‘Damaged People’ and the Inescapability of Intergenerational Trauma
Joe McGinniss, Jr.’s memoir, Damaged People takes on intergenerational trauma, familial curses, and true crime’s tenacious hold on art.
Books
Features, reviews, interviews, and lists about books including cultural commentary and history, non-fiction, literature, and more.
Lemonheads’ Evan Dando Authors His Addictive Hooks
Lemonhead Evan Dando’s long-awaited memoir is an engaging, sometimes harrowing, trip through the 1990s alternative rock boom.
Video Game Storytelling Is a World-Colliding Reinvention
Whereas the novel specializes in psychological interiority, video game storytelling allows players to experiment outwardly in world-colliding fashion.
The Beach Boys Sing for Peter Doggett
The Beach Boys’ biography Surf’s Up is Peter Doggett’s way of making sense of a clan of brothers who created some of the most dazzling pop of the 20th century.
Bob Dylan Rings in His Ears
Music theorist Steven Rings helps readers understand Bob Dylan the performer, not the lyricist or songwriter, in a welcome and indispensable addition to Dylan scholarship.
‘Things in Nature Merely Grow’ Tackles Death Differently
Yiyun Li’s beautiful and complex autobiography Things in Nature Merely Grow is not about death or loss; it is about who we become when we lose.
How Vampires Became Rock Stars
The mythical creature of ancient folklore relentlessly feeds on our creative works, and through generations, we willingly succumb to the vampire made rock star.
Dickon Edwards of the Dandy Underground Surfaces
Dandy diarist extraordinaire Dickon Edwards talks about how his diary writing is a queer, articulate, and pointed retort to the pressures of conformity.
‘The Shining’ and the Power of Murderous Narratives
The Shining endures because it conveys all horror, real and imagined: Stephen King’s horror of the collapse of Man, and Stanley Kubrick’s collapse of History.
Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Shadow Ticket’ Knocks Readers Sideways
Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket, should it be his last, showcases that even when he’s not at his very best, the man can pack an artful wallop.Â
Greil Marcus Tells His Stories About Others’ Stories
Greil Marcus talks with PopMatters about the art of listening not for what you want to hear, but for what is so richly there in others’ stories.
Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Blood Meridian’ Diagnoses Everyday Fascism
If everyday fascism’s essence is the anti-humanist view of living beings as disposable instruments, then Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is its field manual and warning.