Novels
Under Review
Can a Novel Capture the Power of Money?
In “Trust,” Hernan Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, fiction and finance are bedfellows, constantly toying with a reader’s investment.
Persons of Interest
The Anonymous Postcard That Inspired a French Best-Seller
Anne Berest’s “The Postcard” reads like a detective story, uncovering her Jewish family’s experiences during the Second World War.
Page-Turner
Max Porter’s Novel of Troubled and Enchanted Youth
The teen-aged protagonist of “Shy” is caught between helpless sensitivity and impulsive violence.
.jpg)
Second Read
The Divorce Novel That Captured the Mores of Jazz Age New York
Ursula Parrott’s “Ex-Wife” caused a sensation when it was published in 1929. But it wasn’t the racy, frothy endorsement of sexual liberation readers were primed to expect.
Under Review
Catherine Lacey’s Provocative Novel in Disguise
“Biography of X,” a fictional account of a shape-shifting conceptual artist, is an experiment in authorial ambiguity.
Page-Turner
What Is the Appeal of Fan Fiction?
Esther Yi’s new novel explores the embarrassing allure of stories that allow readers to insert themselves as protagonists.
The New Yorker Interview
Jennifer Egan’s Disciplined Restlessness
The author, who has two new book projects under way, says, “I feel such a hunger to do things that I don’t feel I’ve done before.”
.jpg)
Second Read
Secretaries and the City
Reading Rona Jaffe’s “The Best of Everything” sixty-five years later.
Second Read
A Love Story of the Black Arts Movement
Alison Mills Newman’s “Francisco,” long out of print, is an experiment in liberation through sex and self-immolation.
Page-Turner
The Errant Mind of a Depressed Economist
Martin Riker’s “The Guest Lecture” chronicles its narrator’s wandering thoughts in the course of a single sleepless night.
Profiles
The Defiance of Salman Rushdie
After a near-fatal stabbing—and decades of threats—the novelist speaks about writing as a death-defying act.
Page-Turner
A Diary’s Unwanted Insights
In “Forbidden Notebook,” Alba de Céspedes upends the familiar story of self-liberation through writing.
Cultural Comment
The Frictionless Charms of the Ferrante Cinematic Universe
The film and television adaptations of the Italian author’s novels offer an almost suspicious lack of resistance.
Culture Desk
How “Battle Royale” Took Over Video Games
With a simple, ingenious formula, a Japanese novel has inspired some of the most successful games in history.
Books
Franz Kafka, Party Animal
We think of him as a recluse, but an unfiltered translation of his diaries reveals an artist who was often antic, alive, and in motion.
On Television
How “Fleishman Is in Trouble” Ditches the Clichés of the Female Midlife Crisis
The freshest observations—and emotional wallops—in the adaptation of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s novel center on the accrual of the sometimes uncategorizable breaches that women are expected to quietly endure.
Persons of Interest
How a Great Audiobook Narrator Finds Her Voices
Robin Miles was looking for stage and screen roles when she began reading books for the blind. She’s become one of the country’s most celebrated narrators.
Under Review
The Man Who Mastered Minor Writing
In both life and work, Evan S. Connell rejected the tidiness of narrative. He focussed, instead, on the details we’d rather ignore.
Second Read
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” ’s Voices in the Dark
The Argentinean writer Manuel Puig’s novel-in-dialogue forces the reader to be both director and detective, interpreting how the lines will be spoken and searching each sentence for clues as to what is going on.
Our Columnists
Could an A.I. Chatbot Rewrite My Novel?
As a young fiction writer, I dreamed of a technology that would tell me how to get my characters from point A to point B. Could ChatGPT be it?