"But in the very best novels the animals want to talk, or the humans wish the animals could talk, or both."
Jonathan Lethem, via The Mumpsimus
Jonathan Lethem, via The Mumpsimus
The store, Red Gap, is located in Blue Hill, Maine. It’s also supposed to serve really good coffee. Not that I’m the least bit jealous or anything that one of my favorite authors has appropriated my dream of bookstore ownership. Oh well. (via Maud Newton)
Lethem details his boyhood obsession with Philip K. Dick, and how the sci-fi genius helped launch his own career as a writer.
Reading this review of Jonathan Lethem’s new novel Chronic City, I’m reminded of this circular short story that appeared in The New Yorker last fall.
Trapped in space with a rowdy, unreliable Russian crew after the Chinese deploy mines around her vessel, lost astronaut Janice writes a series of letters to her boyfriend, Chase, stuck back on Earth. As their situation becomes more desperate and Janice deals with the knowledge that she has cancer and is doomed anyway, whether help comes or not, her letters to Chase take on a mystical, dreamlike quality.
Chase himself is the main character of Chronic City, so Janice’s missives to him form a sort of side story to the novel. But by themselves, they’re a beautiful, dreamy meditation on longing, loss, and outer space.
