For NPR, I review Rachel Kushner’s brilliant lightning bolt of a novel, The Flamethrowers, which straddles two revolutions: the squatter-artist colonization of Manhattan’s SoHo in the 1970s, and the rise of Italy’s radical left during the same period. An excerpt: Its young artist narrator, Reno, is wistful and brutally candid at once, with a voice like a painting — lush . . .
It’s impossible to choose a favorite thing in Jerusalem so far, but right now I believe it may be the Bulgarian feta with hyssop and sun-dried tomatoes that’s laid out every morning with the rest of our hotel’s immense breakfast spread. I’m here for the Jerusalem International Book Fair, where Mark Sarvas, Boaz Cohen, Naomi Alderman and I spoke yesterday . . .
At the New York Times’ Room for Debate, some of my thoughts on literary prizes. (And on only recently discovering Rabindranath Tagore.)
I wrote about T.D. Allman’s Finding Florida, a history of the state, and a history of the state’s fake history of itself, for the latest Bookforum. It’s only available in print. Updated July 4, 2014, to add this scan: