Nick Mkhl of the website Hessian Firm requested this interview for his podcast, and it was conducted on March 15, 2021. It runs for two hours, and while the premise was to discuss the music of my old band Revenant (1986-1995), the interview lasted nearly 2 hours and we also discussed pulp fiction (Lovecraft), literary […]
The publication history of Barack Obama’s Literary Legacy: Readings of Dreams from my Father began ten years ago. Its becoming deserves explanation. Why? Because it was nearly aborted due to lack of interest. The book itself was five years in the making. Now, five years after its publication, and 10 years after its inception, I […]
The University of South Carolina Press is selling books at 50% off the cover price. If you haven’t picked up Understanding Don DeLillo, the 1st edition is running low on stock and this is a great price for a copy. The sale runs through Dec. 1st, 2020. To order, click here: https://uscpress.com/Understanding-Don-Delillo
I’ve come to be regarded as an “expert” in some “fields.” One of those is the study of modern American Literatures. In recent years, I’ve written a lot about Don DeLillo, a writer who I have read and enjoyed for decades. I’ve written a book about his career, I’ve served as advisory editor to publications, […]
“Some books,” Poe’s narrator notes, “refuse to be read.” These are the famous closing lines of “The Man of the Crowd,” an enigmatic story about a man who follows a stranger through the city night. In the end we learn nothing yet everything about the stranger and his world. A similar heuristic helps us to […]
Carlos Ramirez at the music site No Echo asked if I would answer some questions. I said yes because it’s been a long time, around 10 years since I answered questions about the old band. My answers range from childhood memories to musical history, fact and fiction, New Jersey, the state of higher ed, and […]
I’ve been fortunate to come across yet another fine copy of one of Hawthorne’s books. Why any human would discard such a precious, rare book, I do not know. Since one man’s trash is old Hank’s treasure, I cannot complain. I only hope that one day I will find myself in the Custom House with […]
I’m re-posting this welcome bit of news regarding the new book by Manuel DeLanda, with whom I studied and whose writings continue to inspire, innovate and delight. Manuel DeLanda’s Assemblage Theory has been published in the Speculative Realism series at Edinburgh University Press. Clarifies and systematises the concepts and presuppositions behind the influential new field […]
Little is written about the Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom in the U.S. This is due to many factors. First, the historical presence of the Dutch language and culture in North America is largely a memory, if it is even that. Reduced to a microscopic field in academia, the study of The Netherlands and its rich literature […]
Rare Books & De Luxe Editions 