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Articles by Wayne Catan
John Irving on Wrestling, Coming-of-Age, and Writing Autiobiographically
Wayne Catan Talks to the Author of Queen Esther I have been reading John Irving’s novels since my undergraduate days at Syracuse University. One reason is that I wrestled for Syracuse, while Irving competed for the University of Pittsburgh, the New York Athletic Club, and the Hawkeye Club at the University of Iowa. Because of his mat acumen, his novels often feature realistic depictions of the sport, from lethal pinning combinations to high-amplitude throws.
Award-winning journalist crafts a propulsive climate change thriller in ‘We Can’t Save You’
“We Can’t Save You: A Tale of Politics, Murder, and Maine,” By Thomas E. Ricks. Pegasus Crime, Hardcover, 304 pages. $27.95 Thomas Ricks, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist (Washington Post, Wall Street Journal) and part-time Deer Island resident, draws on his deep reporting background in his second Ryan Tapia novel, “We Can’t Save You.” Ricks’ newest story, set in the near future, masterfully weaves together Native American protests, political maneuvering and military history.
Pushcart Press founder reveals his soul to his grandsons in ‘Dear Boys’
Bill Henderson is a thoughtful and respected figure in American literature. His many memoirs include “Simple Gifts: The Hymns of My Life,” (2023), and he’s the founder of the award-winning Pushcart Press, a one-man operation run from a small shed on Long Island, New York. In 1976, Henderson, along with a cadre of elite writers like Joyce Carol Oates and Ralph Ellison, launched the Pushcart Prize anthology to honor outstanding work from independent presses.
A demented serial killer and a religious zealot are on the loose in Stephen King’s latest novel
Fear, terror, mystery and disquiet are words that can be used to describe all of Stephen King’s books. The “King of Horror” is a master of his genre, but he is also a skilled writer of crime fiction. King sometimes melds these genres to invoke fear in both his characters and his readers. In “The Outsider,” for instance, King combines a murder case with supernatural elements.
Review: After the unimaginable
Yiyun Li, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Director of Creative Writing at Princeton, has suffered more than anyone can imagine. In 2017, her 16-year-old son Vincent died by suicide, and in 2024, her 19-year-old son James took his own life. Li also struggles with depression and attempted suicide twice, but she does not hide her pain. Instead, she writes about it. Her 2017 book “Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life” details her own ideations, hospitalization, and recovery.
“A Road to the Sea”: Despair and Renewal in Laura Vinogradova’s The River
Laura Vinogradova’s achingly beautiful and hypnotic novella The River, originally published in Latvian in 2020, explores loss, belonging, and grief, all while presenting a master class in crafting a bucolic setting. Few authors can immerse their readers completely in their worlds of fiction, convincing them the story they are reading is true. Vinogradova is one of those authors.
‘Youthjuice’ gives the skincare industry a macabre makeover
As a former beauty editor, E.K. Sathue has seen it all – companies hosting skincare and beauty product launch parties to influence journalists, vacuous sorority sisters vouching for each other at beauty publications and companies, and start-ups burning through VC money at a meteoric rate. With a deep understanding of the business, Sathue, who lives in Camden, audaciously satirizes it in “Youthjuice,” her second novel.
Book Talk: 'Three Days in June' by Anne Tyler
Minneapolis-born Anne Tyler, a Pulitzer Prize winner, invites us, once again, into the houses of her characters, foibles and all. In “Three Days in June” (released Feb. 11, 2025), we enter protagonist Gail Baines’s house just as she is snubbed for the headmistress position at a private girl’s school. We learn that “social interactions have never been [Gail’s] strong point,” leading to the decision to hire from outside. After Gail’s abrupt exit from the school, she focuses on her daughter’s wedding.
The Wildes Gives Oscar Wilde and His Family the Historical Fiction Treatment
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! Historical fiction is an intriguing genre. Some authors can brilliantly revisit previous epochs with meticulous description of the setting and make characters from yesteryear come alive on the page. Louis Bayard, a former instructor at George Washington University, is a master of the form. His 2022 novel, Jackie & Me, is a reimagination of the courtship of Jackie and John F. Kennedy through the eyes of a Kennedy confidant.
