The dreams of a 19-year-old are not the dreams of a 53-year old (for which we are all grateful), and neither are the playlists. Yet, some dreams, and some songs, persist. Publishing a debut novel after fifty is inevitably a long story, but publicity windows are short. A truncated few weeks, before and after the pub date, give rise to “all the feels,” and then quietly recede into Life After Publication—otherwise known as the rest of your real life, whatever that looks like. I’m here for all of it. Having already lived the longer portion of my life—unless I manage to live to be 107—is a gift in this way; my perspective has deep roots.
It was a familiar sound in any decent Central European restaurant: the reassuring whack-whack-whack of a chef flattening the schnitzel I’d ordered from the waiter a minute earlier. The crisp white tablecloth in front of me shined bright white, and the banquette seating offered the same minimalist design as some of the region’s trendiest spots. But one aspect was different from my other recent fine-dining experiences: In the panoramic window facing my table, an Old World landscape was flying by at over 90 miles an hour.
I was in the dining car of a train, halfway from my home in Prague to an event in Budapest. Despite the great service and cool décor, the meal was wildly better than I had any right to expect: a crisp, improbably thin, fried chicken fillet, tender on the inside, accompanied by the Platonic ideal of potato croquettes and a craft beer that had been custom-brewed for the train. It was not just good. It was spectacular.
Susanna Moore is best known for her stylishly explicit 1995 novel “In the Cut,” in which a New York City teacher has an affair with a detective investigating murders in her neighborhood. Three novels and nearly three decades and later, Moore turns her eye again to a woman on the verge, but this time the setting is the Minnesota prairie of mid-19th-century America, and her protagonist is an abused wife who flees Rhode Island for a new life on the American frontier. Drawn in part from a true story, “The Lost Wife” explores one woman’s experience amid escalating violence against indigenous tribes as they are pushed from their ancestral land.
For seasoned runners and beginners alike, Linden’s book offers plenty of inspiration about the power of endurance in the face of obstacles. For all readers, it grants a peek at what goes into building that endurance.
when I spent most of my time surviving a city