Lit Hub Weekly: April 12 – 16, 2021

TODAY: In 1897, Thornton Wilder, the only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and drama, is born.

JoAnne Tompkins considers the inner life of an aging shelter dog. | Lit Hub
“Although it isn’t infectious like a virus, depression thrives on proximity, traveling down familial attachments, especially from mother to child.” Alex Riley on family history and the evolution of modern psychiatry. | Lit Hub
“There is no American writer who has left as much literary criticism and speculation in his wake as Hemingway. But after nearly 100 years, that criticism is finally becoming more honest, nuanced, and interesting.” Alex Thomas on the new Hemingway docuseries. | Lit Hub Film and TV
Rumaan Alam on Ishiguro, Merve Emre on “emotional intelligence,” and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
What happened to the actors performing the night Lincoln was assassinated? Mariah Fredericks on the haunted cast of Our American Cousin. | CrimeReads
“What does social engineering do to our inner lives? It restricts our imagination—and, therefore, our freedom.” Sanjena Sathian explores how the “model minority” myth harms everyone. | Time
“I think, looking back, I wanted to act because I did not know myself at all.” Kaitlyn Greenidge considers how acting fueled a journey of self-discovery. | BuzzFeed News
Olivia Giovetti breaks down the operatic moments—and what they show us—in the movie Promising Young Woman. | Los Angeles Review of Books
“Americans have gradually assimilated to our cultures, our worldview, and our modes of connecting to nature.” David Treuer argues for the return of national parks to Native tribes. | The Atlantic
Bryan Washington explores how a year without queer spaces has changed queer friendship, which is “amorphous and endless, sticking its nose up at whatever boundaries you attempt to enforce upon it.” | The New York Times
“What happens in the hat books is not necessarily commensurate with their actions. No one has it coming that much. But it still happens.” Jon Klassen on trusting children with difficult realities. | The Walrus
“If a writer presents themselves as the one with moral clarity, I’m suspicious.” Rachel Kushner on epigraphs, range, and the difference between inward- and outward-facing writers. | The Paris Review
“Is anyone dream-dancing now with loved ones who died of Covid-19?” Anne Carson, Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué, and more poets share their thoughts on death. | Entropy
Natasha Lehrer describes her career translating feminist texts and “work that challenges the patriarchy.” | Words Without Borders
A look back: During the 1918 flu pandemic, libraries became vital providers of public health information. | JSTOR Daily
Sari Botton on learning what it means to miss New York City. | The Guardian
Although her first two books were works of nonfiction, Morgan Jerkins says she “always wanted to be a fiction writer.” | Shondaland
“The fact that it wasn’t initially taken seriously, it’s sort of astonishing now.” A brief oral history of the romance genre. | The Washington Post
Tanna Tucker reflects on exile and the long history of Black American artists seeking refuge in Paris, in comic form. | The Believer
A new book by Robert Zaretsky takes on the life of Simone Weil, who was “hard to pin down with any neat, easy label,” Wen Stephenson writes. | The Baffler

Also on Lit Hub:

Salman Rushdie on the world of Midnight’s Children, forty years on • How Björk helped Iceland weather the global financial crisis • Searching for answers to Mt. Everest’s greatest mystery • J. Nicole Jones on familiar ghosts and family legacies • Ross King on the laborious process of bookmaking in the 15th century • Why were women written out of the story of the gold rush? • Emily Raboteau on what the pandemic showed us about a certain kind of New Yorker • Maria Kuznetsova offers 15 lessons from writing two novels that didn’t sell • Simon McCarthy-Jones makes a case for small vengeances • Phoebe Hamilton-Jones on the literature of rewilding • Kristin van Ogtrop considers the difficulty of maintaining friendships in middle-age • Katherine Heiny recommends books about the chaos of modern dating • Paying tribute to African American literature scholar Nellie Y. McKay • Jason Guriel considers the author bio • Melissa Scholes Young on three generations of American Dreaming • Andrea Bajani takes a road trip to Italy, Texas • Natalie Baszile honors the unsung history of Black and brown farmers • Ayanna Thompson considers racial tropes in film and TV • On the first gay rally against police violence in America • Lisa Napoli looks back at four women who changed broadcast journalism • The story of the first USSR cosmonauts • Chelsea Wald traces the global history of urban sewer systems • Bruno Lloret recommends six Latin American novels that break with tradition • Paul Theroux is always writing • What poetry can teach novelists • Michael Spitzer on how the brain recognizes music • How the Civil War gave Walt Whitman a call to action • Kim Todd on four fearless “girl stunt reporters” • The task of editing Beat legend Michael McClure • The joys of translating Eve Baltasar

Best of Book Marks:

Harlem Shuffle, Their Eyes Were Watching God, George and Martha, and more rapid-fire book recs from Emma Straub • “Gross, grotesque, gruesome, and horrible throughout”: a 1963 review of Günter Grass’ “Teutonic nightmare,” The Tin Drum • Wild Seed, The Dutch House, Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, and more rapid-fire book recs from Stephanie Dray • New titles by Patrick Radden Keefe, Elizabeth McCracken, and Cynthia Ozick feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week