As a novelist, I instinctively interpret Feminism as the portrayal of women as complete actors in a diverse world—never less intelligent or self-motivated or interesting than male characters.
Mysteries small and great abound in Jim Holt’s new book—even in restaurants, where he spends an inordinate amount of time for an existential gumshoe. At a Paris bistro he dines alone on a plate of choucroute and a bottle of Saint-Emilion. A...
In recent years, the organization VIDA—Women in the Literary Arts has tallied the number of female and male contributors to leading cultural magazines. It’s called The Count. The findings are shocking: 20-30 percent of contributors to...
Once upon a time in America, five dollars would buy enough gas to drive from Tucson, Arizona, to California. This was during the postwar 1940s, when Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady were making the cross-country road trips, at speeds over a...
In the spring of 1976, William Maxwell left his job as fiction editor of the New Yorker, where he had worked for four decades, in order to concentrate on his own writing. This came as unhappy news to any number of writers, for he had nursed...
