the controversy in the rye, part III
by Anne Stameshkin
The judge has ruled: Salinger wins, and 60 Years Later will not publish.
The judge has ruled: Salinger wins, and 60 Years Later will not publish.
The Millions does an amazing job of covering (in what could oxymoronically be called a comprehensive summary) this fall’s most talked-about forthcoming books, including novels from E.L. Doctorow, Margaret Atwood, William Trevor, Kazuo Ishiguro, Lorrie Moore, Thomas Pyncheon, Jonathan Lethem, A.S. Byatt, Richard Russo, Dave Eggers, John Irving, Audrey Niffenegger, and Philip Roth. And yes, I’m now drooling.
Click here to read Greg Schutz’s full review of this novel. Here’s a taste: What is The Glister? To my dismay as a reviewer but my delight as a reader, John Burnside’s seventh novel defies encapsulation. The title itself suggests the book’s strangeness: the word, a synonym of “glitter,” seems composed of equal parts “glisten” and “blister.” In the way it compounds beauty and ugliness, it is a microcosm of the book as a whole. The Glister is neither a straightforward horror story nor an allegory à la Animal Farm, though at times it masquerades as both.
On June 25, Wag’s Revue–a free, online-only literary quarterly–followed their exciting (and much-discussed) first issue with their second, which looks very promising. So why is this lit mag different from all other lit mags? In the words of Sandra Allen, the journal’s nonfiction editor, Wag’s Revue “aspires to marry the freedoms of the Internet with the strictures of a traditional printed quarterly, creating something entirely new (a ‘wag,’ if you will). It’s an exciting solution, I think, to print’s demise, and a good read for anyone interested in the future of the American literary quarterly.” From the press release: Faithful […]
Blog readers, check out our latest features on the main site: [review] Sophie Powell recommends the Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (edited by Tara L. Masih), “an unprecedented gathering of 25 brief essays by experts in the field that includes a lively, comprehensive history of the hybrid genre.” [essay] – Laura Valeri engages with and rebuts the notion that fiction writers are “failed poets.” [interview] – Mary Westbrook talks with award-winning author Janet Peery about the particular process of expanding stories into novels, what being a “writer’s writer” really means, how she’d respond if a student […]
On June 10, for one day only, Haaretz replaced its reporters with 31 of Israel’s literary writers, instructing them to cover the news. The result? Top stories about “integration at the giraffe enclosure, love in the cancer ward, mosaics in Tel Aviv, addicts at the Jerusalem rehab centre, and a visit to the grave of a holy man, among others” (via Metafilter). The Jewish Daily Forward‘s David Estrin describes the experiment: Among those articles were gems like the stock market summary, by author Avri Herling. It went like this: “Everything’s okay. Everything’s like usual. Yesterday trading ended. Everything’s okay. The […]
As the Catcher in the Rye lawsuit develops, lawyers and bookworms alike have begun to air their opinions. The Wall Street Journal‘s Law Blog speaks with Marc Reiner, a copyright lawyer, about the issues raised by the lawsuit and whether it has any merits: That issue — whether a fictional character is copyrightable — is a little unsettled. It’s most readily applied to characters that are graphic, like Mickey Mouse, or if the character has been in a series, like Tarzan. I’d probably lean toward thinking that Holden Caulfield is fleshed out well enough to be copyrightable. Some folks think […]
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I love Gillian Sze. Not in a “we’re romantically involved” kind of way, but yes, we were classmates at Concordia University for our undergraduate degrees in Creative Writing, and from the first moment I read her work, I knew she was a great writer. So you’ll have to forgive me if I gush over her first book of poetry, Fish Bones (published by DC Books’ Punchy Poetry imprint), because I’ve always had a bit of a girl crush on her. Hopefully that doesn’t sound totally creepy and stalkeresque. I just […]
Dear readers: FWR will be under construction this weekend (thanks to the amazing and talented Marissa), so apologies in advance if you check in on Saturday or Sunday and find (1) severe wonkiness or (2) nothing at all. Come Monday we’ll be updated, and we’ll have some awesome new features as well. Stay tuned!!
Jofie Ferrari-Adler continues his must-read Agents and Editors series for Poets and Writers with this great in-depth interview with Jonathan Galassi, the president/publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Here’s a brief excerpt: [Jofie Ferrari-Adler:] What else are you looking for when you’re evaluating a piece of fiction? Are you looking for a certain kind of sensibility or anything like that? [Jonathan Galassi:] I think that would fall under voice. I remember when I read [Roberto] Bolaño’s Savage Detectives. I read an Italian version and just thought it had so much verve and humor. It was so sexy. It had a […]
