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.
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 also 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 be automatically entered in each subsequent […]
If you are what you eat, what happens when someone else eats what you are? In Aimee Bender’s latest novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, 9-year old Rose first experiences this conundrum when she tastes her mother’s birthday cake, only to come away with the uncomfortable understanding of her mother’s lonely dissatisfaction with life. The cake betrays the inner feelings of the cook. Over the course of the novel and Rose’s life, the predicament continues, building to an unwanted fixation of what constitutes food and those who grow and prepare it.
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 also 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 be automatically entered in each subsequent […]
Translation gives those of us who are not linguistic polymaths access to the great books being written all over the planet. A good translation doesn’t simply convey the story being told – it pays attention to original voice of the author, picking up on nuance and subtleties. The judges of the 2010 PEN Translation Prize found just those shades of meaning in Michael Henry Heim’s translation from the Dutch of Hugo Claus’s Wonder (Archipelago Books). They write: Michael Henry Heim’s outstanding translation has succeeded masterfully in mirroring Hugo Claus’s many voices in this novel that reflects a complex, complicated vision […]
Three weeks ago, 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 also 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 be automatically entered in each subsequent drawing. Last […]
In a generation of “Pointers,” the relationship between and among songs on an album—its narrative—is all but lost in favor of hit single after single. But in Jennifer Egan’s new book, A Visit from the Goon Squad, an array of stories mix into a cohesive novel, each chapter self-contained yet fluid as the grooves of an LP.
Two weeks ago, 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 also 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 be automatically entered in each subsequent drawing. Last […]
Imagine the joys and tribulations of trying to be a good husband and father. Then turn up the volume knob full blast. Brady Udall’s novel, The Lonely Polygamist, revels in the complexity of community, and all the attendant benefits and woes.
At the heart of Lev Grossman’s latest novel, The Magicians, lies the idea that a fantasy world exists, but one far more complex, and at times limiting, than Quentin Coldwater, the unlikely hero, might wish. Drawing on the rich fantasy traditions of Tolkien, Plover, and Rowling, Grossman subverts genre expectations in wholly original ways.
