Eliza Minot’s IN THE ORCHARD is one of the most beautiful novels I’ve read on the early, lush, deranged weeks after giving birth, so I was flattered to find ELEVEN HOURS—alongside works by Toni Morrison, Elena Ferrante, Jenny Offill, and Evan S. Connell!— on this list of the best fiction on the experience of motherhood that Minot did for the website Shepherd.
WHAT YOU DIDN'T EXPECT
. . . is the very apt name of a podcast on the realities of pregnancy and childbirth. Its creator, Paulette Kamenecka, interviewed me about my novel ELEVEN HOURS--what drew me to write about childbirth, how my own experiences informed that book, and why I made certain artistic choices I did.
1,001 BOOKS ACROSS AMERICA
The irrepressible Susan Straight created this phenomenal literary map for the Los Angeles Times, highlighting 1,001 (yes!) works of fiction she read that unveil specific American locations and vibrations. I’m honored that The Understory was included for its evocation of Manhattan’s Central Park. What treasures are here to find! Please read Susan’s fiction, much of which is deeply rooted in the geography of inland California. I’m also a big fan of her vivid nonfiction work about her extended family, In the Country of Women.
FAMOUS WRITING ROUTINES
I can’t say my writing routine is actually famous, but this was a fun interview nonetheless, some of it focusing on my latest book, Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life.
THE VIRGINS in By the Book (New York Times)
I always wanted someone to mention me in the New York Times’s By the Book feature. Now it happened!
"The 60 Best Campus Novels from the Last 100 Years" (Literary Hub)
The Virgins is here! With a few other titles you may have heard of.
"The Best George Eliot Titles to Start With"
Another piece for Shepherd—it was fun to decide what to recommend.
THE EXETER BULLETIN
My high school alma mater interviewed me about MIDDLEMARCH AND THE IMPERFECT LIFE here.
SOUTHERN BOOKSELLER REVIEW
Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life is a May 2022 recommended title in the Southern Bookseller Review, courtesy of a bookseller at Malaprop’s (Asheville, N.C.; I was lucky enough to get to visit there once many years ago and have hoped to return). Thank you, Malaprop’s and SBR!
LITERARY HUB
Today is publication day! And Literary Hub has run a meaty excerpt from MIDDLEMARCH AND THE IMPERFECT LIFE.
JMMW JOURNAL INTERVIEW
At JMWW Journal, Curtis Smith asks me questions I enjoyed answering about MIDDLEMARCH AND THE IMPERFECT LIFE.
ON THE SEAWALL
A thoughtful discussion of MIDDLEMARCH AND THE IMPERFECT LIFE and MRS. DALLOWAY: BOOKMARKED, by critic Mark Athitakis at the literary site On the Seawall. Athitakis does a nice job of positioning the two books together, and showing how their themes fortuitously overlap. (Or maybe not so fortuitously, since the wonderful Robin E. Black and I share many readerly interests.)
Shepherd
Shepherd is a new site that lets readers browse tons of quirky “best book” lists, all written by book authors—for example (these are just 3 very recent ones): “The Best Books on Early Medieval England and Scandinavia”; “The Best Books for People Who Draw People,” and “The Best Books to Survive Potty Training with Humor and Understanding.” Here’s my entry: “The Best Children's Books that Don’t Condescend to Children.” It was fun to do.
Authors Guild interview
I did this brief interview on the writing life with The Authors Guild, the nation’s largest and most powerful advocacy group for writers—thank goodness we have them!
Publishers Weekly interview about MIDDLEMARCH AND THE IMPERFECT LIFE
Publishers Weekly has followed its review of Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life with this interview about how I came to write the book and why I’m so crazy about George Eliot’s 1872 novel.
Publishers Weekly review of MIDDLEMARCH AND THE IMPERFECT LIFE
A very gratifying review from PW. “Delightful . . . The connections between Middlemarch and Erens’s own life are original and surprising.”
Advance praise for MIDDLEMARCH AND THE IMPERFECT LIFE
To be published April 19, 2022.
“In this trenchant memoir of reading and writing, Pamela Erens returns over a lifetime to George Eliot's Middlemarch. The calm, understanding, and generosity that she finds in Eliot's masterpiece—albeit differently, at different moments in her own life—inflects Erens’s own account of becoming, and being, a mother and a writer. This short book is filled with wisdom."
—Claire Messud, author of Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write and The Woman Upstairs
“Erens makes an engaging and convincing case for the value of reading Middlemarch today, when we are still struggling to answer the questions it raises—about marriage, about community, about society, and especially about how to balance our individual needs and desires against the claims of sympathy and conscience.”
—Rohan Maitzen, author, Widening the Skirts of Light: Essays on George Eliot and Middlemarch for Book Clubs
“Thoughtful, frank, and always artful, Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life is an involving and deeply satisfying account of the reading and writing life.”
—Rebecca Mead, author, My Life in Middlemarch and Home/Land
MIDDLEMARCH AND THE IMPERFECT LIFE drops April 19, 2022!
MATASHA in DEAD DARLINGS
Maplewood Matters on MATASHA and Ig Publishing
This is what I love: a double local story.