Ink and incapability
I arrange my desk, in preparation for literary flight * I cull my notes for material, coming across odd things about the brevity of life and the cause of hair loss * One note leads to a discussion of out-of-body experiences with Jeeves, whom I mark as a likely candidate for having had such an experience * I type...
Valeria Luiselli: Pearls among junk
Valeria Luiselli’s second novel The Story of My Teeth is a fiercely intelligent, inventive and hilarious exploration of worth, value and creation in the worlds of art and literature. The narrator, Gustavo Sánchez Sánchez, is an enterprising auctioneer who will use his skills to sell anything – even his own teeth – at the highest...
Jami Attenberg: How to be
Jami Attenberg’s new novel Saint Mazie tells the fictionalised story of one of Manhattan’s real-life heroes of the early 20th century: Mazie Phillips-Gordon, the brassy, big-hearted proprietress of the Venice movie theatre in the Bowery who spent most of her adult life helping the homeless. In 1940 Joseph Mitchell profiled Mazie for the New Yorker – a...
Leaving it all behind
Rickard Velily’s first job in New York was as a reporter for a small local newspaper. He did not stay long in the job because it was apparent that the other people who worked in the newspaper were doing so as a sort of retirement project. He felt guilty spending time with them when, after...
Christopher Bollen: Distraction games
Christopher Bollen’s second novel Orient takes its title from the name of the small hamlet on the tip of the North Fork of Long Island. His story begins as summer draws to a close. Mills Chevern, a 19-year-old foster-home kid-turned-drifter who hails from California is taken pity on by Orient native Paul Benchley, a middle-aged...
Boris Fishman: Believable lies
Boris Fishman’s engaging debut novel A Replacement Life offers a critical and affectionate portrait of the Russian-American immigrant community that clusters around South Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach. Slava Gelman is a lowly hack on a New Yorker-style magazine whose grandfather suggests an outrageous writing assignment: to forge a Holocaust restitution claim. His grandmother, an actual Holocaust...
Gifted
When the nurses handed me my son, I couldn’t believe how perfect he was. Ben was so robust, nearly fifty inches tall, including horns and tail. Even the doula was impressed. “My God,” she said. “My holy God in heaven.” Alan and I knew instantly that our child was exceptional. He was just so adorable,...
Recompense
“Something I need you to look at,” Grandfather said, pointing to the bedroom. “We’re both tired. Let’s do it another day,” Slava said, wanting to return to the living room. “Another day with you?” Grandfather said. “Another day with you is a year from now. The deadline is soon. It’ll take only a moment.” Grandfather...
Balloon night
Timkin’s wife left him during a blisteringly cold Thanksgiving week, two nights before their annual Balloon Night party. There was no time for Timkin to call their guests and cancel; nor would he know where to call in many cases. It was the sort of event attended by people from all corners of their lives...
Claudine
On a warm night in May I went out to do karaoke at a tiny bar downtown. Because it was a weeknight I left early, just past midnight. It was too early and too nice out to justify taking a cab. A limo sprouting bachelorettes from its roof passed me, trailing squeals that echoed in...
Crossing bridges
When I first migrated to New York, a wide-eyed student with a frugal scholarship, I felt no fear, for Manhattan was connected to other land-masses by half a dozen bridges. That calmed an inner part of my soul. Given my family history, I do not know how it could be otherwise. Until that point, rivers...
MA vs LON?
The perennial ‘Can writing be taught?’ question rarely seems far from the book pages, but a couple of creative-writing-related stories have received particular media attention this year. One was Hanif Kureishi’s slightly mischievous comment that creative writing courses are a “waste of time” (he teaches the subject at Kingston University). The other was the publication...
