Citizenship | Literature
Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.
What began as a bold experiment in grassroots service produced future ambassadors to help guide U.S. diplomacy through seven decades of global upheaval.
Read, Listen, Watch
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(But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive) Queue the circus music when Sam, Muller, and Max join Max’s father Otis and mother Ruby in The Rec Room of Sound, Otis’s Internet radio broadcast, to consume pot-laced brownies and interview Bisquick the Mynah bird best known for biting nipples and repeating the phrase “Gimme some titty action”. As…
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The hyperbole above is intended in jest, of course, an eye-catching headline to mimic today’s lead story on NYT’s home page. It’s the Times’ second such sensational headline on the subject this week. America Steps Up Fight to Stem Flow of ISIS Volunteers Click to the story, however, and a different picture emerges. Suddenly the…
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Today the @NYTimes posted a teaser making it sound as if “radicalized young Muslim Americans” are “flowing” into Syria to join the fight there. Flowing? The article itself indicates that “American law enforcement and intelligence officials say more than 100 Americans have gone to Syria, or tried to so far.” Let’s do the math. In…
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Fellow writers! The CIA has been keeping a classified dossier on public enemy number one, and I’m not talking about terrorists, coup-plotters, pirates or smugglers. I’m not even talking about an orange leadership that now denigrates Intelligence Community efforts and insults their sacrifice. No, the enemy in question, as common as the common cold, is the…
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“Your personal details aren’t the new currency, but they are the new price of admission.” The Way Inn is an exceptionally well-written novel of acute observation and creative imagery in a world both real and surreal. Will Wiles succeeds throughout with prose that is imaginative and immersive, complex and compelling. Experience the moment as the…
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Brian Francis Slattery’s keen omniscience delivers the crime story of a century, a tale grounded on history and fact—obscure Americana, strange third world realities—taking the reader from 1995 Cleveland to 1986 Sub Saharan Africa before traveling back to prohibition and a 20th century historical tour of Ukraine and Romania. Where and when are we? We are all times…
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In The Family Hightower Brian Francis Slattery unspools a tale of global crime and capitalism spanning the last century. An example of his creative storytelling: Slattery introduces one of the novel’s most noble characters when she’s already carved into a disemboweled corpse, skin all sown up in jagged stitches. Dare the reader care about this eviscerated entity as the narrative delves…
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You only need about 11 minutes 30 seconds (less if you skip the intro!) to listen to Jess Walter read his short story “Cheston”. Damn funny. Visit Episode 1 of A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment. Stick around longer and hear another great piece by Sherman Alexie.
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The New York Times carries this thoughtful piece by Teddy Wayne on writers’ uses of social media to promote their work. Its a reminder of the line between shameless braggadocio and good-faith efforts to put our work before the public eye.
Ben East Books 