This novel was incredibly popular back in 2021 – remember those days? Possibly the worst of the pandemic years. We were all pretty well aware the the pandemic had gone on long enough, but none of us could agree about how to really end it and move on. That isn’t necessarily related to the book itself, but I think it might be related to the book’s popularity. Everything was so uncertain – politics, health, nearly every aspect of social or school or public life at […]

Jacob Finch Bonner is a once-promising novelist who has fallen on times so hard he is teaching at a nothing of an MFA program in Nowhere, Vermont. The literary world has forgotten him and his agent doesn’t even bother asking about his so-called work in progress anymore. Most of his students haven’t read his book or even heard of him. Jacob is quite confident none of them will be even as modestly successful as he was, until Evan Parker walks into class. Rude and off-putting, […]