Sara Paretsky is best known for a series of crime novels featuring the first great woman private eye, V.I. Warshawski. Paretsky is also the founder of Sisters in Crime, an organization that supports women crime writers, as well as a foundation to encourage women in the sciences. Critical Mass, her latest V.I. Warshawski, draws on … Continue reading »
Category Archives: Fiction
Episode 54: Kevin Baker
Kevin Baker is celebrated for his journalism and his historical fiction, a genre that gets a bad rap as a kind of lesser literature. But isn’t all fiction historical fiction, with an obligation to effectively render details of time and place? The place that concerns him is New York City, and he ranges across its … Continue reading »
Episode 41: Norman Rush
Randy encountered Norman Rush through his terrific first novel, Mating, winner of the 1991 National Book Award. It is, among other things, a novel of ideas that actually has some. Many. And it explores them with real insight into the human heart. His new novel, Subtle Bodies, was published on September 10th. He lives near … Continue reading »
Episode 18: Meg Wolitzer
It is silly to ask a novelist what her books are about, but Meg Wolitzer once wrote, “Sometimes they’re about marriage. Families. Sex. Desire. Parents and children.” That pretty much covers what it is to be human. Omitting only handguns. We admire her deftness with language, in her fiction and also: she devises crossword puzzles. If … Continue reading »
Episode 2: Jane Smiley
I first encountered her work in 1988, when my then-wife was captivated by The Greenlanders. We’d both just read Roland Huntford’s Scott and Amundson and were susceptible to things polar. My favorite remains A Thousand Acres, but I’m proud to live in a country where I needn’t choose between them. Person: Marguerite of Navarre … Continue reading »