Weird Nonfiction
Clayton Purdom situates nonfictional works designed “with the intention of upsetting, disturbing, or confusing the audience,” in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
Clayton Purdom situates nonfictional works designed “with the intention of upsetting, disturbing, or confusing the audience,” in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
Michael J. Socolow looks back at the controversial career of John E. Mack, the Pulitzer Prize–winning Harvard psychiatrist who wrote best-selling books on UFO abduction.
Paul Reitter discusses the aesthetic and cultural value of “retranslating” classic texts.
In the fourth essay of the Legacies of Eugenics series, Patricia Williams explores how “new-genics” projects encode social bias.
LARB presents an excerpt from Dorothy’s upcoming reissue of Renee Gladman’s “To After That (TOAF).”
Obi Kaufmann considers the coming of the modern megafire and many misconceptions about California’s land, in an excerpt from “The State of Fire.”
In an excerpt from “By the Fire We Carry,” Rebecca Nagle explores the concept of “allotment”—and its repercussions.
Charlie Markbreiter analyzes Chelsea Manning as era-defining symbol, internet darling, and enemy of the state, in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
Sam Weller details the tempestuous collaboration of Ray Bradbury and John Huston on the production of the 1956 movie “Moby Dick.”
LARB presents a new essay by Erika Balsom, excerpted from Fireflies Press’s edited collection “Ingrid Caven: I Am a Fiction,” publishing this September.
Kristen Radtke defends Linda Rosenkrantz’s underappreciated classic novel “Talk,” in a comic from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
Veronica Gonzalez Peña explores fragmented memories of a childhood, in light of the 2014 murder of 43 Mexican students, in a story from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
For the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip,” our editors started a group chat on group chats.
Elena Megalos scrolls Instagram for images of a relationship that might have been, in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
Jamieson Webster invokes Sigmund Freud and Ambassador William C. Bullitt in an attempt to psychoanalyze political leaders, in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
Tim Brinkhof explores the poetics and politics of the cruise-ship essay.