Beyond normal
Alice Hoffman’s latest novel The Museum of Extraordinary Things is a magical tale about the power of love and reconciliation focusing on intertwining lives in New York in the early years of the twentieth century. The title refers to a boardwalk freak show on Coney Island offering ‘amazement and entertainment’ to the masses – qualities...
Month-to-month loyalties
I cannot recall a specific moment in which I told myself that I would become a writer. But I know I was twenty, taking a bath in a crappy apartment in Columbus, Ohio, the first time I read something that made me feel the author was writing for me alone. I was reading Joan Didion’s...
Between Nabokov and Fleming
Read more and buy the book David Gilbert’s archly entertaining and insightful novel & Sons, about a once-lauded novelist reaching out to his estranged family, was published in the US to rave reviews that variously compared his storytelling, mastery of language and observational skills to Dostoyevsky, Ford Madox Ford, Proust and Nabokov. As the book...
Next time, email
“Airport, please.” All things considered, it’s something closer to vindictiveness than politeness that has him jump into the cab at the last minute and fold himself between her and her luggage. It’s only when she inches closer to her window in response that he becomes aware of the true time commitment of this ride-along. But...
Sex Education
Daylight pries at my eyes. In a heartbeat, my focus shifts from a pleasant dream, instantly forgotten, to the red-pink glow that the sun sets off under my eyelids from behind the closed shades. I am aware of morning, of a bed sheet draped in bunches over me, of the warmth of late May –...
