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Tell Me All the Dirty Words You Know (The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford)

Every great novel sets up expectations early on and then, at some point, subverts them. Jean Stafford's recently reissued novel is no exception. [...]
So Fearsome a Blue; or, From Grandmother’s House We Go (Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter, trans. Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore)

In Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal, the forest, the mountains, the snow and, most importantly, the ice—the beautiful, terrible, infinite ice!—inspire a breathless, speechless wonder. [...]

Novel Fridays: Structure

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Happy Friday, novelists! I hope you had successful weeks. Once again, we will be delving into the different techniques we use when writing novels. Now you may have been wondering in our discussion of time last week: what about flashbacks? Or flash forwards? How are the events of my novel best arranged? Should they only proceed in sequential order? Or in other words: what should the structure of my novel be? [...]

A Prison Wherever He Turned (Stoner by John Williams)

July 22, 2017

The plot of John Williams’ 1965 novel, Stoner (NYRB Classics, 2006): Young man becomes assistant professor at University of Missouri, lives unhappy life, has undistinguished career, dies. You can hardly be blamed if you don’t find this particularly enticing, but make no mistake: Stoner (last name of the protagonist—sorry to disappoint) is a work of almost unbearable beauty. [...]
I’ll Come Back Once You’re Dead (Henri Duchemin and His Shadows by Emmanual Bove, trans. Alyson Waters)
So Fearsome a Blue; or, From Grandmother’s House We Go (Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter, trans. Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore)
The American Uncanny (American Innovations: Stories by Rivka Galchen)

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