Book Review: ‘Blood Test: A Comedy’
In Charles Baxter’s seventh novel “Blood Test: A Comedy,” the Minneapolis native conjures a Midwestern family in crisis, starting with the protagonist Brock Hobson, an insurance salesman, Sunday school teacher, and a divorcé. Through Baxter’s narrative, we meet his two children (three if you count his daughter’s boyfriend) and near-perfect girlfriend, Trey.
Unarmed: An American Educator’s Memoir Unravels America’s Gun Obsession
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! Megan Doney, a literature and creative writing professor at Virginia’s New River Community College, is the winner of the 2024 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Nonfiction Prize. Some might think this is her time to celebrate, but the mere mention of celebrating might cause Doney disquiet. Here’s why: Unarmed: An American Educator’s Memoir is based on a 2013 school shooting that she survived while teaching at New River.
Book Review: ‘Spirit Crossing’
Author William Kent Krueger, the New York Times bestselling novelist known for his Minnesota-set stories, is back, and his latest is a multifaceted book that addresses Big Oil, Native trauma and addiction, social inequities, and the unbreakable bonds of a family. Former sheriff and current private investigator Cork O’Connor returns, too, for the 20th time in “Spirit Crossing.” The murder mystery, set in fictional Tamarack County and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, is available Aug.
Marissa Higgins’ Extreme Talent Is on Display in Her Novel A Good Happy Girl
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! Though she no longer calls D.C. home, writer Marissa Higgins knows her way around the District, where she lived in various Northwest neighborhoods from 2014 to 2020. The city even celebrated her work in 2020 with a grant for her nonfiction writing, which has appeared in numerous publications including The Atlantic, Salon, and Slate.
Universally Adored Unravels the Power of the Dollar Bill
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! In Universally Adored and Other $1 Dollar Stories, D.C. author (and actor) Elizabeth Bruce gives nearly three dozen reasons why a dollar bill can enrich a story. Her 33 microstories, like those of Haruki Murakami and Ottessa Moshfegh, are brief, feature a resolved plot, and occasionally a plot twist or a surprise. Sometimes the dollar is a symbol of love or hope. In other stories, the currency represents loss of innocence and misfortune.
City of Laughter, Temim Fruchter’s Debut Novel, Captivates
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! Temim Fruchter, who earned her MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland, College Park, is uber-talented, and she proves it in her debut novel, City of Laughter, an amalgam of sapphic love, family secrets, and Jewish folklore. The action begins when the protagonist, queer Jewish woman Shiva Margolin, develops an identity crisis at 31. To quell her quandary, she decides to go back to school for a master’s degree in Jewish folklore.
New Historical Fiction Puts Wilmeth Sidat-Singh in His Overdue Spotlight
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! I knew Jackie Robinson was the first Black athlete to play in the Major Leagues in the modern era, and I knew Althea Gibson broke the color barrier in professional tennis, but I was not familiar with Wilmeth Sidat–Singh, the first Black star athlete at Syracuse University—and I am a Syracuse grad. This changed thanks to Scott Pitoniak and Rick Burton’s Invisible No More, a historical novel about the two-sport superstar. The book, released on Dec.
Thurston Moore writes a love letter to New York and his fans in 'Sonic Life'
Formed by Thurston Moore in 1981, Sonic Youth were defined by distortion, experimentalism, and innovation. Now in his new memoir, Sonic Life (released Oct. 24), the band’s co-founder, guitarist, and singer chronicles his life beginning with growing up in suburban Connecticut and moving to New York’s East Village.
Whatcha Reading? New Books for Fall
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! In my opinion, every season is reading season, but there’s something about fall that makes you want to nestle down with a good book and a good drink. And with the new season comes an abundance of new books all vying for your attention. Below, City Paper’s book critics have dug into some upcoming and recent releases with local ties that span genres and styles to give you a head start on your fall reading list.
