The Spiral: Avathoir and wallflower Talk About Thomas Pynchon, 11: Bleeding Edge (and a Retrospective on Everything Else Too)
“I can’t really tell objectively how sorry I should feel for myself. I don’t give…
Year of the Month: GIRL TROUBLE, by Holly Goddard Jones
We live, I’ve heard, in a civilized country, in a civilized time. – “Parts,” by…
Hold for Probable Nightmares: Son of Griff and wallflower Talk About James Ellroy’s THIS STORM
DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/25/1940. New English Weekly, review of The Thirties, authored by ERIC ARTHUR BLAIR…
Historical Fiction Corner: WATERGATE by Thomas Mallon
A moody Republican, long considered a national joke, is elected President of the United States…
Blind Reads: Peace by Gene Wolfe
Blind Reads: In which wallflower and Avathoir read each other’s favorite books without knowing a…
Dissolve On (7/2/2017-7/8/2017)
When the late, great website The Dissolve ended operations, its commenting community had The Solute…
I Am Made of Words: Zero K by Don deLillo
In Underworld, Don deLillo tried to do what John le Carré did with The Secret…
Decomposing in Real Time: Waste by Andrew F. Sullivan
There are only victims. (last line of Scott Turow’s Pleading Guilty) The modern industrial age…
Always Business, Always Personal: John Gregory Dunne’s Monster: Living Off the Big Screen
But that is the writer’s life. You write. You finish. You start over again. (Dunne,…
Having Fun Storming the Castle
There are few books better to read at Renaissance faire than As You Wish: Inconceivable…