The Writing Life: Langston Hughes (2 of 4)

2021-06-16T15:52:00-04:00

“I am completely enchanted by The Big Sea and certainly it is the best thing you have done,” Carl Van Vechten wrote to Langston Hughes in November 1939. He had stayed up late to finish reading: “Not feeling very well I stayed in night before last and started reading

The Writing Life: Langston Hughes (2 of 4)2021-06-16T15:52:00-04:00

Mazo de la Roche’s Variable Winds at Jalna (1955)

2018-09-12T11:31:51-04:00

In chatting about the previous volume, Renny’s Daughter (1951), I mused on the future of Adeline’s romance. Because in the volume before, Return to Jalna (1956) she had committed to remaining unmarried to spend her adult life at her father’s side. (The volumes were written out of story-order. Mazo de

Mazo de la Roche’s Variable Winds at Jalna (1955)2018-09-12T11:31:51-04:00

Mazo de la Roche’s Finch’s Fortune (1955)

2018-07-26T14:27:45-04:00

“With her book, her roses and her cake she was separated from the other members of the family in a kind of frosty seclusion.” Alayne’s frosty seclusion doesn’t sound all that bad, does it? But the point is that Alayne feels her separateness. And that's not always comfortable. Nor

Mazo de la Roche’s Finch’s Fortune (1955)2018-07-26T14:27:45-04:00

Mavis Gallant’s “Autumn Day” (1955)

2020-09-29T16:34:35-04:00

I laid in with this story, while on a brief holiday in a small town outside Toronto. Outside, the sound of other people's everyday morning scurried past, but I was not required to be anywhere in particular that day. Salzburg Austria, Prison overlooking town [Piotr Bozyk, Click for credit]

Mavis Gallant’s “Autumn Day” (1955)2020-09-29T16:34:35-04:00

Margaret Millar’s A Beast in View (1955; 2016)

2017-02-24T17:01:29-05:00

She won the Edgar for it in 1956: Best Novel. (If you are looking for new reading lists, the Edgar Award's site is filled with temptations.) And it was the first of three, later awards being given for The Fiend in 1965 and Beyond This Point Are Monsters in 1971. (She would

Margaret Millar’s A Beast in View (1955; 2016)2017-02-24T17:01:29-05:00
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