Jonathan Lethem Says We Are all Sub-Cultures Now ( And I Agree)

November 1, 2011

I really, really like this interview with Jonathan Lethem over at Fiction Writers Review. There are lots of great parts, so you should read the whole thing, like his take on the supposed death of the novel or publishing industry or whatever. But I really particularly liked this:

And I think a lot of American life resolves into certain versions of subculture. The people I know in rural Maine will say to me, “Not only have I never been to New York but I would never wish to go.” It’s just an inconceivable world. Well, Mainers don’t go to conventions where they wear nametags that say “I’m from Maine and my name is such-and-such.” But they are also participants in a sub-cultural identity as Mainer—specifically, this flinty, caustic, sea-salty, coastal Maine identity is a subculture. It may not have as many love beads as being a hippie, and it wouldn’t be very willing to see itself in the framework I’m proposing as analogous to MFA programs. But it’s another kind of sub-cultural choice that’s been made.

There are only subcultures, in a way, is what I’m saying, and then an idea of a whole or outside. Even “mainstream” literary authority—let’s just say, to be able to isolate more or less what we mean—the people who are routinely asked to write reviews for the New York Times Book Review and therefore, and let’s please understand that it is therefore, guaranteed that their own books will be reviewed by the New York Times Book Review, among whom I will now number myself. As hegemonic and oppressive as the assumptions that go with that, the degree to which that subculture has the privilege and utilizes the privilege of pretending there are no other literary cultures besides itself, it’s also still a subculture, where social reinforcements and tribal ritual prevail. And where a limited number of people are executing maneuvers amongst one another as though it is a whole world, but it’s not.

YES. THIS.

Have you read Emprise Review 20 yet?

August 2, 2011

You need to be reading this. All of these stories are killer and I’m just not making that shit up. Each of these stories and poems is unique in a way that is completely unique from the other stories’ uniqueness. That is what makes Emprise Review what it is. A place for the utterly unique. Go read these.Killing Oligocene Faith BeckTriptych Sutherland DouglassThe North Face Erin Fitzgerald John Sevier Aubrey Hirsch Gilly the Goat-Girl Julie Innis Karen The Temp Jason Jordan The Irradiated Man Ken Poyner The Wolf Who Cried Boy Sam Rasnake The Kimono Tailor Eric Dreyer Smith

POETRY Vanessa Blakeslee Christopher Dungey Brett Elizabeth Jenkins James Silas Rogers REVIEW Fragmentation + other stories Reviewed by Nathan Huffstutter

Issue Four of a Genius Mag Arrives: Zine-Scene’s The Reprint

August 2, 2011 — 9 Comments

Image by Joe Scarano

I think the Reprint is one of the best ideas in indie lit today. I think it’s brilliant. Take stories, that let’s face it, probably most people haven’t read because not a lot of people are buying print mags nowadays, and reprint them in their own beautifully illustrated online magazine. Voila! Genius.

This, the fourth issue, is as fantastic as the last three and features stuff from top-notch writers like xtx, Brandi Wells, Meg Pokrass, Kirsty Logan, Aubrey Hirsch, Roxane Gay, Adam Moorad, and Travis Hessman; creepy-great artwork that made me think of nothing so much as Ren and Stimpy (also genius, still) by Joe Scarano; a kick-ass intro by Sarah Rose Etter, and interviews with Travis Hessman and Annalemma Editor Christopher Heavener.

I know, right? Get to reading! Seriously, this is one I read cover to cover every time because not only is it a great idea, but editor Richard Mocarski is an amazing curator with really terrific taste in fiction and in writers of fiction. This one should always be on your go-to list for great fiction, on and offline.