the stars are dust on gray carpet
unvacuumed
and a man with a newspaper beret
makes a wish on a rat
All posts tagged: 2014
Review: The Splendid Things We Planned
Book by BLAKE BAILEY
Reviewed by
Reading Blake Bailey’s memoir of his deranged brother, The Splendid Things We Planned, I kept thinking of a line from the epigraph Bailey quotes from Joe Gould’s Secret, Joseph Mitchell’s portrait of another troubled soul: “You can hate a person with all your heart and soul and still long for that person.” Bailey is the author of acclaimed literary biographies of John Cheever, Richard Yates, and Charles Jackson, all of whom wrote about the desperation behind mid-century American prosperity. This memoir shows that Bailey knows that terrain from personal experience. He opens with a heart-stopping scene of his young parents standing on the roof of a building at New York University in the early 1960s, holding their colicky, howling infant and trying to decide whether to jump together or toss the baby. This turns out to be one of those half-true jokes parents tell on themselves, normally, once their children are thriving. This child never thrived, and Bailey’s family would spend the rest of this child’s life pushed to the edge by his behavior.
A Motor-Flight Through France
A trailblazer among American women at the turn of the century, Edith Wharton set out in the newly invented “motor-car” to explore the cities and countryside of France. As the Whartons embark on three separate journeys through the country in 1906 and 1907, accompanied first by Edith’s brother, Harry Jones, and then by Henry James, Edith is enamored by the freedom that this new form of transport has given her. With a keen eye for architecture and art, and the engrossing style that would later earn her a Pulitzer Prize in fiction, Wharton writes about places that she previously “yearned for from the windows of the train.”
Ask a Local: Matt Frank, Marquette, MI
With MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK
Your name: Matthew Gavin Frank
Current city or town: Marquette, MI.
How long have you lived here? 4 years
Haben Sie Schleim?
By GEOFF KRONIK
Because I had a roomy exit-row seat on a full plane to Berlin, I sent a photo of my gloriously unbent legs to my wife. A petty triumph, the frequent-flyer’s tame version of sexting. My seatmate was a small, physically non-intrusive man, but troublingly prone to coughs and sneezes.
Mapping the Belly of the Whale
When I arrived at Woodbourne prison for that first intake procedure I was surprised to find a certain level of relaxation. Maybe what I mean is not relaxation, but a kind of small town banter that was easy to slip into with the guard who checked me through the metal detector as I set it off again and again. He reassured me he was not going to make me take my shirt off, though the fact that it was fastened with snaps instead of buttons was causing the problem. I told him that I was wearing a T-shirt underneath if it was necessary to remove the outer garment. Harmless flirtation, or maybe just everyday humanity. Whatever you call it, I was not expecting to find it at Woodbourne.
Waiting for Maghrib
By SACHI LEITH
I didn’t tell anyone at work that I was fasting for Ramadan. Unsure how my Muslim friends would react to an amateur appropriation of their religious culture, I found the explanation difficult.
Filling Up the Creative Glass: A Conversation with David Breslin
MARNI BERGER interviews DAVID BRESLIN
David Breslin is a Curator and Associate Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts, and a writer of nonfiction on art, feminism and language-based practices. His essay, “Plugs: Five Thoughts on Cady Noland’s Stocks,” was published in Issue No. 07 of The Common. Marni Berger spoke with Breslin at a coffee shop off Washington Square Park in New York City, where they discussed the American art world, how to handle painful subjects, and finding the ideal writing space.
Review: All Our Names
Book by DINAW MENGESTU
Reviewed by
In All Our Names, the Ethiopian-born novelist Dinaw Mengestu tells the story of two Isaacs and a Helen living, loving, and leaving each other—apparently in the 1970s. The story, which takes place in both Uganda, and a generic Midwestern U.S. town called Laurel, is narrated partly by Isaac, whose real name isn’t really Isaac (he is also called Langston, Professor, and Dickens at different times and by different people), and partly by Helen, the American social worker assigned to him after he comes to the U.S. to study at university.
The novel begins with the faux Isaac, almost twenty-five, leaving his village in Ethiopia for the Ugandan capital of Kampala, to “claim his share,” i.e. to become a famous writer, surrounded by like-minded men. There, he meets the other Isaac (whom we’ll call Isaac [2] for clarity) at the university, though neither Isaac is a student, and it is unclear whether the two men are like-minded. Their relationship and involvement with the revolution against Idi Amin makes up Isaac’s share of the narrative.
I-Italy (2014)
I-Italy features The Common in the City 2014 in their April-May issue.