March 2012
9 posts
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“Lighting Rods captivates from the start. The first 50 pages, especially, evoke...”
– Lightning Rods advances to the finals of the Tournament of Books, where it will compete with either The Sisters Brothers or Open City (and beat them, if there’s any justice in the litblog world!) (potential spoiler: there is no justice in that or any other world) (still we hope for the best.)
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“Maybe Helen DeWitt’s nickname should be Honey Badger because she just really...”
– I don’t necessarily agree with John Warner about this — I think Helen Dewitt actually anticipates and expects response from her readers more than anyone who really “doesn’t give a shit” does — but I like that he said it. Honey badger, in case you are not one of...
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“Helen DeWitt had [an] awful idea, but instead of stashing it away for later...”
– Hey did you read this yet? Buy it!
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The Stripper
by Mitchell Sunderland
Straight dudes cry in my arms because even though they’re crying, I’m still the one who’s a fag. Girls treat me like I’m their therapist because they assume that I know their pain and don’t want to fuck them. I hear a lot about other people’s relationship problems, is what I’m saying, even though I don’t know shit about relationships.
My resume’s heavy on one-night stands...
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the timidity of good intentions
DeWitt points to problems that are recognizable and real — how men’s desires can differ from women’s, how harassment can upend a workplace — and offers up a modest proposal using the familiar rhetoric of our time. An author could easily succumb to the timidity of good intentions, too fearful to include anything that might allow a reader to ask questions and, oh dear, nurture doubts about the...
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on brown polyester suits
“Seeing himself in the office mirror had come as a shock. In fact it had made him wonder whether he had actually been sane when he bought that suit in the first place. Why would anybody buy a shit-colored suit? Why would that have seemed even momentarily a good idea? All right, it was on sale at the time. Originally a $99.99 suit, it had been reduced to $49.99 with choice of tie. But...
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E. Willis
SFJ: Willis had an interesting story about why and how she shifted. She was writing for other magazines about other stuff and she wrote about a rape case for Rolling Stone.
SM: “The Trial of Arlene Hunt,” which is in Beginning to See the Light. A knockout of an essay.
SFJ: It’s pretty intense. When it came out, [New Yorker] editor William Shawn saw her in the hallway and said, “That was a...
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