The Story Behind Whisper Hollow
Chris Cander talks shop about her creative process and the story origins of her latest novel.
Chris Cander talks shop about her creative process and the story origins of her latest novel.
“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.”
Ellen Prentiss Campbell on Anne Tyler’s newest novel: “Some fault her for sentiment or repetition, some find her characters too similarly marked by eccentricities of behavior and occupation. But others, like myself, believe authentic sentiment gets a bad rap, and recognize her people. Behind the public curtains, whose family, what profession, isn’t a little odd?”
In Part II, Scott F. Parker considers Kesey’s ties to the “pantheon of writers whose lives threaten to overshadow their work.” What did it mean for Kesey to be “as big as he had it in him to be”?
In Part I, Scott F. Parker meditates on Kesey’s influence in and around Eugene. “Everything I knew about Kesey at the time of his death I’d absorbed from the ether of Eugene,” Parker writes. “Being in Kesey’s general proximity was one of my first moments of thinking The World of Events connected at some points with the world outside my window.”
In her review of Marilynne Robinson’s newest novel, Lila, Ellen Prentiss Campbell writes of the author’s work, “all four of Robinson’s novels—Housekeeping as well as the Gilead trilogy—are united by her compassionate attention to the possibility for amazing, transcendent grace breaking through and illuminating flawed human existence and our daily experience.”
In her review of All My Puny Sorrows, Eleanor J. Bader calls this new novel by Miriam Toews “a love story writ large.” She goes on to say, “It also serves as a potent rebuttal to one of Western culture’s most cherished delusions—that if we have love, nothing else matters.”
Ellen Prentiss Campbell says of Robert Hellenga’s new novel: “The greatest charm of this book is Frances herself, her tart, funny voice. Hellenga’s characters are flawed, striving, likeable. Frances Godwin may be my favorite of the whole tribe.”
Richard Fulco talks with Ken Wheaton about his newest novel, Sweet as Cane, Salty as Tears, as well as influences, whether he identifies as a Southern Writer, the role of humor in his work, and more.
John Dermot Woods talks with Kristen Iskandrian about his new book, The Baltimore Atrocities, and the way in which text and image intersects in his work, saying, “I wanted to draw pictures that would extend the stories, further complicate them, contribute an essential narrative element that the stories could not exist without.” They also discuss the pleasure of writing on trains, balancing disciplines, exploring issues of place, and more.
