I just started a graduate program in creative writing and there’s a lot of talk about The New Yorker. All my professors are either current or former editors of the magazine, or their very good friend is an editor, or they just manage to name drop someone from the publication during the first class.

I subscribe to the magazine, mostly because I feel like as a young writer, I’m supposed to read it.  When I do read it, I happily stumble upon some gem by Gary Shteyngart or Ian Frazier. But honestly, most of the issues go unread.

Apparently every writer is trying to get in there, and if you’re in, you’re it.

Well the holy grail just lost a little bit of its shine. Read more »

If you have never heard of it, then you live under a rock. If you have never read it, then there is a big hole in your life where this book should be. Holden Caulfield’s search to find his place in the world has long been hailed as the quintessential tale of teen angst. But for me, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye far surpasses such a general assessment. The entire story hovers above a violent undercurrent of energy, and it feels like Holden is going to explode if just one more person disappoints him or one more thing goes wrong. Holden’s voice puts me in a trance…I get pulled into his world of “phonies” and “slobs” and I absorb his loneliness and let it mingle with my own. It’s the story of not being able to find a single place where you feel you belong. Rye was one of the most censored and controversial books of the 20th Century, and as a result it possesses an almost mythical level of mystique. People are still fascinated with Holden, the ultimate modern antihero. And Salinger has only enhanced the book’s mystique by proving himself to be one of the most reclusive writers of the last century. He has hidden from the world for decades…refusing to grant interviews, not publishing any new work, and suing those who try to do anything with his existing work. It seems as if, like Holden Caulfield, Salinger thinks we’re all a bunch of phonies and he just wants us to leave him alone so that he can die. Well, some dude in Sweden had other plans.

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