Books

Dread is a Freelancer: On Choire Sicha’s Very Recent History

The Awl cofounder’s new book is about New York, and the Recession, and the pastimes of young guys in the city—but it’s also about the very human tendency to screw around in the face of creeping fear and anxiety.

||Caraid O’Brien, who every Bloomsday performs Molly Bloom's monologue for Radio Bloomsday, in her Ulysses-papered bedroom.
The Odyssey of A Novel: From the Dublin of Joyce to Wayne Johnston's St. John's

The character of Leopold Bloom, the wonderful depictions of Dublin—a novelist vows to do for St. John’s, Newfoundland, what Joyce's Ulysses did for Dublin. (Stephen’s barely bearable soliloquies notwithstanding.)

Making Space for the Dead

Arguably the preeminent Haitian writer of her generation, Edwidge Danticat talks with Hazlitt about her new novel, Claire of the Sea Light, her connection to home, and writing the dead back to life.

The Problem of Modern Myth-Making

As literature all but abandons the epic, Matt Bell’s debut novel, In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods, stands out: A modern fairy tale built from small parts—a recognizable domestic story with a dark, fabulist backbone.

Alice Munro, Philip Roth, and the Letting Go

The recent retirees say life after writing is a welcome relief—that they’re happy to join the ranks of those who can hear a story and not have it become an ongoing mental burden. But what’s so great about being like everybody else?