Sometimes dreams do come true. A big thumbs-up from Meg Wolitzer in the New York Times Book Review.
MATASHA interview in NATIONAL REVIEW OF BOOKS
The wonderful Boo Trundle and I talk about the Seventies, Chicago, and the double consciousness at play in writing about and for children.
MATASHA on Literary Hub
Literary Hub invited me to write about why and how I wrote a children’s novel after three novels for adults, and here is what I said.
Kirkus starred review for MATASHA
A good day is a day when you learn that Kirkus has awarded your book a coveted gold star. Their sum-up: “Beautifully renders the slow-motion alchemy of growing up; mesmerizing and memorable.”
"23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read by Now" (redux)
I just noticed—though it’s been up for months—that Reader’s Digest has revised and updated the article “23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read by Now” that they first ran in 2014. I’m happy (and relieved) that they kept me on the list. The company still wows me, to say the least. Coincidentally, I’ve just started reading Brown Girls, Brownstones by Paule Marshall, who is one of the 23. It’s so beautiful, and I can’t believe it’s taken me my life this far to read it.
Essay: on Elena Ferrante
What could be more engrossing than rereading and then writing about Elena Ferrante’s oeuvre—plus a fascinating new academic work on her Neapolitan Quartet. Thanks to Virginia Quarterly Review for once again letting me run riot.
MATASHA Cover Reveal
I love it. (Out June 2021.)
"USE YOUR INSIDE VOICE"
“Use Your Inside Voice” is a craft essay of mine—first given as a lecture at the Tin House Summer Workshop-- that’s just been published in the September 2020 issue of AWP’s The Writer’s Chronicle. In it, I discuss the techniques writers use to convey interiority in fiction, using examples from Mme. de Lafayette, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Elena Ferrante. Unfortunately, I can’t supply a link; the article doesn’t seem to be available online, but perhaps may be at some later date!
ANNOUNCING TWO NEW BOOKS IN 2021!
I’m very pleased to report that I’ll be publishing two new books in 2021. The first, on George Eliot’s Middlemarch, is part of Ig Publishing’s Bookmarked series, which has previously brought out these volumes (PLEASE read Steve Almond’s on Stoner; it’s incredible). The second is a novel for middle-grade readers, entitled MATASHA, and will also be published by Ig. More info to come.
[Update, March 2021: the Bookmarked volume—titled Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life—is now scheduled for February 2022. That same month will also see the publication of a Bookmarked on Mrs. Dalloway by the extraordinary Robin Black. Matasha will drop on June 1, 2021.]
ELEVEN HOURS in Real Simple
I just got wind of this Real Simple article on “6 Good Books to Read When You’re About to Have a Baby.” Eleven Hours is not only on the list but is first in the accompanying video! Thank you, Real Simple.
“THE GREAT THIRD WHEELS OF LITERATURE”
According to one generous author/critic, this category includes, along with characters by Bronte, Highsmith, Lethem, and Hardy . . . Bruce Bennett-Jones of The Virgins.
THE 20 BEST CAMPUS NOVELS, RANKED
The Virgins is number 16.
ELEVEN HOURS Wiki Video
This is one of the more unusual manifestations of attention for Eleven Hours that I’ve seen. (Naturally, I am happy for almost all attention.) Somehow the novel has popped up on a wiki video site list of “10 Powerful Reads That Explore Modern Femininity.” I say unusual because the video seems narrated by a non-human entity and has for me a sort of cyborg feel to it, but the other entries on the list are intriguing, and so was seeing what images someone chose to illustrate my novel.
ME & THE STRAND
Once again I’m “under the radar” (“under-recognized,” “you should have read by now”—get the memo, people!) The Strand is one of my favorite bookstores, and I’m cool with being noticed by them, period.
Martha Stewart reads THE UNDERSTORY
“Martha Stewart charms library audience.” Well, now she’s charmed me too.
ELEVEN HOURS is one of the "7 Great Books on Female Friendship Not Written By Elena Ferrante"
Essay: on Leonard Cohen
My dream assignment: writing about Leonard Cohen for Virginia Quarterly Review. With special attention to the two novels he wrote in the 1960s, The Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers.
THE VIRGINS "for every kind of back-to-schooler"
THE VIRGINS is a "Hidden Gem"!
How nice to show up in The New York Times's ever-enjoyable Match Book column, along with Nam Le, Rachel Ingalls, and Jenny Erpenbeck.
THE VIRGINS & James Salter
I might have been more comfortable with an article title more along the lines of: "If you liked these great books by men, here are some soulmate volumes by women . . ." but then I don't like a fight. (The intro is actually gentler, and I love the comment about royalties!) I'm very happy to be on this list, side by side with you-know-who.