Blog


R.I.P. Ellen Miller (and a public memorial service)

I’m only now learning that Ellen Miller, author of the amazing ’90s junkie novel Like Being Killed, died of a heart attack on December 23 at the age of forty-one. When Ken Foster announced the terrible news a couple weeks ago, he quoted the book’s opening: We crowded around the rickety kitchen table, predicting how each of us would die. . . .

Read more




Jim Shepard’s dad

Granta supplements its “Fathers” issue — which includes Lethem, Bechdel, & many more — with a brief piece from Jim Shepard.

Read more



Bolaño’s “The Beach” translated at Eyeshot in December

The Times‘ Larry Rohter reports on the controversy that has erupted over the details of Roberto Bolaño’s life story. Bolaño himself fostered the idea, enthusiastically embraced by U.S. critics and readers, that he had a heroin habit. But his widow and agent dispute this detail, as do Latin American critics. Julio Ortega, a Peruvian scholar, charged in Spain’s leading daily . . .

Read more



Newsletter Signup

For regular updates, subscribe to my free newsletter.

Newsletter

You might want to subscribe to my free Substack newsletter, Ancestor Trouble, if the name makes intuitive sense to you.