“In spite of the loss that pervades my novels, I hope that readers feel the continual making in the language, the poetry that shores us up against the loss”: Andrew Krivák talks with Shann Ray about family, landscape, and his latest novel, The Signal Flame, out now from Scribner.
“For me, the perspective shift is one of the great powers and pleasures of writing fiction,” says Katherine Hill in conversation with Melissa Scholes Young. “Not that I’d be bored with one perspective—well, all right, I might be bored—but I think I’m just incredibly interested in people’s reactions to each other, both conscious and unconscious.”
The cover of Sonya Chung’s debut novel, Long for This World (Scribner, March 2010), shows a young woman gazing out over a wide ocean, raising a camera to her eye. Chung’s main character is a photographer, but that’s not the only reason this cover is so apt. The novel unfolds like a collection of intimate snapshots, telling a story of loss and unexpected renewal.
Lee Thomas talks to debut novelist Jeffrey Rotter about the social risks of homemade clothing, museums as metaphors, the parallels between As I Lay Dying and reality T.V., and the ways in which imagination can change the world – for good and evil. The title of Rotter’s novel, The Unknown Knowns, alludes to that Donald Rumsfeld speech of linguistic loop-de-loops that would have driven George Orwell crazy; the book, which looks askance at our modern take on “Us vs. Them,” tackles the ontological questions presented by our vague and shadowy paranoia, but ups the ante considerably beyond the present moment in history to the personal crises that drive all good stories.
On Thursday, Celeste read at Pete’s Candy Store with Jeffrey Rotter, whose debut novel The Unknown Knowns I’d been curious about. After hearing him read just a short excerpt, I picked up a copy. If the Dr. Seussish cover and Donald Rumsfeld allusion aren’t alluring enough, check out a sample here, and if Jeffrey Rotter is reading anywhere near you, don’t miss it. In the coming months, look for an interview with him here on FWR.