Unlike her Manson-inspired novel The Girls, the stories in Emma Cline’s Daddy explore the hard angles of contemporary life—from men grappling with a shifting sense of authority as their status dissolves to the young women who sell their panties to strangers online.
There Will Be Deviations: Peter Stamm’s Surreal Doppelgängers
The note arrives without a contact number or return address, signed only with Christoph’s first name: “Please come to Skogskyrkogården tomorrow at two. I have a story I want to tell you.” Thus Swiss author Peter Stamm’s The Sweet Indifference of the World unfolds with the simplicity and wild...
Recommended Reading: Books in the Time of Corona(virus)
Greetings from the Great Indoors! During this time of confinement—whether it be self-imposed or government-mandated—a healthy stack of reading material can make the hours fly. Readers have always found pleasure and escapism in the pages of their books, and there is no better time to dust off your...
Recommended Reading: All Hallows’ Eve
I’m not one for horror. In fact, my list of what I personally consider scary is probably akin to that of a six-year-old. Don’t ask me to screen your favorite Tarantino with you or binge-watch Stranger Things or spend the evening at Knott’s Scary Farm. In fact, I will need to get...
Recommended Reading: Valentine’s Day
Last week, I sat down to write an article about love stories—ideally including a majority of happy endings. It was going to be simple: so many of our most beloved stories have love at their core. I was excited! I’d even weeded out most of my bittersweet favorites to keep it upbeat, and I was...
Sweetbitter
It’s 2006. There are no iPhones; Williamsburg is on the precipice of gentrification; and Tess is pounding the pavement looking for a job. Compelling, sensory, and uncannily relatable, Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter follows a young woman’s sensory awakening after moving to New York...
The Dud Avocado
We never tire of reading about Americans in Paris. Somehow, despite reeking of clichés, tales of their adventures retain their youthful, starry-eyed allure.
2016: A Year in Books
There are a lot of “Year in Review” pieces floating around the internet, but I don’t want to review my year. 2016 sucked. Books don’t.
Commonwealth
“The christening took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin.Fix was smiling when he opened the door and he kept smiling as he struggled to make the connection: it was Albert Cousins from the district attorney’s office standing on the cement slab of his front porch.”
Frances and Bernard
Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell met at Yaddo, a writer’s colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1948. They continued writing letters to one another until O’Connor’s death in 1964.