China Hoops
Outward, and Inward, Bound
A FEW YEARS AGO, when John Casey turned seventy, he marked his birthday by logging that number in self-powered kilometers. Setting out on a pasted-together ramble through neighborhoods near his home in Virginia, Casey’s journey consisted of cycling, rowing on an erg machine, ice-skating, rollerblading, and a final lap around the block walking his dog. Back at home, he sat in his dinning room with a calculator and found that he had cleared the figure with about five kilometers to spare. READ MORE >>
Futilities
It may be premature to identify a writer’s interests as obsessions when his fictional output includes just a single collection of short stories, and now a novel; but from the first pages of Caribou Island, it is clear that David Vann has some things that he cannot get out of his head. Bleak and terrifying things, too: suicide as an act of aggression, nature’s power to reflect and inspire madness, and the perverse allure of doomed endeavors. READ MORE >>
