Sam Sacks
@ssacks.bsky.social
2.3K followers 510 following 670 posts
Fiction critic at the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/news/author/sam-sacks); editor at Open Letters Review, formerly Open Letters Monthly (https://openlettersreview.com/) sam_sacks [at] hotmail
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ssacks.bsky.social
He was previously with Random House over here. I'd guess the explanation (in the U.S.) is simply that MCD decided to splash out and won the bidding war. I am surprised 'The Orphan Master's Son' didn't get any traction where you are; maybe North Korea isn't a subject of as much fascination as here.
ssacks.bsky.social
It's unusual because MCD is a division of FSG that, in my memory, usually publishes offbeat paperback original debut fiction. But Johnson is a (deserved) Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner. I've been reading him with awe since his great short story 'Teen Sniper' ran in Harper's in 2002.
ssacks.bsky.social
It's the Fall Books double-issue at the WSJ and it's terrific. Moira Hodgson on Susan Orlean, Hugh Eakin on Douglas Cooper, Franz Nicolay on Talking Heads, Anna Mundow on John Banville, Kyle Smith on Marty McFly, Gioia Diliberto on Jane Birkin, Thomas Mallon on Updike! www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
‘Selected Letters of John Updike’ Review: Restless Correspondent
John Updike worried that success would make him lazy. But his literary output—and his letters—kept up the pace.
www.wsj.com
Reposted by Sam Sacks
ssacks.bsky.social
Now online is my WSJ review of Adam Johnson's 'The Wayfinder,' a fantastical epic set during the height of the Tu'i Tonga Empire in Polynesia. It's a book about storytelling that teems with wondrous stories. It is, I think, a genuinely great novel. Gift link here: www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
‘The Wayfinder’ Review: Uncharted Waters
Adam Johnson’s epic is a story of power, survival, loss and courage, set in the Polynesia of centuries past.
www.wsj.com
Reposted by Sam Sacks
geoffwisner.bsky.social
Thoreau, Oct. 10, 1856. While moving the fence to-day, dug up a large reddish, mummy-like chrysalid or nymph. [Pupa of white-lined sphinx moth by Wendy Hanson Mazet, adult by UW-Milwaukee]
ssacks.bsky.social
I know, and I had it once, too! What a good magazine that was.

I loved following your travels with a donkey in the Cevenne, by the way--it's something I've really wanted to do.
ssacks.bsky.social
Oh, you don't have the Cahiers Series chapbook of Krasznahorkai's 'Animalinside'? That's cool I guess, though it's kinda the skeleton key to the author's whole chthonic oeuvre.
photo of obscure literary pamphlet to accompany humorously pretentious lit-bro post
Reposted by Sam Sacks
neglectedbooks.com
I had a great conversation yesterday with Daniel Akst, novelist and now publisher of Tivoli Books, a new press devoted to old and new neglected books, including @jonathangibbs.bsky.social's terrific novel of the art world, Randall. Interesting revivals in the pipeline from Tivoli.

tivolibooks.com
Reposted by Sam Sacks
jenniferlcroft.bsky.social
I took this picture of Olga and László in London in 2018. Congrats to Krasznahorkai and his translators, including George Szirtes and @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social, and long live a Central Europe free of dictators (foreign and domestic) and full of magnificent minds like these!
Reposted by Sam Sacks
Reposted by Sam Sacks
bradheath.bsky.social
WSJ: President Trump believed his Truth Social post demanding prosecutions of James Comey and other political foes was a private message to his attorney general, and "and was surprised to learn it was public."

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
ssacks.bsky.social
I'm going to take a flyer on Ibrahim al-Koni. A great and prolific writer whose books harness the power of both history and fable. And he's the undisputed laureate of a fraught part of the world that needs more global attention.
kleinman.bsky.social
Nobel Literature Predictions
FAVORITES: Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Colm Toibin
DARK HORSES: Antonio Munoz Molina, Abdellatif Laabi
MAYBE IT'S FINALLY THEIR YEAR: Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood
REALLY I JUST DON'T WANT HIM TO WIN: Peter Nadas
ssacks.bsky.social
Thank you! I completely agree.
ssacks.bsky.social
Now online is my WSJ review of Adam Johnson's 'The Wayfinder,' a fantastical epic set during the height of the Tu'i Tonga Empire in Polynesia. It's a book about storytelling that teems with wondrous stories. It is, I think, a genuinely great novel. Gift link here: www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
‘The Wayfinder’ Review: Uncharted Waters
Adam Johnson’s epic is a story of power, survival, loss and courage, set in the Polynesia of centuries past.
www.wsj.com
ssacks.bsky.social
(And here are the mass markets)
wooden bookshelf with mass market paperbacks
ssacks.bsky.social
I bought a new bookshelf--some kind of end-of-supply sale at the Container Store--and have finally made a little library of my literary criticism. I don't think any other kind of book has given me as much uncomplicated pleasure. (The Beckett is just a stopgap bookend, it will go elsewhere.)
photos of bookshelves filled with volumes of literary criticism
Reposted by Sam Sacks
mims.bsky.social
If the economy could be represented by a giant dashboard of lights, they'd all be flashing red
soybean farmers are panicking over loss of Chinese buyers, declare possible 'bloodbath' Trump assault on wind projects hits red states hardest businesses that depend on government contracts are already feeling the pain of the shutdown no official jobs numbers during shutdown means Wall Street is turning to alternative measures -- and they show the situation is bad
Reposted by Sam Sacks
afuashley.bsky.social
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

U.S Citizen Julie Moreno Returned to the United States Today, Preparing for Years of Separation from Her Husband Now in Mexico

Full press release below.
ssacks.bsky.social
'I see the boys of summer in their ruin' seems more apt if they're going the Dylan Thomas route
ssacks.bsky.social
Congrats on a great milestone