Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

For more than thirty years, Edie and Richard Middlestein shared a solid family life together in the suburbs of Chicago. But now things are splintering apart for one reason: Edie’s enormous girth. She’s obsessed with food–thinking about it, eating it—and if she doesn’t stop, she won’t have much longer to live. With pitch-perfect prose, huge compassion, and sly humor, Jami Attenberg has given us an epic story of marriage, family, and obsession. The Middlesteins explores the hopes and heartbreaks of new and old love, the yearnings of Midwestern America, and our devastating, fascinating preoccupation with food. The post Jami Attenberg : The Middlesteins appeared first on Tin House.

Matt Bell’s novel is so unlike anything else you’ll read this year that people are struggling to describe just what it is. The Washington Post says it’s like a magical realist story chanted by druids on mushrooms, The Stranger says it feels like a Tolkein epic set inside Plato’s cave and told by Carl Jung, others mention Calvino, Borges, Kafka, and the Bible. Earlier this year Flavorwire called Matt Bell one of the 10 best millennial writers you haven’t read (yet) and NPR called Bell’s book, In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods, one of the smartest meditations on love, family, and marriage in recent years. The post Matt Bell : In the House Upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods appeared first on Tin House.

Born and raised in Zimbabwe, NoViolet Bulawayo earned her MFA at Cornell University where she was the recipient of the Truman Capote fellowship. In 2011 she won the biggest literary prize in Africa, the Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story “Hitting Budapest,” first published in the Boston Review. Bulawayo talks with Between The Covers host, David Naimon, about her debut novel, We Need New Names, a powerful story of emigration and immigration during Zimbabwe’s Lost Decade. The post NoViolet Bulawayo : We Need New Names appeared first on Tin House.

Host David Naimon talks with Lenore Zion about her debut novel Stupid Children, a book Thomas Michael Duncan of Necessary Fiction calls “a bildungsroman of twisted proportions told with startling clarity through the filter of a smart, psychoanalytic perspective. No character is safe from Zion’s unapologetic examinations. She bestows her protagonist with an open mind, a sharp intellect, and a sweltering imagination—all of the requisite ingredients for a disturbing, fascinating novel.” The post Lenore Zion : Stupid Children appeared first on Tin House.

They live among us.
 They are your neighbor, your mother, your lover.
 They change.  Every teenage girl thinks she’s different. When government agents kick down Claire Forrester’s front door and murder her parents, Claire realizes just how different she is. Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and hours later stepped off it, the only passenger left alive, a hero. President Chase Williams has sworn to protect the people of the United States from the menace in their midst but is becoming the very thing he has promised to destroy. So far the threat has been controlled by laws and violence and drugs. But the night of the red moon is coming, when an unrecognizable world will emerge, and the battle for humanity will begin. Host David Naimon talks with author Benjamin Percy about his new novel, Red Moon. The post Benjamin Percy : Red Moon appeared first on Tin House.

Karen Russell is one of today’s most celebrated and vital writers—honored in the New Yorker’s list of the twenty best writers under the age of forty, Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, and the National Book Foundation’s five best writers under the age of thirty-five. Last year, Karen Russell was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction (along with David Foster Wallace and Denis Johnson) for her debut novel, Swamplandia!  Now Russell is back with a magical new collection of stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, that showcases her gifts at their inimitable best. The post Karen Russell : Vampires in the Lemon Grove appeared first on Tin House.

In the hip haven of Portland, Oregon, a pack of unsteady but loyal friends asks what it means to bring babies into an already crowded world. A smart, edgy and poignantly funny exploration of the complexities of what parenthood means today, Monica Drake’s second novel, The Stud Book, demonstrates that when it comes to babies, we can learn a lot by considering our place in the animal kingdom. Cheryl Strayed calls The Stud Book a “take your breath away good, blow your mind wise, crack your heart open beauty of a novel. A smart sexy, comic compassionate, absorbing and necessary story of our times.” The post Monica Drake : The Stud Book appeared first on Tin House.

A hilarious collection of stories from the writer the New York Times called “the novelist of his generation.” Returning to the form in which he began, Sam Lipsyte, author of the New York Times bestseller The Ask, offers up The Fun Parts, a book of bold, hilarious, and deeply felt fiction. Combining both the tragicomic dazzle of his beloved novels and the compressed vitality of his classic debut collection, The Fun Parts is Lipsyte at his best–an exploration of new voices and vistas from a writer Time magazine has said “everyone should read.” The post Sam Lipsyte : The Fun Parts appeared first on Tin House.

“George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You’ll Read All Year,” declared the cover of the New York Times Magazine several weeks ago. Since then, the world has rushed to agree that Saunders’ new story collection, Tenth of December, is a remarkable literary achievement. “George Saunders is a complete original, unlike anyone else, thank god—and yet still he manages to be the rightful heir to three other complete American originals—Barthelme (the lyricism, the playfulness), Vonnegut (the outrage, the wit, the scope), and Twain (the common sense, the exasperation). There is no author I recommend to people more often—for ten years I’ve urged George Saunders onto everyone and everyone. You want funny? Saunders is your man. You want emotional heft? Saunders again. You want stories that are actually about something—stories that again and again get to the meat of matters of life and death and justice and country? Saunders. There is no one better, no one more essential to our national sense of self and sanity.”—Dave Eggers The post George Saunders : Tenth of December appeared first on Tin House.

Chris Kraus, a renowned writer, filmmaker, and art critic, discusses her provocative book, Summer of Hate. She dives into the contrasting lives of her protagonists, Kat and Paul, exploring themes of romance and systemic inequalities tied to capitalism and the prison system. Kraus sheds light on the struggles of reintegration after incarceration, the nuances of intimacy against New Mexico's backdrop, and critiques the isolation of personal narratives from broader socio-political contexts. Her insights blend personal stories with pressing societal issues.