A few little things
and big things to come
“The ache in her back made her think of death, lead in the lung—her left lung, she thought. Oblivion creeping up from inside. But morning came, and movement, and plenty of breath. Still here, the hungry cat, light not yet rising through oak and pine…”
Here in icy Pittsburgh, surrounded by every day’s dark news and the rising resistance, in the writing realm I’m still catching up with the new year, first with the last of the old, with thanks to Steve Himmer at Necessary Fiction, for including “Insomnia Morning” in his four-day turn-of-the-season series “Points of Light.”
Then, in with the new, also at Necessary Fiction, my review of Grace Before the Fall by Geri Lipschultz, “a book of madness and wonders.”
I wrote many more words on this hallucinatory novel than Necessary Fiction could hold (and maybe a few spoilers) and later this year I will post the longer version.
Meanwhile, I’m ready to dive into hosting the slow read of The Brothers Karamazov, coming up soon on February 5 and continuing through April 15.
Every day for seventy days we’ll read a chapter or two of The Brothers Karamazov—any edition (or editions, if you’re ambitious!), and each day on our own time we’ll share thoughts and raves and tangential resources, whatever strikes us, in comments on the morning post for the day’s reading. The posts are brief—the comments and conversations are where this way of reading together comes alive.
Starting late? Missed a few days? Getting ahead? Falling behind? No problem. The conversation continues and catching up is easy.
See the calendar and subscribe to the daily Karamazov post here:
Finally, but still in winter, with March will come Amtrak to DC, AWP in Baltimore, and in spring, by the calendar at least, the return of No Kings. Will we get that far? Sometimes I wonder, especially now when Pittsburgh is in the deepest freeze I’ve ever known. (I’m from Los Angeles, after all.)
May Karamazov provide a bridge between the winter and the spring and may it bring us all a little light—hardly the common reputation of the gloomy Dostoevsky, and yet …
