In July of 2020, a little less than six months after COVID-19 sent much of the world into lockdown, I reviewed three newly released books about the coronavirus pandemic for this magazine. Six months is short in many contexts, but […]
My Search for a Great Pandemic Novel Read More »
American literature is full of books about fathers. Philip Roth, John Updike, Richard Ford, Junot Díaz, David Gilbert, Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Lethem, and many, many more have written, in fiction or memoir, about father-son relationships—for the most part, from the
Fatherhood Doesn’t Have to Be a Private Endeavor Read More »
Is bad behavior in marriage back? In fictional marriage, I mean. For years, heterosexual matrimony in American novels has seemed rather like it’s become a trap for the female protagonist: Unhappy or misunderstood by her spouse, she may act out
‘Scaffolding’ Is a Spry Defense of Marital Secrets Read More »
“Sometimes I am boggled by the gallery of souls I’ve known. By the lore. The wild history, unsung,” Rachel Kushner writes in The Hard Crowd, her 2021 essay collection. “People crowd in and talk to me in dreams. People who
‘Creation Lake’: Rachel Kushner’s Surprising Swerve Read More »
When the coronavirus pandemic started, the media scholar Lilie Chouliaraki, who teaches at the London School of Economics, knew she’d have to be more careful than many of her neighbors. A transplant recipient and lymphoma patient, she was at very
When Victimhood Takes a Bad-Faith Turn Read More »
