If you've read both of these authors, you're probably wondering what they're doing here, sharing a title and a post like this. But as I was reading them, the other evening before bed, I was struck by a fundamental connection, in the way that I was read these novels (not
Emma Donoghue’s Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins NY: HarperCollins, 1997. “When young writers write to me about following in the footsteps of those who string together nouns and verbs for a living, I tell them this: every story has already been told,” said Anna Quindlen, delivering the
Michael Cunningham's By Nightfall Harper Collins, 2010 I read Michael Cunningham's first novel, A Home at the End of the World last month, and wholly enjoyed it. Nearly as much as The Hours, but the bookishness of the latter (or, perhaps I should say, the Woolfishness) left it in the
Jonathan Franzen Freedom Harper, 2010 If you happened to have read my response to The Corrections last month, you might well have expected my response to Freedom to appear here sometime in 2020. But although it took me nearly ten years to get around to reading the first, it took only
Richard B. Wright's Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard Phyllis Bruce - Harper Collins, 2010 I was so annoyed with myself as a reader for not properly appreciating Richard Wright's October; I knew it was very well-done and it was simply my preternatural attachment to his earlier novel, Clara Callan, that interfered with
