Don’t bother with churches, government buildings or city squares; if you want to know about a culture, spend a night in its bars.
Hemingway
On Untamed, The Deviant’s War, and the Respectability Problem
Respectability continues to be a confounding issue. But progress seems to accelerate when movements are broad-based, with space and freedom for people to fight in their own ways. Both Untamed and The Deviant’s War explore this topic.
Ninth Street Women: Relishing Art, Reframing History
Mary Gabriel flips the popular narrative, allowing us to reassess the people, the art, and the moment — the rise of Abstract Expressionism — through the lens of the women who lived it and forced the art world to make space.
On Sally Rooney as Our Millennial Hemingway
Where The Sun Also Rises is post-war, Normal People is post-recession, late capitalism. And, like Hemingway, Rooney’s writing is sparing, never dwelling longer than necessary. It’s a more modern writerly confidence.
The Great Believers and writing across difference: Who gets to tell our stories?
Rebecca Makkai is masterful, balancing forces near perfectly: the sweep of history pulling everyone into its vortex; and the human dramas that play out all the same, “the messes we make on our own.”
Short Story: La Madone, Code Name Artemis
Undercover in Occupied France, Virginia Hall would organize the ambush of Nazi supply trains, call down Allied bombs, and orchestrate complex supply drops to fuel the Resistance.
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Drunk Literature 