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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Erdrich, Diaz Among 2021 Pulitzer Prize Winners

Louise Erdrich and Natalie Diaz took home Pulitzer Prizes for fiction and poetry, respectively, at this year's virtual ceremony on June 11, which honored five books spotlighting the lived experiences of people of color in the United States from multiple perspectives. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-06-11 04:00:00 UTC ]
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I Thought This Memoir Wasn’t “Taiwanese Enough”—Because That Was My Fear About Myself

In March of 2004, my family and I were at home in Taiwan for the national election, and I got into my first-ever screaming match with a perfect stranger. The election choice, as always, was between the Kuo Ming Tang, which favors reunification with China; and the Democratic People’s Party, which... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-06-01 11:00:00 UTC ]
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The Book Club of My Dreams Was at the Library All Along

A successful book club needs three things to thrive: delicious food, decent wine and wonderful people. Only the first two, food and wine, are easy to find. It is the third element, the people, that is like a jigsaw puzzle with a thousand pieces—something that promises to look like the pretty... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-05-27 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A Road Trip Across America to Dismantle White Patriarchy

Randa Jarrar’s memoir Love Is An Ex-Country focuses predominantly on the years leading to the 2016 election, a period, which, like now, was characterized by heightened Islamophobia, misogyny, homophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism. Jarrar embarks on a road trip inspired by Tahia... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-05-21 11:00:43 UTC ]
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Adin Dobkin Admits He’s in the Pocket of Big Sandwich

In our series “Can Writing Be Taught?” we partner with Catapult to ask their course instructors all our burning questions about the process of teaching writing. This month we’re talking to Adin Dobkin, author of the forthcoming book Sprinting Through No-Man’s Land: Endurance, Tragedy, and... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-05-20 11:00:00 UTC ]
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4 Pulitzer Prize Nonfiction Winners Not By White Men

The list of Pulitzer Prize-winning books is dominated by white men, so we're highlighting winning nonfiction by women and people of color. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2021-05-17 10:37:00 UTC ]
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Trauma Has Forced Me to Become a Powerful Witch

In the introductory essay of White Magic, Elissa Washuta—a Native American author and member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe—examines the colonization of spirituality, as well as her own reticence to describe herself as a witch: “I just want a version of the occult that isn’t built on plunder, but I... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-05-07 11:01:00 UTC ]
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Being An Intellectual Won’t Pay the Bills

In Christine Smallwood’s debut novel The Life of the Mind, protagonist Dorothy escapes the stifled environment of an academic conference for one she finds even more depressing: the slot machines. There, she runs into her former dissertation advisor, Judith, a woman who caused her significant... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-05-06 11:00:00 UTC ]
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8 Historical Fiction Novels About War-Torn Love

Every love story is built with inherently high stakes. After all, a heart can be the ultimate prize, and courtship a most dangerous risk. And love, as we all know, won’t stop for much. Our hearts pay no attention to timing or impediments, and logic falls by the wayside as we feel the anguish of... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-04-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Covering systemic violence without showing video of police killings

By now, many (if not most) of us have seen the cellphone video of the murder of George Floyd by Minnesota Police officer Derek Chauvin multiple times. The video—captured by a Black teenager named Darnella Frazier while she was walking to the store with her young cousin—has featured prominently... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-04-22 12:44:36 UTC ]
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Why Writing a Memoir is Like Making Kimchi

In Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner—also known as the indie-pop musician Japanese Breakfast—writes of her mother’s battle with terminal cancer and the caretaking process. The mother-daughter relationship is the beating pulse of this memoir, presented in all of its uncomfortable complexities.... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-04-22 11:00:00 UTC ]
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7 Memoirs About Unraveling Family Secrets

There are as many different kinds of memoirs as there are novels, maybe more. The public-figure memoir. The witnessing-history memoir. The survivor’s memoir. The addiction memoir. The let-me-set-the-record-straight memoir. The travel memoir. The memoir about one specific family member. The... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-04-09 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A Potion Made of Stolen Gold to Achieve the Indian American Dream

Sanjena Sathian’s debut novel Gold Diggers is set in the Indian American suburbs of Atlanta—a world of competitive debate and spelling bees, of racing to get into the most prestigious academic summer camps, of Miss Teen India pageants—all roads leading to the promised land of America’s most... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-04-09 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Mateo Askaripour | 'The lines are intentionally blurred, which puts the responsibility on the reader to decide what’s what'

On publication in January, Iranian-Jamaican  Brooklynite Mateo Askaripour’s Black Buck became an instant New York Times bestseller. Described as “a crackling, satirical début novel”, and informed by the author’s own experiences in the tech world, the book has been compared to The Great Gatsby... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-04-09 04:51:31 UTC ]
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I Work in a Bookstore. Why Am I Still Shelving “Mein Kampf”?

When Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it would no longer be publishing six of Dr. Seuss’s books which have aged problematically, the bookstore I work at in Scranton, Pennsylvania had a flurry of very concerned customers. People were coming up with stacks of his books along with an... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-04-07 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Who should star in the TV adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred?

You may have noticed that here at Literary Hub, we’re pretty big fans of Octavia Butler—and especially of Kindred, arguably her most famous novel. So we were very excited by the recent news that that 42-year-old book is finally getting an adaptation: FX has recently ordered a pilot, which was... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-03-19 14:00:40 UTC ]
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Lolita, Fashion Icon

From LOLITA IN THE AFTERLIFE, edited by Jenny Minton Quigley. Reprinted by permission of Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Essay copyright © 2021 by Robin Givhan. Compilation copyright © 2021 by Jenny Minton Quigley. The... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-03-17 11:00:00 UTC ]
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In ‘Shaking the Gates of Hell,’ a preacher’s son examines his church’s culture of silence on civil rights

Pulitzer Prize winner John Archibald reexamines his father’s legacy in this fascinating blend of family memoir and moral reckoning. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-03-13 14:00:00 UTC ]
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Canceling My Book Deal Was the Best Career Move I’ve Ever Made

I started querying agents for my memoir, Negative Space, in 2012, after two years of writing and revising. I got a few rounds of passes, including several friendly rejections in which agents said they just didn’t “know how to sell” my book. I heard this refrain enough times that I started... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-03-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“Justine” Is a Coming-of-Age Novel for the Tamogotchi Set

Perhaps it’s not surprising that even the prose in illustrator Forsyth Harmon’s debut novel Justine is deeply imagistic. Reading this short, powerful story feels like wandering through a museum exhibit about teenage girlhood on Long Island in the summer of 1999. Narrator Ali and her friends feed... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-03-02 12:00:00 UTC ]
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