Douglas Unger Turns Rapacious Greed and Moral Slipperiness into High Literature

Forty years after the publication of Leaving the Land, Pulitzer Prize finalist Douglas Unger returns with his fifth novel, Dream City, an excoriating tale of hope, greed, and betrayal in Las Vegas. C.D. Reinhart is Unger’s fatally flawed protagonist, a failed actor bent on self-improvement who is forced to be the public face of his […] The post Douglas Unger Turns Rapacious Greed and Moral Slipperiness into High Literature appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'

[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-08 11:05:00 UTC ]

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Tennessee school district bans Holocaust novel 'Maus'

Conservative districts across the U.S. are increasingly limiting the types of books that children are exposed to, including those that address structural racism and LGBTQ issues. Art Spiegelman, who won the Pulitzer Prize for “Maus” in 1992, is “baffled” by the ban. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2022-01-28 15:54:18 UTC ]
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Genderqueer Short Stories About the Ways We Mythologize Our Identities

A nonbinary teenager on their way home from an eating -disorder treatment center who tries to convince a stranger she is not a vampire, an aspiring fashion designer/dry-cleaning worker who develops an obsession with a customer, a community of people with Hansen’s disease that welcome and attempt... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-27 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Edith Wharton’s groundbreaking Pulitzer was originally meant for Sinclair Lewis.

This week we’re celebrating the 160th birthday of Edith Wharton—novelist, short story writer, and the first woman to win a Pulitzer prize. But as it turns out, the 1921 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction wasn’t initially meant to go to Wharton—the jury wanted to give the honor to Sinclair Lewis, but they... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-01-25 17:30:38 UTC ]
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Jessamine Chan’s Debut Calls Modern-Day Parenting Into Question

At Electric Literature, Diane Cooke speaks to Jessamine Chan about The School for Good Mothers, Chan’s incisive debut novel that revolves around how a young mother’s error lands her in a government reform program and at risk of losing custody of her child. They discuss one of Chan’s main... Continue reading at The Millions

[ The Millions | 2022-01-18 21:30:56 UTC ]
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8 Books by Queer Writers Who Came of Age in the 90s

The ’90s are back, as if they could ever truly peace out. Between Fear Street and Captain Marvel and the Alanis Morissette musical, the last mostly-offline decade is getting a gargantuan nostalgia polish. For my memoir Sticker—an exploration of my childhood in Charlottesville, Virginia via 20... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-14 12:00:00 UTC ]
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8 Genre-Bending Books by Asian American Women

The Asian American women writers in this reading list explore the existential. They seek to do anything but simplify. They live with and write through some very dense, tangled complexities, even mysteries. Some, perhaps many, unsolvable, with wounds that perhaps cannot be closed, not in this... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-03 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Our Favorite Essays about Unconventional Writing Teachers

For those of us who want to become real writers—whatever that means—the countless resources available can feel a bit dry and uninspired, ranging from tired but true clichés to well-lauded craft books (Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir on Craft sits dustily on my shelf). Many of us find... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-31 12:00:00 UTC ]
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I’d Rather Eat Like a Pig Than Dine Like a Mogul

The celebrity cookbook is a curious genre: its essential premise is that a person who is famous for something other than cooking can, on the basis of that fame, also teach us how to cook. At the same time, it’s a tried-and-true publishing gambit: Gwyneth Paltrow and Stanley Tucci are following... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-23 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Lily King Weaves Glimmers of Hope into Her Short Story Collection

Spanning dreamy teenagers to furious parents, violence to kindness, each of the ten short stories in Five Tuesdays in Winter is rendered with Lily King’s signature longing and wit. We are all learning to carry our grief, this collection argues, yet still hoping to scrape together a few more... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-21 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of 2022

A few years ago, I found myself a bit tipsy at the National Book Award ceremony. It was my first—and so far, only—time there. The experience felt grand; it was a red-carpeted “benefit dinner” on Wall Street. People wore tuxedos and gowns. I couldn’t look around the room without seeing a writer I... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-20 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Electric Lit’s Favorite Novels of 2021

When it comes to great novels, this year felt like an embarrassment of riches. The books collected here are ambitious—in intellect, in scope, in subject matter, and in size. Some are perfect encapsulations of the unique problems of our time, while others illuminate the human threads that connect... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-16 12:05:00 UTC ]
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The Transformative Joy of A Good Breakup

Lee Lai’s Stone Fruit is the kind of book that stays with you. Since I finished reading it, the graphic novel has been lingering in the corners of my mind, sticky and sweet as a nectarine. It’s a book about family, breakups, queerness, childhood, sisters, and healing, but most of all, Stone... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-09 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Announcing the Winner of Electric Lit’s 2021 Book Cover of the Year Tournament

Last week, the Electric Lit team stayed glued to our phone screens as we tasked our social media followers with anointing the best book cover of 2021. The tournament was full of close calls determined by razor-thin margins (Mona at Sea prevailed over Black Girl Call Home by just five votes in... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-06 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Help Us Choose the Best Book Cover of 2021

Back by popular demand, Electric Literature is hosting our second annual “Best Book Cover of the Year” tournament, where readers determine which cover designs impressed in 2021. Just as the Italian Renaissance was born of the bubonic plague, will covid’s enduring grasp on society inspire... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-29 12:00:00 UTC ]
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This Week's Bestsellers: November 22, 2021

Jocko Willink hits #10 on the hardcover fiction list this week with 'Final Spin', Pulitzer Prize winner Louise Erdrich lands at #11 on our hardcover fiction list with her latest, 'The Sentence,' and Will Smith, the Academy Award-nominated actor and Grammy-winning rapper’s memoir is an instant... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-11-19 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Here’s The Story Behind Alan Moore’s Epic Graphic Novel That Never Was

It was just a rumor, but a persistent one. Whispers in the halls of the DC Comics offices; buzz among fans as they gathered at annual conventions. That the legendary Alan Moore, writer and creator of From Hell and V for Vendetta, had written another masterpiece, something no one had ever seen.... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-17 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Inheriting the Legacy of Japanese Imperialism

Take a kaleidoscope, peer inside its lens and turn the dial: the jeweled-mosaic pattern within deforms and reforms anew. Asako Serizawa mirrored her debut short story collection Inheritors after this complex design. Out of chronological sequence, the thirteen short stories locate twelve related... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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How did Natalie Wood die? Forty years later, her sister offers theories in a new book.

Lana Wood’s “Little Sister” offers circumstantial evidence that Natalie’s death might not have been an accident. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-11-10 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Which Book Cover Looks Better, the British or American Version?

Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of heated discourse surrounding a trend in book covers in which many new releases opt for variations of the same colorful abstractions: The Blob. Somehow deemed appropriate for everything from dystopian debuts to literary fiction bestsellers, these... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A Graphic Novel About 100 Years of Matrilineal Family History, From South China to Singapore

To hear Weng Pixin tell it, Let’s Not Talk Anymore started out as a kind of “fuck you” move after a particularly bad fight with her mom but—as these things tend to go—it gradually transformed into a project to locate herself within the moth-eaten story of her matrilineal line.  Moving back and... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-04 11:00:00 UTC ]
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