Edan Lepucki and Emma Straub have been friends since they attended Oberlin College together. Both women released novels this year, and McNally Jackson hosted them to talk about their books and friendship in the literary world. David Gutowksi introduced the writers.
It’s clear which camp has claimed me. I’m messy by nature, born with a high tolerance for stacks of teetering books on the floor, scraps of fabric and sequins piled in the corner, overstuffed bulletin boards with layers upon layers of postcards, photographs, ticket stubs. Not quite a hoarder, but hoard-ish—and the same goes for my drafts.
WORD Bookstore hosted Amy Sohn to talk about her latest novel, The Actress, (July 2014), with Choire Sicha, co-proprietor of The Awl. Sohn provided pierogies from a neighborhood restaurant and Sicha set the mood as casual, insisting members of the audience should call out questions or comments they pair could answer or refute.
New York might get a bad rap for sky-high rents, but at least it isn’t Antwerp. Antwerp in the 1860’s, that is. A vitriolic diatribe written by Charles Baudelaire against the defenseless little country of Belgium appears in the latest issue of the Pushcart Prize-hoarding magazine Conjunctions. According to Baudelaire, the 19th century poet and essayist, low rents were the only things the “ragamuffin” of a state had going for it in the mid-1800’s.
If there is a literary equivalent of a shock-jock radio D.J., it might be Emily Gould, the essayist, memoirist, and blogger known for honest confessionalism, sometimes criticized as bordering on narcissism. Her 2010 collection of personal essays And the Heart Says Whatever earned her a $200,000 advance, and then the book flopped, as she describes in the essay “How Much my Novel Cost Me.” Gould now returns with a new book, the novel Friendship, but the distinction between fictional and nonfictional narrative remains insignificant. Gould pulls inspiration from her own life and that of her close friends creating a story of the friendship of two young women as they bumble through their twenties in New York City. Comparisons have been drawn to Lena Dunham’s Girls, though perhaps without the glitz and glitter of an HBO set. While Dunham’s girls’ blunders transpire across the Disneyland like paradise of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, a romanticized version of an already saccharine sweet world, Gould’s young women, Amy and Bev, find themselves in the distinctly less glamorous if equally expensive brownstone neighborhoods of Brooklyn.
The Asian American Writers Workshop hosted Celeste Ng at Greenlight Bookstore to discuss her debut novel, Everything I Never Told You. She was joined by Catherine Chung, author of Forgotten Country (2012).
Scott Cheshire launched his debut novel High As The Horses Bridle at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn. Cheshire serves as the interviews editor at Tottenville Review. He was joined in conversation by novelist Philipp Meyer, author of American Rust (2009) and The Son (2013).
My relationship with technology could be a romantic comedy—with blogs starring as that guy right under my nose, the guy who’s so perfect for me in his imperfection, so stellar with his boyish charm and manly good looks. Like any good romcom, let’s start with images of my past as the opening credits roll, so you can understand all future plot points: