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Molly Fischer

By Molly Fischer 5/15 8:45am

books

Janet Malcolm. (Courtesy The New Yorker)

Not Too Stupid: Reflections on 50 Years of Janet Malcolm’s Fatal Vision

In 2011, Janet Malcolm underwent the literary rite of a Paris Review interview. As part of its tradition, the magazine permits interview subjects to reread and revise their words: they have an impressive degree of control over their self-presentation, which presumably makes the whole exercise more appealing. Often the effect is of a long chat on a porch in the Berkshires between an elder statesman and a respectful apprentice, who nods sagely at the importance of rising early to write.

But most interview subjects have not spent their careers contemplating the treachery of the interview. Most interview subjects have not made their names dissecting flattering self-presentation. Most interview subjects are not Janet Malcolm.

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By Molly Fischer 3/12 7:15pm

books

Jonathan Dee.

So Sorry! Jonathan Dee’s Abundantly Apologetic New Novel

In Jonathan Dee’s 2010 novel The Privileges, a secondary character named Marietta works in media relations, rehabilitating the public images of drunken heiresses and scandalous politicians.

“It’s a lot like being a lawyer,” she explains. “Or a lot like advertising. It’s a lot like most things, actually.” That might sound glib, but when Marietta gets drunk enough, she tends to start “talking in dead earnest about her job in terms of second chances and the desire to repent.” Read More

By Molly Fischer 1/08 7:38pm

books

Rosie Schaap. (Photo: M. Sharkey)

Have One on Me! ‘Drink’ Columnist Rosie Schaap Opens Up About Her New Memoir, and Puts a Few Away

Rosie Schaap is a born regular.

The Drink columnist for The New York Times Magazine and author of the new memoir Drinking with Men (Riverhead, 288 pp., $26.95), Ms. Schaap has a gift for camaraderie—and excellent taste in booze. She’s also become the book industry’s resident bartender, if publishing holiday parties are to be believed (she mixed drinks at PEN’s bash in 2012), and judging by the often-bookish crowd at South, the Brooklyn dive where Ms. Schaap works day shifts.

Drinking with Men roves from Metro-North bar cars to rural Vermont to Dublin, describing the many pint-glass microcosms Ms. Schaap has found herself a part of thanks to her affection for a neighborhood haunt. It would be hard to call a Times columnist an outsider, but she does bring an uncommonly friendly face to New York’s insular book scene. Read More

By Molly Fischer 11/07/12 8:45am

books

Richard Russo.

Mommy Dearest: In His First Memoir, Richard Russo Examines His Relationship With His Mother

If “Jonathan” is shorthand for youngish white men of letters—Safran Foer, Franzen, Lethem, maybe Ames—“Richard” feels like its late-middle-age equivalent. Russo, Ford, Price, maybe Bausch: you’re browsing for a Father’s Day present, and the names conjure a fuzzy blur of teaching positions, screenwriting credits and possible altercations with Colson Whitehead. Read More

By Molly Fischer 9/11/12 8:14pm

books

Mr. Chabon. (Ulf Andersen/Getty Images)

You’re Gonna Meet Some Gentle People There: The Idealistic World of Michael Chabon’s Bay Area Novel Telegraph Avenue

Michael Chabon has made himself a literary champion of commercial pleasures. His fiction in recent years has touched the same nerve as nostalgic pop favorites: detective novels, comic books, kung fu movies, soul music. And with Mr. Chabon’s new novel, the retail romance Telegraph Avenue (Harper, 480 pp., $27.99), this principle reaches a certain literal endpoint. Not just old-fashioned commercial entertainment but old-fashioned commerce itself—the scrappy, cozy, locally owned sort—becomes the object of his underdog affection. Read More