Sometimes I think I’m done reading the New York Times Book Review, but at least once a month they come up with something that gets my attention. Like Kakutani reviewing Candace Bushnell in the voice of Elle Woods, or (more recently) Dwight Garner’s hilarious takedown of Timothy Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Body.
Donoghue
Russell
This week’s most intriguing item: assigning Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! to Emma Donoghue (spoiler: she likes it). Russell was our lead interview for February, as Emma Donoghue was back in October, and though at first the two novelists and their works seem to have little else in common, they’ve both managed to create believable young characters living in extreme situations.
In a separate interview for the Arts Beat blog, Donoghue gave Jennifer McDonald an update on her current projects. In addition to “putting the finishing touches” on a Room screenplay, she’s completed a book of short stories about migration and is working on a novel “about a murder among lowlifes in 1870s San Francisco. It will feature cross-dressing, the sex trade and motherhood, which are all topics that I’ve touched on before, and that continue to fascinate me.”
