To write a diary is to make a series of choices about what to omit, what to forget. A memorable sandwich, an unmemorable flught of stairs. A memorable bit of conversation surrounded by chatter no one records. Sarah Manguso’s new book is a distillation of what she has felt, learned, forgotten and so on from 25 years of keeping a diary. In the afterword she explains her choice not to enclose any of the actual diary, not the least of which is because each memory […]

This is Elizabeth Bard’s second book, detailing her continued adventures as an Americaine married to a Frenchman. The book begins with Elizabeth and Gwendal still living in Paris and starting a family. Gwendal’s business, ushering in the digital age in European cinema, is successful and stressful. He works long hours and feels more removed from the love of film that led him to the work in the first place. Elizabeth is dealing with residual success of her first book, Lunch in Paris, and is up against the […]

10 hours after voluntarily admitting himself into psychiatric care, then slipping out unnoticed, Sarah Manguso’s friend stepped in front of a train. In the years that ensued, Ms. Manguso sought to make sense of his death and her grief. A former poet, she had originally planned to write a novelization of those ten hours. As time went on, it became clear she didn’t want to make up a story and the project foundered. This episodic work moves back and forth in time, details some of […]