A Darker Shade of Noir: 15 Women Authors Unveil New Body Horror
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! In the introduction of A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers, the anthology’s editor, Joyce Carol Oates, writes that women mythical figures such as “Scylla and Charybdis, Lamia, Chimera, Sphinx [are] nightmare creatures representing, to the affronted male gaze, the perversion of ‘femininity’: … the female who in her physical being repulses sexual desire.” These monsters have rejected their function in a patriarchal society...
Book Review: 'The English Experience' Is a Witty Academic Farce
In “The English Experience,” author Julie Schumacher, who teaches creative writing at the University of Minnesota, takes readers to London with the 63-year-old English professor Jason Fitger and 11 very different Payne University undergrads for a three-week “Experience Abroad.” “The English Experience,” available Aug. 15, is Schumacher’s third novel focusing on academic misadventures and it features her melodic sentences and trademark witticisms.
Review: A boarding-school whodunnit keeps readers guessing
In her much lauded “The Great Believers,” Rebecca Makkai immersed us in the AIDS epidemic. In her new book “I Have Some Questions for You,” she concentrates on social issues such as #MeToo and racism while situating us into boarding school life, and the all-too-common scandals associated with them. In this deft murder-mystery, the scandal is the two-decade-old drowning murder of Thalia Keith, the protagonist Bodie Kane’s former roommate.
Punk literary icon Kathy Acker ‘completely bewitched’ Jason McBride - his book “Eat Your Mind” pays homage to her influence
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Review | Punk literary icon Kathy Acker ‘completely bewitched’ Jason McBride — his book “Eat Your Mind” pays homage to her influence
Revolutionary. Radical. Shocking. Just a few of the words that describe American writer and essayist Kathy Acker and her work.
Punk literary icon Kathy Acker ‘completely bewitched’ Jason McBride - his book “Eat Your Mind” pays homage to her influence
WhatsOn After 10 years of research, Toronto writer McBride introduces a new generation to Acker’s unmatched vision. Revolutionary. Radical. Shocking. Just a few of the words that describe American writer and essayist Kathy Acker and her work.
Punk literary icon Kathy Acker ‘completely bewitched’ Jason McBride - his book “Eat Your Mind” pays homage to her influence
WhatsOn After 10 years of research, Toronto writer McBride introduces a new generation to Acker’s unmatched vision. Revolutionary. Radical. Shocking. Just a few of the words that describe American writer and essayist Kathy Acker and her work.
Punk literary icon Kathy Acker ‘completely bewitched’ Jason McBride - his book “Eat Your Mind” pays homage to her influence
WhatsOn After 10 years of research, Toronto writer McBride introduces a new generation to Acker’s unmatched vision. Revolutionary. Radical. Shocking. Just a few of the words that describe American writer and essayist Kathy Acker and her work.
Punk literary icon Kathy Acker ‘completely bewitched’ Jason McBride - his book “Eat Your Mind” pays homage to her influence
WhatsOn After 10 years of research, Toronto writer McBride introduces a new generation to Acker’s unmatched vision. Revolutionary. Radical. Shocking. Just a few of the words that describe American writer and essayist Kathy Acker and her work.
Punk literary icon Kathy Acker ‘completely bewitched’ Jason McBride - his book “Eat Your Mind” pays homage to her influence
WhatsOn After 10 years of research, Toronto writer McBride introduces a new generation to Acker’s unmatched vision. Revolutionary. Radical. Shocking. Just a few of the words that describe American writer and essayist Kathy Acker and her work.
Punk literary icon Kathy Acker ‘completely bewitched’ Jason McBride — his book “Eat Your Mind” pays homage to her influence
Revolutionary. Radical. Shocking. Just a few of the words that describe American writer and essayist Kathy Acker and her work. Her books and articles are marked by experimental, fragmented prose;...
Punk literary icon Kathy Acker ‘completely bewitched’ Jason McBride — his book “Eat Your Mind” pays homage to her influence
Revolutionary. Radical. Shocking. Just a few of the words that describe American writer and essayist Kathy Acker and her work. Her books and articles are marked by experimental, fragmented prose;...
