In our afternoon reading: thoughts on books by Franck Bouysse and Lucie McKnight Hardy, an interview with Blake Sanz, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe Interviewed, Albert Samaha on Memoirs, Jen Fawkes’s Stories, and More
In our afternoon reading: an interview with Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, thoughts on Jen Fawkes’s fiction, and more.
Morning Bites: John Lurie Interviewed, Elena Ferrante’s Fiction, A History of Maxwell’s, and More
In our morning reading: an interview with John Lurie, thoughts on Elena Ferrante’s fiction, and more.
Morning Bites: Patty Yumi Cottrell, T Fleischmann’s Latest, Frances Badalamenti Interviewed, Dror Burstein, and More
In our morning reading: new writing by Patty Yumi Cottrell, an interview with Frances Badalamenti, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Roky Erickson Remembered, Firecracker Award Nominees, Rainbow Rowell, Frances Badalamenti Interviewed, and More
In our afternoon reading: a look at the life and music of Roky Erickson, a playlist from Gregory Spatz, and more.
An Excerpt From Frances Badalamenti’s “I Don’t Blame You”
We’re pleased to publish an excerpt from Frances Badalamenti‘s novel I Don’t Blame You, out this week on Unsolicited Press. The publisher describes it as follows: “I Don’t Blame You is a young woman’s journey of losing her mother a mere two months before becoming a mother. It follows Ana through a year of going between her home in Portland and her mother’s home base in New Jersey as she battled cancer and as Ana grew a baby. The narrative begins with backstory around her mother’s early life being raised by a single mother in poverty in a Bronx tenement apartment and also her father’s early years in depression-era Brooklyn, both raised in challenging circumstances by Italian immigrants.”
Sunday Stories: “Salad Days”
Salad Days by Frances Badalamenti On the night that Uncle Joe’s Tavern opened for the first time ever, I was asleep in my room. I had turned ten that day. My mother had our loud Italian family over for baked ziti and cake. We had just moved from a big four-bedroom house with a sprawling yard and a two-car garage into a nondescript one-bedroom garden apartment, even though there was nothing resembling a garden. There was grass and parking areas. […]