“I met him in England and he read a manuscript of mine, said this won’t do but it’s almost there.” — Harry Crews on Graham Greene, his “main-most man,” and his own ill health, and more. (Page 67 of near-unnavigable PDF.)
Salon chose eight novel excerpts for its first Good Sex in Fiction Contest, and asked Louis Bayard, Walter Kirn, Laura Miller, and me to judge and discuss them. I ranked the Franzen highest, and also outed myself as a total pervert. The problem with these excerpts is — and I didn’t entirely realize this until I started reading for the . . .
For the first time in forty years, The Paris Review will serialize a novel: Roberto Bolaño’s The Third Reich, illustrated by Leanne Shapton. Also in the issue: a John Jeremiah Sullivan essay, interviews with Anne Beattie and Janet Malcolm, and more.
Please excuse the ugliness. I need to update WordPress, and once that’s done the remainders will be back in the middle column where they belong. It’s still quiet here, I know, and that’s because, yes, I’m still working on my novel. 73,500 words, eight of ten chapters revised, nearing the end but not there yet. I find myself relating a . . .