The Exoticized Gaze in Lawrence Durrell’s ‘The Alexandra Quartet’
Durrell’s unquestioned assumption of superior European culture paradoxically allows him to be keenly responsive to Alexandria’s multinational mix.
book feature
The Long Hard Way through ‘Mississippi Prison Writing’
The harrowing quality of incarcerated existence is compounded by the persistent and heartbreaking presence of injustice in Mississippi Prison Writing.
Lecklider’s Historical Work Love’s Next Meeting Examines Homosexuals and Communism in the US
In the virulently anti-Communist and homophobic climate of the postwar era many feared any association between the emerging lesbian and gay cause and Communism.
The Novel ‘Disquiet’ Explores Turkey’s Turmoil and the Refugee Crisis
Zülfü Livaneli’s Disquiet depicts the cruelty of Turkey’s culture wars with a literary virtuosity that demands a global audience.
Just Keep Writhing Jessica Hopper
Music critic Jessica Hopper is revivified by high stakes for the second coming of The First Collection.
Chilean Author Nona Fernández’s Historical Fiction ‘The Twilight Zone’ Dismantles Good and Evil Dichotomies
In search of answers from Chile’s painful past, Nona Fernández imagines and reconstructs the events surrounding the testimony of a real-life torturer in her book, The Twilight Zone.
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Biographer Kai Bird Shows Former US President Jimmy Carter as a Man Ahead of His Times
Kai Bird’s biography argues that former US President Jimmy Carter was a prophet of uncomfortable truths who urged America to reevaluate its myths and thorniest problems.
The Likability of Unlikability in Elizabeth Strout’s ‘Olive Kitteridge’
Elizabeth Strout counters Olive Kitteridge’s unpleasantness with two of the most important, traits of a standout character: the Ghost and the Lie.
‘Doom’ Illustrates Niall Ferguson’s Historical Flaws
While historian Niall Ferguson’s broad survey of human catastrophe, Doom, has erudition, insight, and sweep, it is frequently derailed by contrarian carping.
How Could F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ NOT Mention the Flu Pandemic of 1918?
F. Scott Fitzgerald and his literary contemporaries ignored the 1918-1919 pandemic. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Capitalism Chemistry or ‘Drug Use for Grown-ups’
Our capitalist language of minute gradations and improvised adjustments—of the plasticity of bodies and minds—places drugs in the service of economies of labor, production, and value.