Reviewed: “Vicky Swanky is a Beauty” by Diane Williams

Review by Jen Vafdis Vicky Swanky is a Beauty by Diane Williams McSweeney’s; 124 p. I’m about to invent a person who, while hypothetical, is not impossible: a person who has not read Diane Williams and may be put off reading Diane Williams by the following equivocations I’m about to make. This person is the kind of person who reads the following equivocations and thinks, This is not the book for me. A straw man, you say! Okay sure, but […]

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V1 Editor, Fellow Elite Ogled at ‘Donald’

Posted by Nick Curley Stephen Elliott and Eric Martin dropped a megaton truth bomb yesterday with the release of Donald, their fictional imagining of Donald Rumsfeld undergoing GITMO-style hospitality.  It’s hot soup delivered by a ramshackle imprint of meth-addled high schoolers called McSweeney’s, and the industry’s best and brightest partied down last night in celebration of this lil’ opus.  Photographed in style among them?  One Juliet Linderman!  Vol. 1 Brooklyn editor extraordinaire, resident estrogen supplier, and scribe of our #1 hit single Dick Watching.  […]

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Bites: Bryan Charles Day, Electric Literature Party, Yoga Memoirs and More

Yesterday was a good Bryan Charles day. Catherine Lacey interviewed him at HTMLGIANT, and he also told Largehearted Boy some of the albums he listened to while writing There’s a Road to Everywhere Except Where You Came From. Tonight at Housing Works is the big Electric Literature release party for issue #5. It’s free, and probably the only thing worth doing on a Friday night in the city.  [Note: Here are highlights from the party on the EL blog] Jezebel […]

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Bites: Chabon’s “Wrecked” Novel, Adam Wilson’s Forthcoming Novel, Art Books and More

At The Atlantic: Michael Chabon discusses his “wrecked” novel, Fountain City, which is partially seeing the light of day as part of McSweeney’s #36. At Galleycat: Adam Wilson finds a home for his debut novel, Flatscreen. At 3:AM Magazine: Part one in a series chronicling the grittier, hardboiled history of Minneapolis. At Flavorwire: Harry Potter cupcakes. At Jewcy: The top 10 art books of 2010.

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Dick Jokes

Yes, I would have posted about the “Ishmael the Comedian” piece on McSweeney’s even if it didn’t enable me to title this “Dick Jokes”.  I’m a little more mature than that. ISHMAEL: So, I’m standing in line at the public hanging, and— HECKLER: Your comedic stylings are akin to a body lacking blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm—that is, without any humor. ISHMAEL: Hey, buddy, do I come down to the stables where you work and criticize how you […]

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Bites: On Herzog, Smut Saves Publishing, Sampsell’s Playlist, Bob Dylan the Phony and More

Ploughshares on Herzog. Einstein the agnostic. Publishing is going to be okay, thanks to smut. Kevin Sampsell gives Largehearted Boy a chapbooks worth of music he likes. Read about somebody listening to music in Montreal over at the McSweeney’s. If the “voice of the generation” turned out to be a phony, what would that mean?   Joni Mitchell accused Bob Dylan of plagiarism and The Daily Beast discusses it. Coffee House Press to put out another winner:  Big Other tells you […]

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Weekend Bites: Goodbye McSweeney, The New Expats, Sartre’s Eyes, America’s Greatest Literay Generation, and More

Mailer, Updike, Bellow, and Salinger are all gone:  America’s greatest literary generation is over. Aaron Lake Smith writes about a coffee shop in Cairo, Il. Jean-Paul Sartre’s eyes. McSweeney’snamesake, has passed away. Wes Anderson, Stephen O’Malley, Johnny Depp, and other American “artist types” living in Paris. Yes, Superchunk is awesome.

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