Category: Reading
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Queer love and second-act delights
I had the pleasure of interviewing J. Vanessa Lyon about her novel Lush Lives, which came out with Roxane Gay Books on August 1. Lyon’s almost-debut novel (the second title from Gay’s imprint) is racy, thoughtful, and delightful. When I (somewhat impertinently) asked Lyon why her book matters, she said: “I hope my book matters because…
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Fact, fiction … and truth
History, it seemed, disagreed about the sky. ‘Many guests especially recalled the beautiful moon that shone that evening,’ Chapter Five of Lincoln in the Bardo begins. ‘There was no moon that night and the sky was heavy with clouds,’ it says later. ‘The guests began to depart as the full yellow moon hung among the…
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Making pretend people matter
When my husband was four, he asked for a clock. Any kind, really. As long he was going to be allowed to pull it into tiny little pieces. Over time, he moved on to old TVs, broken video recorders, radios, cars. Eventually he learned to put things back together—and at some point, he even found…
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Sea Hearts, love … and hair
Really pleased to have a piece on Killings, Kill Your Darlings journal’s blog, today. It’s about Sea Hearts, a novel by Margo Lanagan. Here’s a taste: “There’s a right mess unfolding here, but it’s not moral condemnation we’re being served with. It’s a kind of truth. These are people in all their difficult, mean, loving glory.” You…
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Everyday strange
So you wake up one morning, and you’ve become a bug. You’re flailing on your back, the bedroom door is locked, and you’re really worried: you’ve missed not just one, but two early trains to work. You may well recognise this as the opening sequence of Franz Kafka’s novella Metamorphosis. I didn’t. I only picked…
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On Beauty
Let’s pretend. Let’s pretend that I spent my high school lunchtimes in the library because I was an undiscovered genius with an unquenchable love of books. And not because I was – ahem – between friendships. These days, I mostly visit the library to stock up on picture books and novels featuring mystery-solving mice. Occasionally,…