By Taylor Jasmine | On August 29, 2017 | Updated November 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan (1954) is the story of Cecile, an amoral seventeen-year-old, who goes on vacation to the south of France with her father, Raymond.
Raymond is a widower who leads a life revolving around multiple affairs with women, usually short-lived. Cecile, despite her age, is fully aware of her father’s love life.
Raymond has rented a well appointed villa, and Cecile, her father, and her father’s mistress of the moment, Elsa, depart for a month of sun and relaxation. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 28, 2017 | Updated November 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
Shirley Jackson’s haunting classic short story “The Lottery” made her famous in 1948, and subsequent books cemented her brand of psychological terror. So when she came out with Life Among the Savages in 1953, reviewers were delighted and surprised by her cheery and wry observations of life with four children and husband in a shabby, rambling house in Vermont.
It turns out that Life Among the Savages, and its follow-up, Raising Demons, were idealized (and somewhat-to-fairly fictionalized) portrayals of the family’s chaotic life and individual eccentricities. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 28, 2017 | Updated June 12, 2023 | Comments (2)
Shirley Jackson (1916 – 1965) occasionally turned to true crime news stories as jumping off points for her novels of psychological terror and suspense. This was apparently the case for her second novel, Hangsaman (1951).
Jackson, her husband Stanley Edgar Hyman, and their four children were living in North Bennington when 18-year-old Bennington College freshman Paula Jean Weldon disappeared. She went out for a hike on December 1, 1946, and simply never returned.
There were, and have since been, theories about what might have happened to Weldon, but neither she —nor her body — were ever found. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 28, 2017 | Updated November 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
Martha Gellhorn was a fearless war correspondent who reported on nearly every major conflict at a time when such female journalists were a rarity.
Her debut as a novelist wasn’t auspicious. What Mad Pursuit was generally panned by critics, if it got any attention at all. One called it “palpable juvenilia;” another stated that it was “a rather futile book.
The story of three college friends seeking fulfillment, meaning, and sexual adventure meet mostly with disappointment — and an STD. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 25, 2017 | Updated February 20, 2026 | Comments (4)
Annie Allen is a 1949 collection of poems by Gwendolyn Brooks. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950, making her the first Black writer to receive this award.
The poems don’t flinch from the violence and racism that are part of Annie’s milieu, and end with her hopes for a better world than the one she has inhabited.
Central to this book, in addition to individual poems, is a 43-stanza epic poem, “The Anniad” (a reference to the epic poem “The Aeneid” by Virgil, the ancient Roman poet) follows the life of Annie, an African-American girl, from birth to womanhood, as she seeks self-awareness and fulfillment. Read More→
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