The Power Has Flowed Away

The Power Has Flowed Away

Serotonin: A Novelby Michel Houellebecq. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019. Hardcover, 320 pages, $27. Reviewed by Zak Slayback “Did we yield to the illusion of individual freedom, of an open life, of infinite possibilities? It’s possible,” Michel Houellebecq’s...
Accountancy and Authority

Accountancy and Authority

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. Back Bay Books, 2012. Paperback, 597 pages, $18. Reviewed by Eve Tushnet At a certain point you realize that David Foster Wallace is as much a horror writer as Stephen King, and the monsters under his bed are twins: absorption...
A Quarantine Reading Journal

A Quarantine Reading Journal

Eric Hutchinson Charles Portis, Norwood Arkansas’s Charles Portis, most famous as the author of True Grit, died on February 17. Also in February, COVID-19 was spreading around the world. Of these two facts, the first calls for memorialization. The second calls for...
Faith and Works and the Novel

Faith and Works and the Novel

The Decline of the Novel by Joseph Bottum. St. Augustine’s Press, 2019. Hardcover, 153 pages, $25. Reviewed by Trevor C. Merrill In this wide-ranging essay, Joseph Bottum has managed to turn a stale topic—the death of the novel—into fresh cultural criticism, arguing...
The Children Are in Charge

The Children Are in Charge

Campusland: A Novel by Scott Johnston. St. Martin’s Press, 2019. Hardcover, 322 pages, $28. Reviewed by Matthew Stewart Would the president of an elite university cave in to the demands of campus militants to the tune of $50 million in order to buy temporary peace? In...