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Joan Didion’s Formal Experience of Confusion
by John D’Agata
Some memoirists hide behind their crisply recollected facts; Joan Didion offers herself unadorned, confused and blurry, and struggling to remember.
Survival of the Oddest
by Mark Kamine
The problems of free will, an invented God, and impossible love: Novelist Nicholas Mosley practices for catastrophe.
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Children of the Corn Syrup
by Shea Dean
War has made us fat, and a Granny Smith apple strafed with pesticides is no more “natural” than a can of corned beef.
Criminous Victorians
by Alexis Soloski
Detective fiction: one part escapism, one part law-and-order, and three parts damn good story.
Read the Book That You Are Reading
by Paul Collins
Readers ask questions about books; lazy reviewers offer answers about authors. Should we send them anonymous copies?
The Jerriad: A Clown Painting
(Part One: Nutty Around the Edges)
by B. Kite
Lending Jerry Lewis to the French has been a magnanimous gesture—but it’s time to take him back.
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Far Out
by Arthur C. Clarke and Lawrence Weschler
A distinguished futurist and an idiosyncratic philosopher-writer debate the intelligence of machines and the future of wonder.
Avengers of Gowanus
by Benjamin Strong
Jonathan Lethem’s new novel watches America shift from the richly textured world of Marvel comics to the flattened plane of DC.
Mark Salzman
interviewed by Joe Loya
This is no beauty makeover: the transformations of Mark Salzman, novelist, musician, teacher, and martial artist.
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Stephen Malkmus
interviewed by Matthew Derby
Former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus on Bob Packwood’s insatiability, Radiohead’s solar power, and stupid last names.
John Banville
interviewed by Ben Ehrenreich
The Irish novelist and critic looks back on thirty years of characters looking for solid places to stand.
