Enchanted Islands, by Allison Amend
by Tyler McMahon
“Amend does a remarkable job making Frances’s story feels less like a novel and more like a real life”: Tyler McMahon on Allison Amend’s new novel, Enchanted Islands.
Tyler McMahon is author of the novels How the Mistakes Were Made (St. Martin’s Press, 2011) and Kilometer 99 (St. Martin’s Press, 2014). He lives in Honolulu and teaches at Hawaii Pacific University. Learn more about him at tylermcmahon.net.
“Amend does a remarkable job making Frances’s story feels less like a novel and more like a real life”: Tyler McMahon on Allison Amend’s new novel, Enchanted Islands.
“West of Sunset is a welcome corrective for the Shakespeare-in-Love brand of writer idolatry, in which talent and will overcome all obstacles. Instead, this is the portrait of the artist as an old man, after the promise and the fame have been stripped away, and only the writing remains.”
“Fiction writers have a serious responsibility, especially when writing about something that others view as sacred”: Jon Keller with Tyler McMahon on Of Sea and Cloud, his debut novel about Maine lobstermen.
“I barely scraped the surface of the vast bank of medical cases I had at my disposal”: David Bajo talks with Tyler McMahon about the world of medicine, literary plotting, and Mercy 6, his latest novel.
“In Forest of Fortune, Ruland combines the tropes of hardboiled crime fiction with the creepy appeal of a ghost story, and riffs on elements from addiction/recovery narratives.”
In its most poignant passages, A Life in Men unpacks the tired clichés about living life to the fullest.
Kristiana Kahakauwila talks with Tyler McMahon about her debut collection, This is Paradise, about the importance of coming back to her Hawaiian-ness to write this book, and about the ways that the stories function collectively to capture how she experiences Hawai`i’s multitude and diversity.
No expats hungry for exoticism here, Joanna Luloff’s debut collection brings the trials and triumphs of Sri Lankans during the civil war to the fore.
Dzanc Books and 826michigan founder Steven Gillis talks about the “rogue warrior” Renaissance in indie publishing and his new collection, The Law of Strings .
Down-and-out Benjamin Benjamin on a zany road trip riddled with crises – mechanical, personal, existential.
Surprising Things Can Happen: An Interview with Kristen Roupenian
Part of a Bigger Conversation: An Interview with Rebecca Makkai
If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi: An Interview with Neel Patel
Sometimes Taking Things Out Counts as Writing: an Interview with Celeste Ng
Influences: An Interview with Tobias Wolff
Stories We Love: “Blue Lenses,” by Daphne Du Maurier
Stories We Love: “White Angel,” by Michael Cunningham
Stories We Love: Donald Barthelme’s “The School,” In Which is Revealed the Meaning of Life
Stories We Love: "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver
Stories We Love: "The Fall River Axe Murders," by Angela Carter
