I admire Justin Taylor’s short fiction but haven’t read his novel, The Gospel of Anarchy, because the book I’m still working on is also about religion and takes place largely in Gainesville, and though his sounds different and is set quite a few years later I didn’t want to steal anything or to second-guess myself or my work any more . . .
Unlike so many other people in our city, Max and I are fine. Heartbroken, but fine, and fully powered up. Like everyone else in our situation, I’m looking to volunteer and help out however I can. If I could lift 50 pounds, I’d be signing up for the next possible Red Cross volunteer training class. Instead I’ve signed up with . . .
It’s hard to think of anyone who writes about drinking with more authority, finesse, and psychological sensitivity than the late Kingsley Amis, who could, no surprise, really put it away. His first editor, Hilary Rubenstein, found it implausible that the protagonist of Lucky Jim could drink ten pints of beer at the pub in a single evening, but that, as . . .
“The Catholic Church was derived from three sources. Its sacred history was Jewish, its theology was Greek, its government and canon law were, at least indirectly, Roman… In Catholic doctrine, divine revelation did not end with the scriptures, but continued from age to age through the medium of the Church, to which, therefore, it was the duty of the individual . . .