A George Saunders Radio Drama (More or Less)

I grew up in a house with a lot of records, one of which was an evocative recording of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood narrated by Thomas and featuring a larger vocal cast, echoing its roots as a radio drama commissioned by the BBC. In the years since then, some recordings of books have taken a page from the radio drama playbook: the audio version of Max Brooks’s World War Z echoed the novel’s oral history structure, and featured a […]

Continue Reading

In 2017, A New Jac Jemc Novel With a Ghostly Cover

We’re tremendous admirers of the work of Jac Jemc, including her first novel My Only Wife and the collection A Different Bed Every Time. (We sponsored a New York event for the latter in 2014, in fact.) In 2013, we interviewed Jemc, and the topic of hauntings came up–deeply relevant now, given that next August will bring the release of her second novel, The Grip of It, from FSG Originals.

Continue Reading

A New Entry in the Literary Biopic Sweepstakes

Biographical films about writers don’t crop up all that frequently. Sometimes they bring together noteworthy actors and directors–Ben Whishaw as John Keats in Jane Campion’s 2009 Bright Star, for instance. Sometimes they head into more surreal territory, such as Paul Schrader’s experimentally-structured Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. There’s also André Téchiné’s 1979 film The Brontë Sisters, which offers the surreal experience of watching real-life figures who help shape the modern English-language novel holding forth in French.

Continue Reading

Adrian Van Young’s “Shadows in Summerland” and the Art of the Book Trailer

A recent interview with director Jamieson Fry about his experience directing book trailers went into some interesting territory regarding his guiding principles for coming up with concepts for trailers. “[T]he way a book sticks with you is a weird limbo between a dream and a real memory,” Fry said, and it’s that sensation that many a trailer can convey. There are good bad trailers and mediocre ones; some seek to condense the book into a short time frame, while others […]

Continue Reading

An Abundance of Literature From Lidia Yuknavitch in 2017

Lidia Yuknavitch falls decidedly in the camp of writers who never repeat themselves, engaging in acts of literary reinvention with each new book. Her most recent novel, The Small Backs of Children, was a favorite around these parts, and we interviewed her about it last year. In that interview, she spoke about the connections that run through her recent work, including a nod to some future projects:

Continue Reading