Category Archives: Books

A Review of David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King

Posted on 16 April 2011 by

[San Francisco Chronicle] In Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, I’ve got a review of David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. This novel isn’t exactly hurting for attention, but I do try to make a couple of fresh points: first, that Wallace has … Continue reading →

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Writing the Civil War

Posted on 8 April 2011 by

[Boston Globe] In this week’s Boston Globe — and exactly 150 years after the start of the Civil War — I’ve got a feature on the war’s impact on American literature. For pretty much all of those 150 years, people … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Features | 1 Comment

Reprinting Reagan

Posted on 7 April 2011 by

I’m switching gears to work on some long-term projects, which may mean fewer story links and deleted scenes. That said, I want to keep writing regularly, so the plan is to do more short, standalone posts. They might be a … Continue reading →

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James Kloppenberg vs. Jack Cashill

Posted on 27 March 2011 by

[Washington Post] In Sunday’s Washington Post, I’ve got a long review of two books about the books of Barack Obama — James Kloppenberg’s Reading Obama, which reverse-engineers the ideas in Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope, and Jack Cashill’s Deconstructing … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Dissertation ephemera, Politics | 1 Comment

Getting Wallace Right

Posted on 7 March 2011 by

The literary blogosphere’s been circulating Rebekah Frumkin’s defense of David Foster Wallace’s fiction, and this has to be a good thing. Frumkin seems like a sharp and precocious writer, and I agree with her essay’s goals, though I think it … Continue reading →

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