Tag: fiction

Columns

Divining Comedy

Wen Stephenson

September 05, 2019

Set amid climate disaster, there's something strangely comedic about Amitav Ghosh's new novel.

Mr. Difficult Jr.

Sho Spaeth

November 14, 2018

The new "William Gass Reader" celebrates the great essayist and philosopher—but it's Gass's fictions that will stand the test of time.

Brutalist Fiction

J.W. McCormack

October 25, 2018

After reading Diane Williams, the classic short story seems like a sprawling black hole.

Mermaid Mania

Nora Caplan-Bricker

July 23, 2018

Samantha Hunt's

HELLO, NEW YORK! STROUD CALLING!

Gordon Lish

July 06, 2018

Gordon Lish takes a transatlantic call

Begone, President!

J.W. McCormack

June 18, 2018

The President Is Missing, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson, merely confirms the claim of its title.

Nanny State of Mind

Jessa Crispin

June 12, 2018

It is as if Slimani worries the reader’s sympathies might accidentally lie with the murderous nanny.

Strange, Stranger, Strangest

Scott Bradfield

June 01, 2018

Recalling the dark and elegant stories of Robert Aickman.

Motherhood!

Lauren Oyler

May 01, 2018

Sheila Heti's Motherhood is indeed a political novel. But it may not be about motherhood.

The Lunatic Face of Fiction

Olivia Parkes

April 10, 2018

On its fortieth anniversary: Joy Williams's “The Changeling” cracked the carapace of literary realism.

The Ovid of Loserdom

J.W. McCormack

January 22, 2018

In his second and perhaps final story collection, the author of Jesus' Son glimpses an out-of-reach infinity.

The Story of a Face

J.W. McCormack

January 03, 2018

We are trying to read the story of a teenage girl, but Marguerite Duras is trying to tell us something else.