The Voices of the Whales

by Isabel Zapata

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers 1. I’m interested in the language of animals. 2. Whales, especially the humpback whale and the various subspecies of blue whale, are known to make repetitive sounds with different frequencies we consider to be songs. 3. When we look at animals, we hope to find virtues we lack. 4. Although sexual selection is thought to be their primary purpose, whale songs remain a mystery to scientists. 5. The human body is a symphony. (Charles Ives) 6. The universe is a symphony. (John Cage) 7. Nothing suggests that whales are trying to communicate with […]

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The dead: On writing a thriller set in the rock world

by Christine Sneed

Posted on by John McMurtrie

I met Sarah Tomlinson last year in Los Angeles at a book event for a mutual friend. It was an unseasonably cool night, but spirits were high—our friend’s book was doing well, and it was almost summer. After the reading, Sarah and I had a long, discursive conversation about film, TV shows, and books. During our chat, I learned that after working as a music critic in Boston, Sarah had moved to Southern California in the mid-aughts and transitioned to ghostwriting. She has published more than twenty books as a ghostwriter, and has also written a memoir, Good Girl (2015), […]

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Into the Abyss: ‘Ripe,’ by Sarah Rose Etter

by Jessica Lobaccaro

Posted on by John McMurtrie

In Sarah Rose Etter’s Ripe (Scribner; 276 pages), we follow Cassie, a 33-year-old San Franciscan working at a tech company. Her life is seemingly secure; she makes a comfortable six-figure salary and can afford her $3,000 monthly rent. However, we quickly find that Cassie is unstable and depressed—she regularly snorts cocaine (especially before work), she is dating a chef who has a girlfriend, and she finds herself in the midst of an unwanted pregnancy, all while suffering from a strained relationship with her mother. But most disturbing of all: ever since Cassie can remember, she has had a literal black […]

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Desert solitaire: ‘Death Valley,’ by Melissa Broder

by Lily Burnes Heath

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Melissa Broder’s new novel, Death Valley (Scribner; 240 pages), begins with its unnamed protagonist peeing—and trying to meditate—in a Circle K bathroom during a getaway to Joshua Tree. This bodily moment will pair resoundingly well with another sort of release at the close of this short book of blood and guts. Broder’s protagonist, we learn, is a novelist working on a book about a young-to-middled-aged woman, a pseudo-hippie, struggling with her husband’s chronic, undiagnosable illness. The writer is sober after years of alcoholism, depression, and suffering from the long-term hospitalization of her dying father. She’s seeking spiritual solace on a […]

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‘Animals’

by Uche Okonkwo

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Nedu named the chicken Otuanya because it was missing an eye, a film of pink tissue sealing the space where the organ should have been. He summoned his father, older sister, and unsmiling mother to the backyard for a naming ceremony, where he served peanuts and Fanta and solemnly announced the chicken’s name to polite applause from his father and an eye roll from his sister. After his family dispersed, Nedu lingered in the backyard. He fed Otuanya leftover grains of rice and tickled the fleshy red wattles that dangled under the chicken’s beak. The chicken had come into their […]

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Herbert Gold, a San Francisco bohemian to the end

by Oscar Villalon

Posted on by John McMurtrie

The author Herbert Gold died on November 19, at the age of 99, and it’s still hard to believe that somebody so kinetic, so sonorous, could be gone from San Francisco, his longtime home. It wasn’t unusual to drive up Van Ness Avenue or navigate traffic somewhere in the Mission and see Herb, already in his late 70s, ambling along the sidewalk, dressed in a light jacket and comfortable shoes. He loved to walk, for the exercise, I suppose, but also because he always considered our city an urban village. And how does one appreciate living in such a village […]

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‘Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine’

by Paul Wilner

Posted on by John McMurtrie

“It’s not a good idea and it’s bad luck to look for life’s guidance to popular entertainers.’’ — Bob Dylan, to music journalist Paul Zollo Indeed. But as the late great Professor Irwin Corey (who once famously doubled as a stand-in for Thomas Pynchon at the National Book Awards) might say, “However.’’ Despite his relenteless, if unconvincing, attempts to dodge the limelight—including dodging the Nobel Prize he was awarded in 2016—the Minnesota bard’s career has invited explication from obsessed fans, academics, and fellow musicians, all asking different versions of the same question: “How does it feel, to be on your […]

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Phone call

by Cynthia Zarin

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Caroline is standing by the north ball fields in Central Park in the snow. It is February. There is some kind of construction going on—or it was going on—the big yellow trucks have stalled, but still, she has had to circumvent them. She is walking southeast, toward Seventy-Ninth Street, through the park. It is freezing.

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5 Questions for Broadway Books

by ZYZZYVA

Posted on by ZYZZYVA

As one of the largest—if not the largest—independent bookstores around, Powell’s Books in Portland is rightfully celebrated widely. But there are, of course, other bookstores in that city, many in neighborhoods beyond downtown. Broadway Books is one such shop. Founded in 1992, the store is named after the vibrant street that cuts through Northeast Portland. We spoke with Kim Bissell, Broadway’s co-owner, about her bookstore. ZYZZYVA: What’s a little-known fact about your store?  KIM BISSELL: We were lucky enough to host former first lady Michelle Obama. She met with a local book group, and their heartfelt discussion about her memoir and “becoming” the women we all respect […]

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‘Good News’

by Hannah Kingsley-Ma

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Like a dog, I walked in through the back door and sniffed the air attentively. A rich, woody scent met me. Before I had a chance to call her name, Kira’s head poked out from behind the open refrigerator door. She stooped down again, her hands rooting around, rattling the various jars of mustard that lined the shelves. Julia, she said brightly. You’re early. Hi Kiki, I replied. What’s cooking? You’ll never guess, she said. She pushed herself up with her hands on her knees so she was standing tall. I have no idea, I told her. I’m trying. I […]

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Coup de Vieux

by David L. Ulin

Posted on by John McMurtrie

For Tom Magee thrice in three nightsthe dead have come my waytwice it is youtwin cities accentrough and lowlike a globusin your throatI can hear the timbreyet I cannot carryback a word you say then last night my grandfatheran ancient apparitionif younger than hewould be aliveeighth of a millenniumsince his shtetl birth and allthat’s left

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Turkey? Non, merci

by John McMurtrie

Posted on by John McMurtrie

One of the worst turkey dinners I ever had in my life was in France. It was the mid-1980s, and I was on a year abroad in Paris. The program’s well-intentioned directors must have thought that this band of young Americans, an ocean away from their families, would be homesick on Thanksgiving. And so they brought us to an elegant restaurant in the center of town, not far from the Louvre. We had the place to ourselves, and—surprise!—the kitchen staff had been instructed by our minders to prepare us turkey, known as dinde in France, but not known as a bird that […]

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