Everett doesn’t often validate specific interpretations or theories of his work. The fact that this work often manages to be simultaneously hilarious, ambiguous, deeply moving, and filled with a kind of muted anger at America complicates efforts to interpret either it or Everett’s politics. When he is in the humor to indulge interpretations, he will often entertain a potential reading by saying that it’s not what he intended, but, as far as he is concerned, the process of meaning-making, insofar as it can be said to be a duty, belongs to the reader alone—and it is the reader alone, through their engagement with the text, who completes this process of meaning-making. Everett refuses to hold your hand or tell you what to think. Curiously, this leaves you feeling like the wind has been taken out of your interpretation—or, in my case, my own.
To work in American media in the twenty-first century is to live as if the end is near. Your job, your publication, and your lifestyle are always on the verge of crumbling. It’s easy to wax nostalgic about a time when journalism was a more esteemed profession, or at least a more stable and better compensated one. But dread was the prevailing mood even when publications were thicker with ads and paid classifieds. In 1978 Kevin Michael McAuliffe wrote a history of The Village Voice called The Great American Newspaper. By then, he declared, the publication was already in decline: the paper’s pluck and lively spirit were destined to wither away as it faced its first crisis of succession, brought on by a series of new owners—first the patrician society man Carter Burden, then Clay Felker, editor of crosstown rival New York, and finally, worst of all, Rupert Murdoch.
While most science fiction cognoscenti agree that the genre isn’t really about prediction, it’s undeniably true that 18 years after her sudden, tragic death, Octavia Butler is being hailed as a prophet. Her scarily prescient portrait of the character President Andrew Steele Jarret and his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” in “Parable of the Talents” is one good reason why this is so. Add to that the gated communities and climate crisis forming the background of the previous novel in the “Parable” series, “Parable of the Sower,” and you’ve got yet more proof that this author knew what she was doing. And in keeping with her legendary generosity, Octavia shared some of that knowledge in “A Few Rules.”
The playwright and actor William Gillette’s online grave is littered with notes from recent visitors to his house museum, updating him on his property: “Interesting man, a shame he did not have children to enjoy the castle and train ride,” or “when i vist [sic] i always notice something … deer in your yard, the fawn was nursing from its mother.” Another: “Went to your home today… You would be proud that it is in impeccable order.”
Gillette Castle lies up a coily road in East Haddam, Connecticut. I visit on the first hot day of May. An elaborate stone pathway leads me from the parking lot to a gray, cobbly estate that overlooks the Connecticut River. A rabbit passes the entrance sign and disappears into the forest.
At once a love story, a coming-of-age tale full of secrets and tension, and a narrative about wanting more and doing anything to get it, The Familiar is a solid entry into Bardugo's already impressive oeuvre.
At times we are ankle deep in the sea of life, and at others, when things are at their worse, up to our necks – adrift. No matter how well we plan and try to stick to the script, there is always a plot twist. This is how Jana Firestone describes those events that pull the metaphorical rugs from beneath our feet. After reading Plot Twist, one thing is certain, change is constant and we can take solace in knowing that, for all of us, the best laid life plans will inevitably take a turn.
Last night, you got between the covers and went to South America.
It wasn’t difficult. A few days ago, you walked around London in 1888; you were in the future before that; you’ve met con artists, florists, runaways and heroines, and you didn’t even have to leave your house. You can experience many things with a book, and in “The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians” by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann, you’ll read about a different kind of adventure.