Lit Hub Daily: January 5, 2023

• “Cormac McCarthy never cashes in on the apocalypse. That would be too easy. His work is more of a corrective for it.” Will Cathcart muses on The Passenger, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and the birth of his son. | Lit Hub Criticism

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• Standing under Mussolini’s balcony: Andrea Bajani considers fascism and family in modern Italy (tr. by Minna Zallman Proctor). | Lit Hub History

• A brief history of American socialism, “as impossible to separate from the narrative of the nation’s history as the capitalist economy.” | Lit Hub Politics

• Merve Emre on Roald Dahl, Sam Adler-Bell on John le Carré, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

• Filippo Bernardini, who was accused of stealing hundreds of unpublished manuscripts by impersonating agents, editors, and authors, is expected to plead guilty to wire fraud. | The New York Times

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• “Watching her journey has changed me in ways I’m only now beginning to process.” Lorraine Berry remembers novelist Cai Emmons, who died Monday at 71. | Los Angeles Times

• Sarah Marshall considers the lessons of the serial killer media industrial complex. | The Believer 

• “Hazzard’s protagonists are creatures formed in awe—of where they’ve ended up and who they might become.” Hillary Kelly on Shirley Hazzard. | The New Republic

• Novelist and screenwriter Fay Weldon has died at 91. | The Guardian

• “I don’t really believe there is a power dynamic between author and editor, when the relationship is wholesome.” Terry Gross interviews Robert Gottlieb, editor of Caro and le Carré. | NPR

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Also on Lit Hub: Life Advice for Book Lovers: “My husband is really not into reading books.” • What Parini Shroff is reading now and next • Read from Ferit Edgü’s newly translated novel, The Wounded Age and Eastern Tales (tr. Aron Aji)