Intimacies (2021), A Separation (2017), Katie Kitamura Katie Kitamura (born 1979) is a good indication of where literary publishing is today. She has published two earlier novels, Gone to the Forest (2013) and her debut novel The Longshot (2009), plus the autobiographical Japanese for Travellers: A Journey (2006), none of which I have yet gotten around to reading closely. I’ve nonetheless seen enough of The Longshot and Gone to the Forest to note that somewhere between them and her most recent two novels, she evolved from traditional quote-marked dialogue to the more contemporary unmarked dialogue style in which about half of today’s literary-journal short stories are published. This is not…

Sophie’s Choice is another must-do for any series about takeaways from serious writing. But is it ever daunting! The book is notable first but least for being a traditionally published doorstop of 240,000 words (roughly the same as The Magus) typographically crammed into 562 pages. Offhand I can think of only Earthly Powers (1980, Anthony Burgess) and The Prince of Tides (1991, semi-literary, Pat Conroy) thereafter traditionally published at that length or longer. Alan Pakula made Sophie’s Choice into a 5-hour movie starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Peter MacNicol—and subsequently edited it down to a mere 2-1/2 hours before releasing it. It’s a beautiful tragedy of a story that…

The Magus (1965) , Daniel Martin (1977) — John Fowles. Sooner or later, any series of Takeaway posts must get around to John Fowles (1926-2005), particularly The Magus (1965), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969), and Daniel Martin (1977). Fowles is after all—sometimes together with Lawrence Durrell—credited with inventing the postmodern novel. That seems as good a reason as any to begin the Takeaways series with him. Fowles was an English novelist who had first attempted poetry. At the time in his thirties when he wrote The Magus (pub. 1965, at 240,000 words), the leading edge of American culture was the Beat movement (William Burroughs, Naked Lunch; Jack Kerouac, On The…

Takeaways are a series of posts looking at various novels and authors of note to discuss aspects of craft that make them interesting. They are not reviews, synopses, or traditional “book reports.” They do not provide more than the merest gist of what a book is about or what happens in it. In fact, they assume you have already read or intend to read the books in question. Takeaways posts merely give pointers on technique or other characteristics that we should watch for as writers when we read a book or author, in case we should find them useful in our own work. I’m beginning this series of Takeaways posts…