Soul Asylum’s ‘Grave Dancers Union’ at 30
Could the cynicism associated with grunge, Gen X, and early 1990s rock have instead been replaced with sincerity if Soul Asylum’s Grave Dancers Union had been the hit rather than Nirvana’s Nevermind?
Jesse Kavadlo
Jesse Kavadlo was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and is happily settled in suburban St. Louis. He has been fascinated with angsty novels, monster movies, alienated superheroes, ironic dystopias, and heavy metal for a few decades. He has a Ph.D. in English from Fordham University, is a professor at Maryville University, and gigs as the guitarist and singer for an 80s hard rock cover band. He has published several dozen essays in academic journals and book collections as well as three books, most recently American Popular Culture in the Era of Terror: Falling Skies, Dark Knights Rising, and Collapsing Cultures (Praeger, 2015).
Ian Winwood’s ‘Bodies’ Laments Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Contractual Terms
In Bodies: Life and Death in Music, critic Ian Winwood chronicles the wreckage of a reckless industry and wonders if there is another way.
Dare You Enter Jennifer Egan’s Mind Palace ‘The Candy House’?
Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House is an EDM concert, a prestige drama, a mind palace – and a warning.
Is Noah Hawley’s ‘Anthem’ the First Great American Pandemic Novel?
Like Philip Roth and Kurt Vonnegut before him, Noah Hawley hopes his novel, Anthem, can compete with reality.
Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Crossroads’ Contemplates Something Harder Than Being Alone
Breaking form with his latest work, Crossroads, Franzen has not written a social novel. He has written an Antisocial Novel.
Dave Grohl Wants to Tell You How Lucky He Is
In his book The Storyteller, both successful Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl the Punk, and lucky Dave Grohl the Everyman, come out smiling.
Is Louis Menand Right About the Death of Art and Thought in America?
For intellectual historian Louis Menand, the Cold War gave rise to prospects and paradoxes in America, and Art was given status through essential criticism.
Nöthin’ But a Good Time Parties Like It’s 1989
Nöthin’ But a Good Time takes readers on a loud tour of the monster decade of the ’80s, but not for the reasons you’d think.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Klara and the Sun’ Is a Simple Story about Complicated Things
There is nothing artificial about Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara of ‘Klara and the Sun’. That’s the tragedy and the irony of being an Artificial Friend.
The Guilty Pleasure of Chelsea Summers’ Monstrous ‘A Certain Hunger’
Easy to summarize but difficult to, um, flesh out, Chelsea G. Summers’ A Certain Hunger is, without a doubt, the Great American Female Serial Killer Novel.
For Don DeLillo, ‘The Silence’ Is Deafening
In Don DeLillo’s The Silence, it is much like our post-pandemic life – everything changed but nothing happened. Are we listening?
Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘Death in Her Hands’ Is Not What It Seems
A character named Magda dies, and lives, in language only in Ottessa Moshfegh's Death in Her Hands. But then again, don't all literary characters?