Category: Uncategorized
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Where I am and where I’ve been
Some updates on Your Face in Mine: Much gratitude to everyone who has come out to the events so far, and particularly to the organizers and booksellers who put in so much time. Likewise to the interviewers and radio hosts (and audience members) who have added to the conversation in unexpected ways. There are more…
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Where to find me
Your Face in Mine comes out this week, and I’m happy that already the book has gotten some great attention. And started some arguments—as expected. I’ll be doing a series of readings and events this fall—the list (which will be updated) is at the Events link above. First up is Thursday, August 14th at Book Court…
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Remembering Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer, who died Sunday at the astonishing age of 90, was one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century. She had an instantly recognizable touch: her sentences form a verbal slipstream, a kind of continuous pressure of thought, both deliberative and quick, and often surprising. You wouldn’t expect the winner of a…
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Booklist on #YourFaceinMine
(Starred review) “In Row’s disquieting near-future medical tale, 38-year-old Kelly Thorndike learns that all things are fungible after he has a chance encounter with a former high-school classmate. The guy who once was Martin Lipkin, Jewish bassist in a rock band with Kelly, is now Martin Wilkinson, a wealthy African American international entrepreneur, complete with…
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Publisher’s Weekly on #YourFaceinMine
(Starred review) “This furiously smart first novel from Row (who wrote The Train to Lo Wu) opens up difficult conversations about race and identity. The narrator, Kelly Thorndike, is back in his hometown, Baltimore, after his wife and daughter die in an accident. Now in his mid-30s, Kelly reconnects with Martin, a friend from his high…
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GWB
“As she leaves the toll booth and pulls toward the right lane the traffic gains momentum, and the great cables of the bridge rise up on either side, like giant wings, like Gothic arches. She thinks, this is my cathedral. She rolls the windows down, and hot, sticky air rushes through the car, smelling of…
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2013: My Year in Reading
“‘You seem fully immersed in a study of oppression. Any reason for this?’ ‘Well, I do live in the world.’” Rebecca Lee, Bobcat and Other Stories. (Algonquin) “Step by step, she forced her husband’s friend to the wall. Whenever he recalled his embarrassment he felt like crawling into a hole. Could such a wanton woman…
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Change is coming soon
Fall 2013: the first cold nights are upon us…Occupy just celebrated its second anniversary…New York seems poised to elect a progressive mayor for the first time in a generation or two…and I’m busy with the finishing touches on my novel, Your Face in Mine, to be released in summer 2014. Early next year I’ll have…
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On Copying, Copyright, and Fairness: A Response to David Lowery
I’m not a musician. At first glance, then, it seems a little odd that I’ve taken so much time to write a lengthy response to David Lowery’s letter to Emily White about filesharing and the effect it’s had on the music industry. I take a position on filesharing and the free exchange of copyrighted works that…
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Unpunctuated Equilibrium
Dear Jess Row, This week a continuing education class I teach in contemporary American short stories at the local community college read your story “The Call of Blood” from the 2011 BASS anthology. We thought it was a very fine story, rich in many ways, and it generated…
Jess Row 