Prince and Charles Dickens—Are They Creative Cousins? | Minnesota Monthly
Home Arts Prince and Charles Dickens—Are They Creative Cousins? I was skeptical when I learned that author Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity,” “About a Boy”) wrote a book comparing Charles Dickens to Minnesota superstar Prince, titled “Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius,” to be released November 15. But the more I read, the more I understood the connection.
Sloane Crosley’s Cult Classic
Sloane Crosley Cult Classic (MCD Press, July 2022) Sloane Crosley, author of three essay collections and one novel, The Clasp (2015), is a force to be reckoned with, especially when writing about the romantic lives of thirty-somethings in New York City. Her new book Cult Classic supports this notion with the quirky characters, her deep knowledge of lower Manhattan, and her droll and confessional prose.
Nothing Contrived
Hohenwald native William Gay, who published his first novel when he was in his late 50s, won acclaim for poetic prose and unforgettable characters who seem entirely true to the gritty Southern setting of his fiction. When Gay died suddenly in 2012, he left behind a considerable amount of unpublished work that has been slowly making its way into print, including the novels Little Sister Death (2015), Stoneburner (2017), The Lost Country (2018), and Fugitives of the Heart (2021).
Stay Tuned
This will be the last Chapter 16 newsletter before we go on our usual hiatus for the month of July, but stay tuned — there's some great new content coming up on the site this week (see below), followed by pieces from the archive until July 7, when Humanities Tennessee announces the lineup for the 2022 Southern Festival of Books. If you're unable to attend the reveal party in Nashville or watch the livestream on Facebook that evening, check Chapter 16 for a post with all the info.
Return to Rocksalt
The epigraph “These hills don’t change” in Chris Offutt’s Shifty’s Boys is lifted from Cesare Pavese’s “South Seas,” a prose poem about Pavese’s native Langhe hills in Italy, highland country where laborers made a paltry sum working in the wineries. Nobody is making an honest fortune in Offutt’s hills of eastern Kentucky, either, and like 2021’s The Killing Hills, the new book begins with a murder and features Mick Hardin, an Army CID investigator as its protagonist.
Authors at the Museum
If you live in the Nashville area or plan to visit in the coming months, you'll want to check out a new series of author talks at the Tennessee State Museum. TN Writers | TN Stories will kick off on June 9 with Marissa R. Moss discussing Her Country, a book that surveys the challenges for women in contemporary country music. Other authors scheduled to appear include Leigh Ann Gardner, Jeff Zentner, and Tara Stringfellow, to name a few.
An observant biography about Hemingway’s 4th wife, Mary, who gave up journalism for love
“Hemingway’s Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway” by Timothy Christian; Pegasus Books (464 pages, $29.95) After reading Ernest Hemingway’s Paris memoir, “A Moveable Feast” while in Paris, Timothy Christian followed it with several biographies of Hemingway and his wives. Most biographers, he noticed, dismissed fourth wife Mary Welsh Hemingway as “being the lowest born of the four wives ...
'Hemingway's Widow" is an observant biography of love and sacrifice
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'Hemingway's Widow,' by Timothy Christian
An observant biography about Hemingway's fourth wife, Mary, who gave up journalism for love. "Hemingway's Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway" by Timothy Christian; Pegasus Books (464 pages, $29.95) After reading Ernest Hemingway's Paris memoir, "A Moveable Feast" while in Paris, Timothy Christian followed it with several biographies of Hemingway and his wives. Most biographers, he noticed, dismissed fourth wife Mary Welsh Hemingway as "being the lowest born of the four wives ...
'Hemingway's Widow,' by Timothy Christian
An observant biography about Hemingway's fourth wife, Mary, who gave up journalism for love. "Hemingway's Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway" by Timothy Christian; Pegasus Books (464 pages, $29.95) After reading Ernest Hemingway's Paris memoir, "A Moveable Feast" while in Paris, Timothy Christian followed it with several biographies of Hemingway and his wives. Most biographers, he noticed, dismissed fourth wife Mary Welsh Hemingway as "being the lowest born of the four wives ...
