Tag
Novel
-
Rachel Cusk’s Diminishing Returns
“Cusk remains one of the most formally restless novelists of our time. The trouble is that this inventiveness may now be outpacing Cusk’s thinking.”
-
Melissa Mogollón on “Oye”
“There is a fixation on our self worth that is really tied to our physical body. … I [wrote] the extreme, the product of what that does to your psyche.”
-
It’s Not Only Human Stories Worth Telling: Sigrid Nunez’s Animal Novels
Why are animals so central to Sigrid Nunez’s thinking about the status of fiction?
-
You Write Because You Want to Feel Free: Katie Kitamura and Alexander Manshel
“I grew up with this very firm sense that there were multiple places that I could consider a home, rather than homes simply.”
-
Andrew Boryga on “Victim”
“It was definitely in demand, this narrative of explain to me your oppression, you know, explain to me how hard you had it.”
-
Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds
“There is a kind of moment of doom when you commit to a character. Because none of my characters are lovely.”
-
“The Past Survives in the Telling”: Eight Questions for Esther Kinsky
“I never look for inspiration when I embark on a project. My writing evolves from something I’ve seen, heard outside—never from reading.”
-
The Revolution Will Be Caring
What makes something mutual aid or collective care and not capitalist charity?
-
Making Fascism Work for Moderates
“The Southern Poverty Law Center describes The Camp of the Saints as ‘the favorite racist fantasy of the anti-immigrant movement in the US.’”
-
Groff and the Radical Act of Paying Attention
“I had read Groff all wrong, subjecting her to a sexist and dismissive logic.”
-
Attention is Love: A Discussion with Lauren Groff and Laura McGrath
“I wanted to make nature a source of conflict, but also a source of joy and beauty and wonder and delight.”
-
“We All Relate to Each Other’s Dystopias”: Shehan Karunatilaka and Sangeeta Ray
“Seven Moons” makes space for the cacophony of ghostly voices of those killed and disappeared in Sri Lanka’s long civil war.
-
Narrative, Database, Archive: Tom Comitta and Deidre Lynch
“How I made the book determined the story that was created … Once you have enough of something, a narrative can emerge.”
-
Literary Experiments and Black Southern Time Travel with Kiese Laymon
“My reckoning with the Black South was an attempt to give integrity and texture to my belief that I was an Afrikan with a ‘k.’”
-
What Would Undo the Maxim Gun? Magic: P. Djèlí Clark and andré carrington
“You need your heroes to have flaws.”
-
“Ideological Sci-Fi”: A Conversation with Julius Taranto
“When to form political certainties, and when to take political action, are among the central questions the book explores.”
-
Desolation Tries to Colonize You: Jeff VanderMeer and Alison Sperling
“Weird fiction is unusual, too, in how the unknown may be both horrific and incredibly beautiful.”
-
Weirding Out with Kate Marshall
In the intro to season 6 of Novel Dialogue, Kate Marshall gets weird: “I was looking at writers who were considering themselves part of a new weird, and I wanted to ask what the old weird was, and so I started looking.”
-
“Gestures of Refusal”: A Conversation with Sarah Bernstein and Daisy Lafarge
“Why do we want our characters to be innocent, as if we are innocent ourselves?”
-
B-Sides: Neil M. Gunn’s “Highland River”
Freud taught that childhoods shape our adult selves with unresolved trauma. But this novel shows that childhood joy can shape adulthood, too.
-
On Our Nightstands: May 2023
A behind-the-scenes look at what Public Books editors and staff have been reading this month.
