Last time, I stopped in the midst of discussing Frederick Busch’s short story Ralph the Duck , writing in particular about how Busch...

This week, I want to look at three short stories by Frederick Busch: Ralph the Duck, Are We Pleasing You Tonight, and Domicile . Busch, a...

As I wrote last time, we’ve been looking at largely content and meaning issues in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,  and last time, we...

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been looking at The Garden of the Finzi-Continis  through the lens of content and meaning, pondering...

There are several interesting literary references in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis  that enrich the story. Certainly, it begins with a...

‘Kay, this is supposed to be part two of a discussion on whether The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is primarily a love story or a story...

Last time, I suggested that The Garden of the Finzi-Continis  was more a story of unrequited love than one about the Holocaust....

Today, dear friends, a new story, Giorgio Bassani’s 1962 novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis . The book won the Viareggio prize in...

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been considering some different aspects of Susan Minot’s fine novel, Evening . Today, I’d like to call...

A major distinction in literary works is whether a story’s plot is linear or circular. A linear plot expresses cause and effect—A leads...

Good day! Let’s get started. (chairs scraping on a dry floor, murmurs from the audience, coughing) Mr. Speaker! Your exaltedness! Call...

Evening uses several styles of narration to show different experiences of time. The chapter entitled A Pale Bay begins: She kept the...

This week, dear friends, we begin an exploration of a new book, Susan Minot’s 1998 novel, Evening . If one reads back of the book blurbs...

As we read and re-read Frederick Busch’s The Night Inspector , we may ask ourselves, what is the book’s major theme, my bro? (This is...

This week, ladies and gentlemen, a new one…drumroll…Lorrie Moore’s 1994 novel, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? What? ‘Kay, I’m not sure...

We have to talk about the dog. A central part of James Salter’s My Lord You concerns a large dog who appears in many scenes, shadowing...

One of the characteristics of James Salter’s writing style is the way time makes big leaps, a feature that is especially evident in his...

Today, a new one, James Salter’s 1994 short story My Lord You. The story was originally published in the September, 1994 issue of Esquire...

Last time, we looked at the (long) opening scene of William Trevor’s A Bit On the Side. Let’s continue. Onward! A key element to the...

This week, the adventure continues with William Trevor’s 2004 short story A Bit On the Side, published as part of the story collection of...