Because I’m in the quiet period between the actual writing of Eating for Beginners and the full-on promoting of it, I’ve been doing other things lately and thought I’d share a few of them with you. First up is my review of poet Anne Carson’s extraordinary new book, Nox. Carson has long been a favorite writer of mine and her latest project only adds to that feeling. It’s an elegy for her brother in collage form and really one of the most moving, beautiful, heart-breaking things I’ve read in years.
Second, because as readers of this blog (not to mention the rest of the world) know, I will apparently never truly be allowed to move past Nancy Drew (not that I’d want to—I can think of many far worse people to keep company with over a lifetime), here’s an article about her 80th anniversary for which I was interviewed. And while Nancy Drew might seem like a strange companion for Catullus, who serves as the kind of patron saint of Nox, I suspect Anne Carson wouldn’t find it an odd match at all. Part of her genius is that she places no boundaries on what she writes about, which allows for many happy accidents and alchemy.
