Well, this was an interesting week. Although I know it sometimes seems as if I'm constantly online, this week was neatly divided between my professional life, which is Going Very Nicely, and my personal life, which has been a series of Domestic Disturbances. Knock wood, I think I have finally assigned each problem/dilemma to the proper professional, although for all I know the catsitter is outside doing the brick work and our plumber is devising the menu for Mr. Lippman's birthday dinner. When I Read more [...]

I have been trying for a week now to work out what I think about all the Franzen love and the reaction to the Franzen love, but I just can't organize my thoughts. So I am going to make a listicle of random (or are they?) observations.1) Middle-age women are the engine that drive fiction in this country. Ian McEwan told the New Yorker this year that he literally couldn't give novels away to men. 2) Although women dominate fiction as consumers/readers, there is a genre known as "women's fiction," yet Read more [...]

"I remember one year my friend Carpenter and I had books out on the same day. We talked about it all summer. We each had modest expectations. I had modest expectations for his book; he had modest expectations for mine . . . Finally the big day arrived and I woke up happy, embarrassed in advance by all the praise and attention that would be forthcoming. I made coffee and practiced digging my toe in the dirt . . . Then I waited for the phone to ring. The phone did not know its part. It sat there silent Read more [...]

Jonathan Franzen is going to be on the cover of TIME. I had it on good authority that I was the other August author under consideration, but so it goes. Now, many years ago, Nora Ephron -- man, how many times have I cited her on this blog -- had a killing parody of how to write a magazine cover story. Interestingly, the rules as she observed them do not seem to have changed much. This profile (an abridged version is online) begins with a comically strained scene involving 41 sea otters. "One of the Read more [...]

Sad news came today -- Anne Allen died Aug. 5. Anne was a dance teacher in Columbia, MD, and a gifted dancer in her day, the real thing. Her daughter, Cathleen, was a good friend in high school. I can't remember why my friend Dana and I wandered into her ballet class at the community center. I had to be self-aware enough, at 15, to know that I had no talent. Somehow, Anne recruited me to play the Comet can in her whimsical take on the Sorcerer's Apprentice, which featured many name-brand cleansers. Read more [...]