“We crave narrative,” Joe tells us. And the Reader who picks up Arjun Basu’s Waiting for the Man nods: a narrative craver. ECW Press, 2014 “We believe we are uninteresting without a compelling story.” But Joe himself no longer finds his story compelling. The Reader meets Joe when
Like Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, Alice Hoffman's novel begins from a place of belonging. Scribner - Simon & Schuster, 2014 Coralie is a professional mermaid in early twentieth-century Coney Island, who grows up with the Wolfman and various other characters who seem to step from the pages of
It was probably always a messy story, but at some point the focus for Donna Tartt's third novel shifted dramatically. As discussed in an interview with Jared Bland at the Appel Salon, the draft Tartt had been writing, which was set in Amsterdam and New York City, collided with a trip to Las
The evening in the Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library begins with a sincere expression of enthusiasm on the part of the interviewer, introducing and welcoming the author. Not rote expression of interest or distant admiration, but a sense of true excitement as Jared Bland takes his seat, and
"There’s no backstitching in stories. Nothing can be locked in place." So says a character in Studio Saint-Ex, but readers of Ania Szado's second novel might disagree; she seems to have no trouble locking a good story in place. She began where all good stories begin, with a fascination. In
