Mark Athitakis' American Fiction Notes

The feature well of this week’s issue of Washington City Paper is dedicated to fiction for the first time in a long time. I sifted through the 50-odd submissions to pick three short stories, an...

https://markathitakis.com/2013/01/03/four-fictions/

I hesitate to say something simpler, like “Ten Overlooked 2012 Books”—these days even the books that dominate chatter about literary fiction generate such little attention in the wider worl...

https://markathitakis.com/2013/01/02/ten-2012-books-i-wish-received-more-attention-in-2012/

You’re reading a novel. “What’s it about?” somebody asks. What do you say? The question grates; there’s no good answer for it, no easy way to address it. Book reviewers who are trained ...

https://markathitakis.com/2012/05/07/new-yorker-magazine-fiction-keywording/

Last Sunday I took part in a panel at the Writer’s Center titled “The Future of the Book Review,” joined by the Washington Post‘s Dennis Drabelle and the Washington Independent Review of ...

https://markathitakis.com/2012/04/24/seven-things-i-think-i-think-about-book-reviews/

“There’s something amiss,” fumed Michael Cunningham, one of the three members of the Pulitzer Prize fiction jury whose work was undone—or at least unsettled—by the Pulitzer board, which...

https://markathitakis.com/2012/04/18/fictionpulitzergate/

1. Ron Slate, who runs the thoughtful blog Above the Seawall, invited me and 11 other writers to recommend a recent work of fiction. I wrote about Lionel Shriver‘s new novel, The New Republic, ...

https://markathitakis.com/2012/04/16/some-housekeeping-notes/

Colm Toibin: The novel is not a moral fable or a tale from the Bible, or an exploration of the individual’s role in society; it is not our job to like or dislike characters in fiction, or make ...

https://markathitakis.com/2012/04/04/a-novel-is-a-pattern/

From a 1959 essay, “Epitaph for the Beat Generation,” included the new anthology of John Leonard‘s essays, Reading for My Life: proved at least one thing more. That poetry, painting, music...

https://markathitakis.com/2012/04/01/the-discipline-of-form-and-the-love-of-an-educated-heart/

Lawrence Weschler on why he doesn’t write fiction: he part of my sensibility which I demonstrate in nonfiction makes fiction an impossible mode for me. That’s because for me the world is alre...

https://markathitakis.com/2012/03/28/the-world-is-already-filled-to-bursting/

In the Wall Street Journal, Lee Sandlin discusses two hard-boiled crime authors whose work has recently been anthologized, Paul Cain and David Goodis. I’m pretty familiar with Goodis, but Cain ...

https://markathitakis.com/2012/03/25/an-interesting-neutrality/