the fiction market was simply drying up

"Back in 1953, at any rate, the fiction market was simply drying up, as more and more middle-class readers turned to television for entertainment, while many of the slicks had either reduced or stopped running fiction altogether--an irreversible trend. At the end of that torturous but productive year, [Charles] Jackson had sold a single story (for all of $250) and yet remained philosophical to an almost heedless degree: 'It isn't only that the fiction market grows less and less,' he wrote Brackett; 'the failure was entirely in me, I think. I didn't do [the stories] quite wholeheartedly . . . and I think the reason was partly financial but even more, because my real love is the novel."

~~ from Blake Bailey's Farther and Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of                                           Charles Jackson

degrees of SNAP

"While nearly 53% of all people who earned bachelor’s degrees were women, almost 64% of SNAP recipients with bachelor’s degrees were women.

Similarly, the study said, Black people made up almost 9% of all adults with a bachelor’s degree. But Black people were around 25% of those with a bachelor’s degree who were also getting SNAP."

and then they came for the poets

Consider another reminder of how writers may live under military dictatorship.

acquired again

Daniel Ross Goodman added this postscript to his opinion piece that the authorized Philip Roth biography should not be judged by its author or subject, and that readers and scholars ought to have access to the book.

Postscript: On May 17^th, it was announced that Skyhorse Publishing had acquired Philip Roth: The Biography, and that it intends to begin distributing it in paperback, e-book, and audiobook formats on June 15. Informing the press of its decision, Tom Lyons, the president of Skyhorse, stated that “a biography must be judged by the quality of the writing, the importance of the subject matter, and the value of the scholarship,” and that its editors had concluded that [Blake] Bailey’s book met these criteria. “This is obviously an important and comprehensive book about an author The New Yorker called a ‘literary genius,’ said Lyons. “I’m proud to publish it.”

Read more at the paper of moderately capitalist record.

Although I don't plan on reading the Roth biography—frankly, the reviews and hooplah are enough—I'm glad I stuck with Bailey's earlier Charles Jackson biography, a book I came to because I appreciated his even earlier biography of Richard Yates. Of course, it's unlikely that I would have begun the Jackson biography so soon after the news broke, but I was past a hundred pages in and rather than turn off the professional sporting event or toss the Woody Allen dvds, I read on. The book, and Jackson's life, would appeal to anyone interested in alcoholism, AA, fleeting fame, literary obscurity, writers in Hollywood, pre-Stonewall sexual identities, the American 20th century, small town life, Shakespeare's influence on an American writer, and much much more.

Hampshire stays open

A random reader found a past note here on Hamphire College's financial difficulties which led me to discover the good news that it appears Hampshire will remain open for years to come.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette included this note in its recent article on Hampshire's 2021 graduation:

"The tenacity of Hampshire College as an institution was also a key theme for the graduation, as speakers painfully remembered the college’s brief plans to shut down due to budgetary concerns in 2019.

"'Hampshire College is still here because many of you insisted that it must be,' Wingenbach said to graduating students in his speech. 'And because of the passions, effort and commitment of both you and a broader community that loves what this college and this college alone stands for, Hampshire will be here in another 50 years, when you return to celebrate our 100th anniversary.'"

America's Dead Souls

Among many others, then, we have The Brothers K by David James Duncan, "Errand" from Raymond Carver, "The Overcoat II" by T. C. Boyle, and the American healthcare system by Nikolai Gogol according to Molly McGhee, author of "America's Dead Souls." Dare to tell me that one of these does not belong. 

$3.79

And if the price drops any lower, Bezos and his minions will be at my door demanding cash!

the coal bills of winter

"Already they dreaded the coal bills of winter, and were at a loss what to do for Christmas; Rhoda wrote Phyliss McGinley in Larchmont, wondering if she knew anyone who might be interested in buying a second-hand mink for $1,500, less than half what they'd paid for it in 1947 ('I doubt if, in the last two years, it has been worn more than ten times'). And perhaps something of that sort was arranged, since they seemed to have jolly holidays; indeed, at a New Year's 'kids party,' Charlie proved such a 'cavorting parent' that his twelve-year-old daughter was a little mortified."

~~ from Blake Bailey's Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of      Charles Jackson

careful as a cat

"Doctor Lovejoy himself used to wash cups after Sunday tea. He was as careful as a cat about not getting his hands wet at the same time. He would run the hot water from the faucet into those thin cups, then daintily and delicately turn them around without wetting even a finger-nail. Last of all, he would peer like a botanist into them, to see if any sugar were left."

~~ from East Goes West by Younghill Kang

the chance to work

“All my life I had thought that if you worked hard you would be rewarded. If you worked your ass off, there would be some reward for you. But now I knew that the reward was just the chance to work your ass off.”

~~ from The Cliff Walk by Don J. Snyder

Isakov live

Gregory Alan Isakov performs live from The Caverns in Tennessee.

The Cliff Walk

"I told her the truth about myself then: that like a lot of people in this country I had lost my job and all my money and everything else that I'd always believed added up to the promise of a secure life. How I'd had things my own way for so long that when this happened I spent most of two years feeling sorry for myself and looking for somebody to blame. How I took solace from news reports about how hard life had become in America, until I realized that life had always been hard for a lot of people, people I thought I was better than, and that the only thing that had changed was that bad things were finally starting to happen to people like me who had it so good for so long. I told her that the whole time I was putting my family through hard times I knew what was the best thing to do for them and what was the worst thing, and I always chose the worst thing because it was easier."

~~ from The Cliff Walk by Don J. Snyder

He was tired of science. . .

"Ian had been studying to be an engineer, before the war, but his service in France seemed to have knocked all desire for engineering out of him. He was tired of science, he said.

"'Why?' I questioned.

"'Well, in times of peace, it takes away a man's job. In times of war, it takes away his life.'"

~~ from East Goes West by Younghill Kang