By Emily Witt 10/04/11 1:46pm

Writing

friendlys

Nicholson Baker Worries for the Future of Friendly’s

It turns out that Nicholson Baker finds creative inspiration in highway rest stops, or at least in the chains that dominate them in the Northeast corridor. “I’m always happy when I see the green Friendly’s topiary sign on the Mass Pike,” he writes to Slate, explaining that Friendly’s, Panera Bread and Starbucks are the places where he has spent hours rewriting his books. Because America’s corporate food establishments are the ideal environments for drafting a book like House of Holes. Read More

By The Editors 5/31/11 11:56pm

The Tipping Point (Just For A Second)

A Penis Named Malcolm Gladwell

Nicholson Baker is best known for his imaginatively erotic novels, like The Fermata, in which the hero stops time to undress and admire women, and Vox, the phone-sex love story that Monica Lewinsky supposedly gave to Bill Clinton as a gift. His latest, House of Holes, due out Aug. 9 from Simon & Schuster (a Read More

By Adam Begley 5/04/98 12:00am

What Nory Knew: Baker Bares a 9-Year-Old’s Brain

The Everlasting Story of Nory , by Nicholson Baker. Random House, 226 pages, $22.

Nicholson Baker is a freaky case. He’s a big-time talent, smart, stubbornly perverse, sleazily, lewd–and now, with his chaste new novel about a 9-year-old girl, deep-snooze dull. Is there an exotic syndrome that causes good writers to skid off course and Read More