Suspend Your Disbelief

Recent Posts

Shop Talk |

Under the Covers

by Lee Thomas

For all of you readers who love new technology, but remain bookish at heart, how about an iPad/Kindle/Nook cover that marries the two? We’ve rounded up a few of our favorite trompe l’oeil covers, so you can have your cake … but dress it up like a book. Or give a bibliophile friend a lovely gift. 1. Leather bound by Pad and Quill 2. Hans Christian Andersen by Vintage Covers 3. Hardback Cloth BOOK by Nedrelow 4. By the Numbers Moleskine-style by RightBrainy 5. Classic black Dodocase 6. Horses (I can’t help but think about Patti Smith with this one) […]


Essays |

The ReCorrections: Part II

by Scott F. Parker

In the second part of his essay, Scott F. Parker discusses The Corrections as a key to Franzen’s thoughts on commerce and art, and how this tension led to the controversy surrounding the Oprah Book Club. Parker argues that the deep connection the reader forges with the Lamberts is precisely because of their abiding flaws and loneliness, because Franzen reveals how their struggles are our own.


Shop Talk |

A Million Little Writers (perhaps just a dozen)

by Lee Thomas

Lots of digital ink has been spilled this week about James Frey’s Full Fathom Five endeavor. In simple terms, the company has enlisted bright young writers (most from MFA programs) to try to write the next big Young Adult series, a la Twilight or Harry Potter. Hillary Busis on MEDIAite has an article looking at two competing pieces (both published 11/12/10) – one in the Wall Street Journal, one in New York Magazine – and their very different takes. The blogosphere has picked up the story and run with it. Busis writes: The articles’ tones vary drastically. The WSJ’s Katherine […]


Essays |

The ReCorrections: Part I

by Scott F. Parker

Nearly a decade after publication, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections still looms large in American fiction. The novel, and the controversy surrounding it, have influenced the way we think about issues of family, identity, art, commerce, and the role of the writer. In Part I of “The ReCorrections” Scott F. Parker reveals the impact the book had on him as a reader and why he believes “the mood of The Corrections trumps its plot.” Look for Part II tomorrow.


Shop Talk |

And the winner is ….

by Lee Thomas

Tonight, the National Book Award will be announced. The National Book Foundation – who awards the prize each year – will be live tweeting the event “from pre-show setup to post show celebration.” Anne shared an interesting piece from Salon that posted on Monday. In the aptly-titled essay, “Who will win the National Book Award for fiction?“, Tom LeClair breaks down the five books in the running – Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey; Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon; Great House by Nicole Krauss; So Much for That by Lionel Shriver; and I Hotel by Karen Tei […]


Shop Talk |

Book of the Week Giveaway: Picking Bones from Ash, by Marie Mutsuki Mockett

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

At the end of August, Fiction Writers Review launched a Fan Page on Facebook. The goal is threefold: to introduce new readers to FWR, to create an informal place for conversations about writing, and to give away lots of free books. Each week we’ll give away several free copies of a featured novel or story collection as part of our Book-of-the-Week program. All you have to do to be eligible for our weekly drawing is to be a fan of our Facebook page. No catch, no gimmicks. And once you’re a fan, you’ll always be automatically entered in our subsequent […]


Shop Talk |

A little bird told me

by Lee Thomas

Every month, new and no-doubt worthy literary magazines are launched. Many seek to fill a particular niche in the literary landscape, a place to assemble writers concerned with, say, the intersection of the Southern Gothic and SciFi traditions in flash fiction (that actually sounds like a magazine I’d like to read). New on the scene this month is Carrier Pigeon Magazine (my initial search turned up trade magazines targeted to pigeon enthusiasts). The brainchild of a group of artists and illustrators, who view fiction as a natural partner to their visual work, Carrier Pigeon is a quarterly publication that seeks […]


Reviews |

Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen

by Scott F. Parker

As the swirl of publicity surrounding Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom begins to settle, Scott F. Parker makes the case for a novel that transcends time and place because it captures them so faithfully. Parker also looks at how Franzen’s difficult characters reveal our own prejudices. Later in the week: Parker looks back at The Corrections, nearly a decade after publication.


Shop Talk |

Writer, Sell Thyself

by Lee Thomas

On the NYTimes‘ Opinionator blog this weekend, Dick Cavett reflects on the role of author as salesman in “I Wrote It, Must I Also Hustle It?” Cavett writes: I just did 12 — or was it 14? — back-to-back radio interviews from New York to Seattle and, so it seemed after five of them, all points in between. Somewhere around number eight you begin to lapse into a kind of dream state, wondering if what you just said was something you had said to the same person 10 minutes ago; or was that said to the previous host? Maybe he […]


Interviews |

Vampires are People, too: An Interview with Janice Eidus

by Lauren Hall

NPR’s Marion Winik has called Janice Eidus’s latest novel, The Last Jewish Virgin, “Twilight…with a sense of humor, a brain, and a feminist subtext.” At the Algonquin hotel, Eidus talks with Lauren Hall about paying homage to—and reinventing—the vampire myth; judging a book by its cover; and writing longhand in the mountains of San Miguel de Allende.




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