“Graceland,” one of the dozen stories in Lands and Forests, is now available at the All Lit Up blog, along with a short interview, as part of their celebration of Short Story Month.
All Lit Up
A Baseball Conversation
I guess this is a good a place as any to admit that, despite what the cover says, the book doesn’t contain baseball essays; it contains personal essays that share the common theme of baseball.
— “A Baseball Conversation,” with Ben Nicholson-Smith, at All Lit Up
A Love Supreme
The pursuit of knowledge can place the seeker in a kind of purgatory: alive, but seldom among the living.
— On Kent Nussey’s A Love Supreme, for All Lit Up
Monkeys, Fools
Leventhal’s endings routinely devastate. In her last lines plot construction and humour step out of the way to give us some unfussy, unalloyed truth, like a shot on the chin, or a boot to the heart. They are jarring and starkly beautiful. They favour truth and poignancy over the temptation to tie up all loose ends. They leave characters holding the bag, or on the precipice of a life choice, or offhandedly, involuntarily revealing some dire truth about themselves.
— On Anna Leventhal’s story collection Sweet Affliction, for All Lit Up
andrew (g) forbes 