Blog


The strange education of the brothers James

A painstakingly inclusive new collection of Henry James’ letters serves as a jumping-off point for Edmund V. White’s consideration, in the current New York Review of Books, of the “jagged, capricious education” that the James family patriarch ensured for both Henry and his brother William. After becoming a Swedenborgian, the elder James dragged his sons from school to school across . . .

Read more



VQR slush

Among the most common titles of submissions received at Virginia Quarterly Review in the past year are Smoke, Insomnia, Voyeur, and Butterfly.

Read more



Reading for ragweed season

Possession & Middlemarch: “great novels to read when you’re snarled, low and the sleeves of your cardigan are stuffed with Kleenex.”

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.