Let’s say an editor approaches you and wants to see your work. This editor has a cup of coffee that he reveres about as much as he reveres himself. He fiddles with the cardboard ring as you pull out a story that’s bound to publication should you resolve that last muddle of characterization. No, not […]
This is the second part of a dialogue/collaborative review about Roberto Bolano’s 2666 between contributors Jacob Singer and Benjamin van Loon. Read Part I and Part II here. – – – JACOB SINGER: So after I finished college I moved to the college town of Tucson, Arizona and went to Nogales, Mex and drove around the Sonoran desert. Border towns […]
[This speculation brought to you by Laurent Binet and HHhH.] How should evil be punished? I wonder this in response to a novel I just read: HHhH by Laurent Binet. The title is an acronym for “Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich” or, “Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich.” The Heydrich in question is Reinhard Heydrich, aka the Blonde Beast, the […]
“The man code-named Josef Faber—and after ten years he no longer cared about his birth name—lowered his bulky newsfac slightly. Finding the softly pretty young girl on the park bench looking his way, he smiled an agonizingly embarrassed smile and ducked back into the paper again.” What you have here may possibly be the worst […]
Good for Mark Leyner getting some cover copy from John Cusack and Todd Solondz, among others. It belies a bit of back-room schmoozability, or what some might call aloofness, and it’s precisely this that carries over into The Sugar Frosted Nutsack, Leyner’s latest and greatest. It’s meta-hip, packed with italics and bold phrases and bold italic phrases and […]
