The title character in Marisa Silver’s new novel, Mary Coin, is based on the subject in Migrant Mother, Dorothea Lange’s famous photograph of Florence Owens. READ MORE >>
Edward Muybridge: Grandfather of the GIF
How an eccentric photographer invented modern visual culture
The coin of the realm in today’s techno-visual culture is the GIF, a file that supports brief animations repeating endlessly. GIFs had a moment of particular resonance last summer, when extraordinary displays of athleticism from the Olympics were converted from full video into short loops, recurring endlessly, devoid of meaning aside from the aesthetic. READ MORE >>
Room for Improvement—Emma Donoghue’s Limp Short Stories
THE CONCEPT OF the “sophomore slump” haunts most popular media: the “one-hit wonder” pop singer unable to catch fire again, the movie franchise that disappoints on second outing. Literary artists seem no less susceptible to an inability to compound artistic triumph. Rather than underwhelm with a weak follow-up novel, though, the breakthrough novelist all too often regresses to the short story. READ MORE >>
