Category: Literary

  • A New York Literary Salon

    The New York Times profiles a group of literary twenty-somethings in New York who–in despair over the lack of publishing jobs–have founded their own online journal The New Inquiry. They also meet on a regular basis in an Upper East Side apartment to forge their own community of ideas and books. I admire their desire to…

  • Critic Maud Newton Recommended My Essay On Catholic Writers

    The noted literary critic and blogger Maud Newton recommended my essay on Catholic writers in The Millions. She wrote: I recommend Robert Fay’s essay about the end of the Latin Mass — and Catholic “drama of salvation” novels — even though I strongly disagree that “the Christian faith [has] been in full cultural retreat since…

  • A Few Gems from Henry James

    To move from a contemporary novel to a book by Henry James is like leaving a meadow and stepping into an ancient bamboo grove where the surroundings are undoubtedly exquisite, but the trees are packed together, and if you’re careless, you’ll quickly lose your way. Henry James’ The Ambassadors (1903) is stocked with gems worthy…

  • Why I Won’t Read Joan Didion’s “Blue Nights”

    I was late to the party when it came to reading Joan Didion. For years I had the vague sensation that Didion wasn’t for me. It was one of those unapologetic prejudices people have for certain writers, a prejudice that ended when I picked up a copy of The Year of Magical Thinking. It was…

  • The Five Most Neglected Novels of the 20th Century

    The first half of the 20th century is littered with so many classic works of fiction that one would need two lifetimes to both read and re-read all the major works of those first five decades, let alone explore the minor and underappreciated novels of the period. All of the novels in my list were published after…

  • Can Literature Save Us?

    As a writer, former editor and lover of books it pains me to admit that literacy (or literature for that matter) doesn’t—and never will—make one a “better person.” Cambridge professor Liz Disley in her Guardian review of Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of our Nature is equally skeptical that The Enlightenment opened up new…