Unconventional Novels About Conventional People
In some great books, readers watch a character become disillusioned with their dreams of joyful conformity.
Boris Kachka
Boris Kachka is a senior editor at The Atlantic. He is the author, most recently, of Hothouse: The Art of Survival and the Survival of Art at America's Most Celebrated Publishing House, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
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Lambert / Hulton Archive / Getty What Very Different Places Have in Common
Gary Shteyngart finds the universal in Cape Town.
Heritage Images / Getty Pushing the Limits of Historical Fiction
In a new book, Álvaro Enrigue uses absurdity to tell a fuller truth.
Illustration by The Atlantic The Fine Balance Required of an ‘Authorial Rant’
A cherished grudge might make it into a novel—but the best writers avoid creating books that feel one-sided.
Sophia Bassouls / Sygma / Getty Reading Is a Practice, Not a Chore
Try an attitude shift that doesn’t force you to choose between setting strict reading goals and giving up altogether.
Evelyn Freja / Connected Archives A Biography Without ‘The Boring Bits’
One example I highly recommend focuses on the work, not the life, of its subject.
Credit: GraphicaArtis / Getty Images What a Fantasy Can Reveal About Real Life
A character’s daydreams can be a powerful indication of what they care most about.
Cristina De Middel / Magnum Images Do We Really Know How Isabel Archer Felt?
Fictional people, especially those from the past, are interesting because they are both strange and familiar.
Edwaerdt Collyer / Bridgeman Images / Gramercy / Getty A Great Author’s Ongoing Struggle
Vladimir Nabokov’s leap away from Russian, his native language, was not an instantaneous, effortless transformation.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Horst Tappe / Hulton Archive / Getty Catherine Falls / Getty; Getty. The Powerful, Unpredictable Nature of Fear
Halloween is the perfect time to think more deeply about the role it plays in our lives.
Maria Vasilyevna Yakunchikova / Fine Art Images / Bridgeman Images
