Betty Smith gave simple advice to writers: “First: Be understanding always. Keep the understanding you have and add on to it.” As the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943)—a best-selling novel that challenged the myth of poverty as a choice, and allowed low/no-wage characters to demonstrate courage
Marion Poschmann’s The Pine Islands (2017; Trans. Jen Calleja 2020) was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2019. The jury describes it like this: “A quirky, unpredictable and darkly comic confrontation with mortality.” Her first book was published in Germany in 2002 and, since, her work has been
Adam Wilson’s Sensation Machines (2020) is smart and disturbing, subversive and entertaining. It’s set in an eerily could-be-now New York City: “Headlines warned of rising sea levels and methane emissions. Chronicled the continuing barrage of Weinstein-esque behavior in politics and entertainment. Addressed the uptick in anti-immigration violence in the
In a passage near the end of “Let It Pass”, Steven observes the precarious nature of memory. He openly acknowledges its fallibility: “I have probably altered my recollection of that moment, changed its shape, refined it, as I still sometimes will tinker with shreds of a dream.” So when
No need to debate the significance of the Oxford comma here—there’s no ‘and’ to stir the pot. One could easily mis-identify the story and add the conjunction. But this is not a story about a set of accessories. It is about a series of another sort. A series of
