Some of the articles in this collection first appeared in the following publications, sometimes in slightly different form:
American Scholar: “Ten Things That Art Can Do”
Introduction to Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Restless Books, 2016)
Introduction to Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (Penguin Classics, 2002)
Introduction to Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac (Modern Library Classics, 2002)
Introduction to Middlemarch by George Eliot (Harper Perennial, 2015)
Introduction to New Grub Street by George Gissing (Modern Library Classics, 2002)
Harper’s Magazine: “More is More” (on Roberto Bolaño, 2666)
Michigan Quarterly Review: “Complimentary Toilet Paper: Some Thoughts on Character and Language” (on Michael Jeffrey Lee, George Saunders, John Cheever, Denis Johnson)
New York Times Book Review: “Wit’s End” (on Edward St. Aubyn, Never Mind; Bad News; Some Hope; Mother’s Milk)
Harper’s Magazine: “The Coldest Eye” (on Paul Bowles, The Spider’s House)
New York Review of Books: “Giddy and Malevolent” (on Patrick Hamilton, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy, The Slaves of Solitude; Hangover Square: A Story of Darkest Earl’s Court)
Harper’s Magazine: “The Bones of Muzhiks” (on Isaac Babel, The Complete Works of Isaac Babel)
Lapham’s Quarterly: “Eros Between the Covers” (on Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita)
New Yorker: “Dark Passage” (on Gitta Sereny, Cries Unheard)
New York Review of Books: “The Shy Clumsy Lover” (on Andrea Canobbio, Three Light-Years)
Harper’s Magazine: “Revisiting the Icons” (on Diane Arbus, Revelations)
Introduction to Crosstown by Helen Levitt (Powerhouse Books, 2001)
Preface to Mr. and Mrs. Baby and Other Stories by Mark Strand (Ecco, 2015)
Harper’s Magazine: “Master of the Mundane” (on Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book Three)
Sunday Times (London): Elizabeth Taylor, Complete Short Stories
O Magazine: “In Praise of Little Women” (on Louisa May Alcott, Little Women)
American Benefactor: “On Jane Austen”
New York Times Book Review: “Midwestern Civ” (on Charles Baxter, Believers)
New York Times Book Review: “Naked Came the Stranger” (on Deborah Levy, Swimming Home)
Real Simple: “Friend of Our Youth” (on Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women)
New York Review of Books: “On the Wilder Shores of Brooklyn” (on Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach)
New York Review of Books: “Courts Without Reporters” (on Rebecca West, In Greenhouse with Cyclamens, I)
Harper’s Magazine: “Door to Door” (on Mohsin Hamid, Exit West)
New York Review of Books: “The Cult of Saint Franz” (on Reiner Stach, Is That Kafka? 99 Finds)
“What Makes a Short Story?” (contribution to On Writing Short Stories, edited by Tom Bailey, Oxford University Press, 2010)
Sewanee Review: “On Stanley Elkin”