Darcey Steinke and American Womanhood
October 15, 2014
In Sister Golden Hair, we roam a 1970s landscape of macramé planters and candy dishes and polyester pants. Set in a community decaying from within, Darcey Steinke’s new novel examines what ingredients make an American girl.
Matt Bell is in the House
June 18, 2013
In his debut novel, In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods, Matt Bell cracks us in the mind’s eye, drops us in inky waters, leaves us dripping with love potions and scarred from our innermost animal natures.
The Infectious Benjamin Percy
May 6, 2013
In Benjamin Percy’s Orwellian new novel Red Moon, something lurks under the skin and bone of humanity.
Matthew Specktor’s Sense of Agency
April 9, 2013
In Matthew Specktor’s American Dream Machine, Los Angeles rightfully rises as the pop-culture-colored mammoth that it is—all velvet violet and martini green.
Francesca Lia Block’s Elements of Style
October 15, 2012
The Elementals is Francesca Lia Block’s return to adult fiction. We follow Berkeley-bound Ariel as she travels between the landscapes of northern California and Los Angeles, dealing with her mother’s cancer and the disappearance of her best friend.
Kathleen Alcott’s Alphabet City
September 11, 2012
In her debut novel The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets (Other Press), Kathleen Alcott lures us into the lives of Ida, Jackson, and James: a motherless girl who becomes best friends with the boy down the street and his younger brother.
Emma Straub Goes from Screen to Page
September 4, 2012
In Emma Straub’s richly envisioned debut novel, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, the author goes back in time to the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Elissa Schappell’s Feminist Architecture
July 9, 2012
In her book of interconnected short stories Blueprints for Building Better Girls, author Elissa Schappell teaches readers not only about being a real girl, but also about how to be a better one.
How Cheryl Strayed Found Her Path
March 19, 2012
After years of grasping to come to terms with her mother’s death, Cheryl Strayed found a book on hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. She quickly decided to attempt it.
Stephen Elliott’s New Direction
February 14, 2012
On an unseasonably warm winter day, we sat down in a Williamsburg coffee shop to chat with Stephen Elliott about the making of his first film, Cherry, which stars James Franco, Heather Graham, Lili Taylor, Dev Patel, and Ashley Hinshaw.
Colson Whitehead’s Brains
October 28, 2011
Now, thanks to the wry imagination of MacArthur Fellowship recipient Colson Whitehead, we have the thinking person’s zombie book: Zone One, which hit the New York Times bestseller list this week.