Well into the wee hours, I stumbled downstairs and stretched out on an overstuffed leather couch, with several copies of the American Scholar to speed me into dreamland. And it was there that I discovered Joseph Epstein, or Aristides, as...
Though Jones was gentle about the story’s deficiencies, it was clear he was frustrated. I think this was because it was clear to him that the basics of humanity shouldn’t be that difficult to express. He spent an hour and a half going over...
The surge in the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the US border is so alarming that President Barack Obama described it as “an urgent humanitarian situation.” Following the president’s comments, the federal government announced a $2...
We are at Cape Coast Castle, and Callie refuses to be held. She won’t let me carry her in my arms. She won’t let me put her in the cloth carrier on my back. She won’t ride on her father’s shoulders. She won’t sit astride my hip. She wants...
Female friendships are not commonly found at the center of the literary novel, but this summer welcomes debut novels by two young, talented writers that place female friendships front and center in their narratives—The Girls from Corona...
Lou Marie, my grandmother, is telling this story. It is a story about before, before she was old, before she became the drawl, the accent, the presence behind the white door in her own daughter’s house, with only her hair to keep her from...
Funny Once is Nelson’s eleventh book, and while she’s shown herself to be a deft novelist, this collection highlights the reasons she’s earned a reputation as a master of the short story.
Like other children, I was fascinated by old Lucifer, by his horns and tail, which simultaneously made him sinister and gave him an animal’s grace, by his fire-engine hide, his flame that no fire engine can put out, and above all by his...
As a beginning writer I had a typically naïve conception of style as something added to a finished piece, as if the content is water and style the vase you pour it in—a vase that shapes and decorates but doesn’t alter the chemistry of the...
