I am not an aspiring novelist but an avid reader with a great respect for and curiosity about how novelists do what they do. For those reasons, I thoroughly enjoy this Substack and I purchased The Novelist’s Toolkit. The insights you provide enhance my reading experience. Today’s post was particularly interesting and useful. Thank you!
The Great Believers is one of the best books I've ever read (I think about it all the time) and I wholeheartedly agree it should be on that list. (I have to confess that one of the things I love about it is how *right* you get the world of development. Just spot on.)
Also, other readers of this substack, if you didn't already take the class Rebecca mentions and you're on the fence, DO IT. I took it in the fall and it is one of the most helpful writing classes I've ever taken.
I may have possibly recommended this memoir to you, Susan Faludi's "In the Darkroom." Her father was a very distant and difficult man, a Hungarian, who late in life had a sex change and moved back to Hungary. Susan's visit with "Stefani" in Budapest are fascinating, especially as he remains rather right wing, even if he is a holocaust survivor. (How is survived - hiding in Budapest- is also very compelling.)
I am not an aspiring novelist but an avid reader with a great respect for and curiosity about how novelists do what they do. For those reasons, I thoroughly enjoy this Substack and I purchased The Novelist’s Toolkit. The insights you provide enhance my reading experience. Today’s post was particularly interesting and useful. Thank you!
The Great Believers is one of the best books I've ever read (I think about it all the time) and I wholeheartedly agree it should be on that list. (I have to confess that one of the things I love about it is how *right* you get the world of development. Just spot on.)
Also, other readers of this substack, if you didn't already take the class Rebecca mentions and you're on the fence, DO IT. I took it in the fall and it is one of the most helpful writing classes I've ever taken.
I found the L.A. Times article still paywalled, but here's an archive link that let me read it. Your commentary has such clarity. Thanks! https://web.archive.org/web/20240713001049/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2024-07-12/alice-munro-andrea-skinner-sexual-abuse-commentary
The Great Believers belong on that list. Congratulations!
ack The Great Believers belongs... As fellow writers you know why l couldn't just let that mistake be.
I may have possibly recommended this memoir to you, Susan Faludi's "In the Darkroom." Her father was a very distant and difficult man, a Hungarian, who late in life had a sex change and moved back to Hungary. Susan's visit with "Stefani" in Budapest are fascinating, especially as he remains rather right wing, even if he is a holocaust survivor. (How is survived - hiding in Budapest- is also very compelling.)