'Hemingway's Widow,' by Timothy Christian
An observant biography about Hemingway's fourth wife, Mary, who gave up journalism for love. "Hemingway's Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway" by Timothy Christian; Pegasus Books (464 pages, $29.95) After reading Ernest Hemingway's Paris memoir, "A Moveable Feast" while in Paris, Timothy Christian followed it with several biographies of Hemingway and his wives. Most biographers, he noticed, dismissed fourth wife Mary Welsh Hemingway as "being the lowest born of the four wives ...
Review: 'Hemingway's Widow,' by Timothy Christian
After reading Ernest Hemingway's Paris memoir, "A Moveable Feast"while in Paris, Timothy Christian followed it with several biographies of Hemingway and his wives.
book review - Yanagihara's elegant 'To Paradise' triples the pleasure
Hanya Yanagihara's new novel, the epic tome "To Paradise" (Doubleday, 720 pp., ), is a re-imagination of New York City in 1893 and 1993, and a forecast of 2093, presented uniquely in three books with three different plot lines. Yanagihara ("A Little Life") cleverly presents characters with the same names who appear in different roles in each book: There are multiple David Binghams and Charles Griffiths, and Adams is always a butler.
'To Paradise' review: 'A Little Life' author Hanya Yanagihara returns with elegant epic
Hanya Yanagihara's new novel, the epic tome "To Paradise" (Doubleday, 720 pp., ★★★★ out of four, out Tuesday), is a re-imagination of New York City in 1893 and 1993, and a forecast of 2093, presented uniquely in three books with three different plot lines. Yanagihara ("A Little Life") cleverly presents characters with the same names who appear in different roles in each book: There are multiple David Binghams and Charles Griffiths, and Adams is always a butler.
'To Paradise' review: 'A Little Life' author Hanya Yanagihara returns with elegant epic
Hanya Yanagihara's new novel, the epic tome "To Paradise" (Doubleday, 720 pp., ★★★★ out of four, out Tuesday), is a re-imagination of New York City in 1893 and 1993, and a forecast of 2093, presented uniquely in three books with three different plot lines. Yanagihara ("A Little Life") cleverly presents characters with the same names who appear in different roles in each book: There are multiple David Binghams and Charles Griffiths, and Adams is always a butler.
Are we ready for pandemic novels? Gary Shteyngart has written a great one in 'Our Country Friends'
The great John Gardner once wrote that “The writer must enable us to see and feel vividly what his characters see and feel,” and Gary Shteyngart ("Lake Success," "Absurdistan") enables the reader to see and feel the characters’ every emotion in his new novel, "Our Country Friends" (Random House, 336 pp., ★★★½ out of four, out Tuesday).
Are we ready for pandemic novels? Gary Shteyngart has written a great one in 'Our Country Friends'
The great John Gardner once wrote that “The writer must enable us to see and feel vividly what his characters see and feel,” and Gary Shteyngart ("Lake Success," "Absurdistan") enables the reader to see and feel the characters’ every emotion in his new novel, "Our Country Friends" (Random House, 336 pp., ★★★½ out of four, out Tuesday).
A Gothic Tale Anew in “Born of No Woman”
Former biology teacher and award-winning French author Franck Bouysse writes like a classicalist. His first novel translated for Anglophones, Born of No Woman, has elements of both a Victorian novel and a Gothic tale. Set in a remote castle during the nineteenth century, the novel proffers an oppressed governess as protagonist, a distinct class system, and ominous moments which drive the plot forward. One of the joys of Born is its narrative structure.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Californians
AUGUST 26, 2021 MATTHEW SPECKTOR’S Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California presents nine portraits of Hollywood artists who made an impression on him. It’s an amalgam of biography and memoir but ends up in the category of personal essay. Specktor writes honestly and cogently about each artist’s life as he weaves in his own foibles and experiences as an artist, father, son, and friend.
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