Detroit receives little care and attention from anybody, including fiction writers. But Brad Leithauser and Susan Messer both have new historical novels set in the city.
Being a midlist author is no way to make money. (While we’re at it, neither is being a midlist rock band.)
Jack Pendarvis‘ always-entertaining blog advent calendar is up and running.
The Atlantic has assembled its literary interviews—with authors like Dennis Lehane, Richard Powers, Joyce Carol Oates, Susan Sontag, and more—in one handy place.
Mark Twain‘s house smells like a haunted house, according to somebody who claims some expertise in these things.
Maybe the New York Times needs a reviewer dedicated to exclusively covering books from independent presses. Though that would imply that books from small presses are somehow inherently different from mainstream books—pursuing such a strategy would wreck the argument that the best small-press books deserve a seat at the adult table, yes?
In the meantime, the Times keeps on crushing the will of debut novelists.
“If [Walt] Whitman wore jeans, he wore them because they were the clothes of the rebellious, not because they were the affordable uniform of the pretty.”
But whatever. These days nobody knows who the hell Ernest Hemingway was anyhow.
markathitakis.com 