Sara Nović's Blog, page 22
December 24, 2015
Family cookie factory.
Family cookie factory.
December 23, 2015
Reader’s Report
Bumped into this in my inbox last night– a thing I wrote this summer
for @myszko‘s Reader’s Report about sleeping with Heidi Julavits(’s The Folded Clock):
Lately I’ve been sleeping with Heidi Julavits. I was lucky to snag an advanced copy of The Folded Clock—though it’s out everywhere now; go get it!—but midst grading stacks of semester’s-end research papers, reading slush for Blunderbussand a pair of novels by writers with whom I’m meant to converse on a panel next month, I could only squeeze Julavits in at night, in those final moments before sleep.
To say that I fall asleep reading The Folded Clock is to do the book a disservice. I want to keep reading, and find myself fighting sleep to finish one more entry, then one more, until finally I pass out.
The subtitle of The Folded Clock is “A Diary,” but, unlike we sometimes see with journals or memoirs, Julavits is refreshingly open about the fact that the book has been altered, not only to protect the privacy and identity of others, but also as somewhat of a composite year really made out of two years’ worth of entries. The fact that the diary is out of chronological order (the first five entries are dated June 21, March 3, July 29, July 18 and August 2) reinforces the notion that a diary, or any narrative for that matter, can be edited and shaped but still “true.”
As a reader I was willing to follow and believe Julavits’s stories despite the reorganization because she doesn’t alter or conceal anything in hopes of making herself “look good.” She writes about watching The Bachelorette; she writes about a time when, on a plane and wedged into the window seat next to a fat sleeping man she was too embarrassed to wake up, she tried to pee in an airsickness bag. Her honesty is endearing, but it is also important—a reflection of what it means to be a writer, a woman, a wife and a mother.
Knausgaardian in its expounding of everyday moments, what makes Julavits’s book often a more pleasant and more engaging read is that she does some of the filtering and some of the analytical work for us. And because she writes in such an intimate, occasionally confessional tone, it feels right to fall asleep beside The Folded Clock, like having a slumber party with a best friend who you both know is smarter than you, but speaks to you like an equal anyway, whispering secrets through the dark
from the tinyletter http://tinyletter.com/myszka_mz/letters/rr-13-dreams-brain-schemes-with-a-report-by-sara
December 22, 2015
believermag:
In The Believer’s fall issue, Pablo Calvi reports on an oil pipeline that threatens...
In The Believer’s fall issue, Pablo Calvi reports on an oil pipeline that threatens indigenous populations in Ecuador, Alex Mar has afternoon tea with the Church of Satan’s high priest, Daniel Werb discusses harm-reduction programs in Tijuana’s red-light district, and Esmé Weijun Wang explores living with schizophrenia. Other essays focus on a copper-mining pit in Montana, the irresistibly gothic family whose middle son is the inspiration behind Bolaño’s mad-genius poet in 2666, and the anarchist who’s quietly fanning the flames of our country’s insurrectionary movements. There are poems by Kay Ryan and Kathleen Ossip, in-depth interviews with Megan Rapinoe, Michael Schur, Jerry Stahl, Sheila Nevins, Ronald Cotton, and Miranda July, and a special section on the theme of silence with work by Diane Cook, Sara Novic, Stephen Burt, Rachel Z. Arndt, Matthew Zapruder, and JW McCormack. The winners of the eleventh annual Believer Book Award and the fifth annual Believer Poetry Award are announced.
Read it: blvr.org/113
Buy it: blvr.org/buy113
Table of Contents:
El Desencanto by Aaron Shulman
The irresistible disenchantments of the Panero family, introduced by the best Spanish cult documentary you’ve never heard of.The Eleventh Annual Believer Book Award
Toward a Pathology of the Possessed by Esmé Weijun Wang
Schizophrenia’s effects are often discussed in metaphors. What is it like to live with those metaphors?How To Field-Dress a Deer by Roger D. Hodge
An installment in our series of essential advice.What the Swedes Read by Daniel Handler
What’s Left Behind by Kea Krause
A flooded copper mine outside Butte, Montana, is the largest contaminated body of water in the country. And it contains a slime that could save the mine, the town, and maybe even the world.Miranda July interviewed by Ross Simonini
The writer, artist, musician, and filmmaker discusses her life and work by telephone, battling a poor connection.Schema: Great Moments on the Loo by Sylvia Christie
A compendium of important literary moments spent on the toilet, accompanied by a very rude illustration.The Process: Jules Feiffer by Alex Dueben
The cartoonist discusses creating his noir graphic novel Kill My Mother.Anarchy in the USA by Zander Sherman
Four years after Occupy Wall Street, meet John Zerzan, the man who’s been quietly fanning the flames of the country’s most important insurrectionary movements.Megan Rapinoe interviewed by Kevin Koczwara
The US women’s soccer team star on growing up playing with her twin, the world of women’s soccer, and the changing landscape for gay athletes.“Sock”: a new poem by Kay Ryan
The Fifth Annual Believer Poetry Award
mets:
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