literature, and the Search for Joy

Todd Dills

Some of the first readings I ever did were with writer Todd Dills, who was and is one of the most engaging people to see read from their work in front of their audience. (I still have fond memories of watching Todd shaking an upside-down mic stand at an event at an Atlanta coffee shop.) The guy’s a fantastic writer as well, and when his latest novel Shining Man was published in 2019 — it’s a followup to his earlier Sons of the Rapture, which I also highly recommend — I eagerly read it and sent him some questions on it. And then the pandemic happened and the interview was paused for a bit. And now it’s complete — and features Dills discussing everything from the literary influence of Ralph Ellison to the role NASCAR plays in his work.

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Structures and Mirrors: Jonathan Russell Clark on His Book About “2666”

It’s been a decade since Natasha Wimmer’s translation of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 was first published in the United States. Given this amount of time, several writers have begun exploring the impact and influence of Bolaño’s bibliography, with a particular focus on this mammoth work. That’s the case with Jonathan Russell Clark’s An Oasis of Horror in a Desert of Boredom, which does an excellent job of explaining why Bolaño’s work continues to resonate today, even as it also critiques aspects […]

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