Revolutionary Blues: On the Novels of Hari Kunzru

For some of us avid readers, the joy of reading novels is nearly matched by the pleasure of recommending them to our most simpatico friends. Thoughtful criticism can play this role writ large. I can still remember the reviewers who first stimulated my interest in particular authors: Martin Amis’ collected reviews of various J. G. Ballard novels in The War Against Cliché; Alan Hollinghurst’s insightful review of Bryan Washington’s first novel Memorial and Washington’s excellent collection of interconnected short stories, Lot; or Rachel Kushner’s paean to Denis Johnson in The Hard Crowd.

STARGAZER: OR, GRAIL QUEST IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES

AT THE END OF MARCH, I was sitting at a departure gate at JFK, having endured a brutal frigid winter exiled upstate in a yurt in the woods, about to fly to Tokyo to bury my maternal grandmother, when I got a strange and unusual email. From a woman, Kirstie, who said she lived in Scotland, on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, and that she wanted to fly me out and feed and house me for two weeks over the summer solstice.

The Unrelenting Hoofbeats of the New Literature: On Caleb Caudell’s The Quarrymen

What is the state of American literature today? This loaded question never has an easy answer, and invariably the debate grows tedious, ideological and sociological combatants racing to their predictable corners, fists wearily raised. In my years as a novelist and columnist and now editor-in-chief of this publication, I’ve come to believe that large, conglomerate publishers care less about disgorging excellent literature than they once did — that this pursuit, for a variety of reasons, is less interesting to them.

SUPER SOLDIER: Short Fiction

SUPER SOLDIER was not well received initially, the main issue being we were Marines and proud of that fact. Soldier was a pejorative; anyone calling us soldiers was either clueless as to the distinctions between the Marine Corps (small, lethal, aggressive) and the Army (large, bloated, soft), or messing with us. So when a huge cardboard box labeled SUPER SOLDIER arrived at FOB Williamette, our first thought was to burn it.

“Nail Polish” and “Sitting”

Between her forefinger and thumb / my grandmother holds a needle threader— / a loop of wire on a tin coin / stamped with a lady’s cameo / so thin it must be valuable, the way / a dime is worth more than a nickel / She’d smudge her things with nail polish / to identify them as her own. What do you / call that color? Salmon? Dusty rose? / The cameo wears rose blush, scissors / with a dab of salmon above the hinge— / this when a pair of scissors was priceless . . .

A Modern Age Failure: On Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey

There is a scene, early in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 masterpiece Le Mépris, that surely contains the ultimate cinematic statement on Homer’s Odyssey. An American producer has asked the film’s screenwriter protagonist to help rewrite an adaptation of The Odyssey helmed by the great German director Fritz Lang (playing himself, beautifully). The writer comes to meet Lang in the studio and watches a few rushes for the proposed film.

Gore Vidal’s Strange, Eventful United States: On a Curious American Master

Where to begin? At the end. At the close of The Golden Age, the last novel in his long series of American history, Gore Vidal performs a theatrical trick. The year is 2000. A television crew has come from Rome to Ravello in order to interview Vidal (the writer) alongside Peter Sanford (one of the writer’s central characters) for a program they’re making (about Roosevelt, Truman, and the arming of America in the 20th century).

Cuckoo: Short Fiction

I guess we moved fast. That’s how it happens though, right? Apparently, there are couples out there who started off as friends and then grew together, realized it was something more, something permanent, long-lasting, but I’ve never met them. Still, it must be pretty common. We’re not pandas after all, are we? Stick us together in a cage long enough and we’ll either fuck each other or kill each other. Or worse.

Misreading the Past to Chart the Future: On Remake Literature

The artists are at a dinner party gossiping about a dead woman. They say it was an overdose. Her mother doubts whether it was a suicide, but the unnamed narrator of Zoe Dubno’s Happiness and Love (2025) never questions it. Rebecca, a failed actress, had been a fixture in the art scene of Dimes Square, the Lower East Side neighborhood where the novel takes place. She acted in small plays, but she never made it onto the big screen like the Old Hollywood actresses she idolized.

Between Life and Death: On Tom Howard’s Invisibilia

The short story collection is a difficult and awkward form. It lacks the unity of the novel, and unlike a narrative that stands alone in a literary or cultural magazine, each story seems as if it should somehow be connected to the other stories around it. This, of course, is despite the fact that many of the stories in the collection will have already been published separately in the aforementioned magazines and journals.

Don’t Kill Dionysus: On a Long Summer of Sobriety

A good New York City summer is filled with music. I sit backstage in the green room, supporting my closest friend as they prepare to go onstage. Another act, a popular young DJ, is being interviewed by the venue’s social media team. He pauses to seek assurance from the crew looking on that there will be plenty of zero-proof Heinekens available during his set. Someone confirms, and I’m instantly curious.

“Don’t Talk to Me in a Cab”

Don't Talk to Me in a Cab / The man driving my Uber / apologizes to me / for being on the phone / as we speed through the Tudor / towers of Forest Hills after / midnight and past / a glowing LaGuardia / Airport and there’s no way / for me to adequately explain / to him / that if he weren’t on the / phone, I’d rather walk / myself / in the dark / through four neighborhoods / all the way home.

The Literary Wars, Before and After the Language Crusade: On Karen Yin’s The Conscious Style Guide and Adam Szetela’s That Book Is Dangerous!

Is politics downstream of culture? Not in the publishing industry. This is evident in the recent publication of two books on editing and publishing, Karen Yin’s The Conscious Style Guide (2024) and Adam Szetela’s That Book Is Dangerous! (2025). The first is a call for editors to advance social justice through equitable language while the second reports from inside the publishing industry on the outcome.