Lit Hub Weekly: August 2 - 6

• Rachel Kushner in praise of the Gun Club’s Mother Juno and the richness of Mexican-American punk rock. | Lit Hub Music

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• “Absence makes us grow fonder and more forgiving, and we recognize that our parents were walking on feet of clay like everybody else.” Rodrigo Garcia shares formative memories of his parents, the late Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha. | Lit Hub

• What the data says about how kids learn to read (and learn to enjoy it). | Lit Hub

• Stephen King’s Billy Summers, Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties, Alexandra Kleeman’s Something New Under the Sun, and Megan Abbott’s The Turnout all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

• “Noir demands that we consider the problem of the irredeemable… and bear witness to their humanity.” Kate Myles on what we can learn from the bleakest of noirs. | CrimeReads

• Unpacking the history of summer reading: how the season inspired a whole genre of its own. | New York Times

• Private equity is getting into book clubs—Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine sold for “north of $900 million” to Blackstone Group Inc. | Variety

• “There’s danger anytime we acknowledge our ghosts.” Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi and Alexandra Kleeman in conversation. | BOMB

• “Almost everybody has main character syndrome.” Kristen Arnett discusses how to use humor, understanding a character’s psychology, and the “scary” parts of writing a book. | The Creative Independent

• Tamiko Beyer considers the radical power of poetry and its ability to help dismantle white supremacy and capitalism. | Harriet

• T Kira Madden reflects on a lifelong relationship with horses and the process of “reclaiming something by dropping the reins, letting go.” | Refinery29

• “There are benefits to not knowing the rules. In college and my career, I didn’t know not to knock so I learned to knock louder.” Melissa Scholes Young on fostering camaraderie between first-generation faculty and first-generation students. | The Atlantic

• Philip Lopate considers the Silver Age of essays. | The Paris Review

• “Is it a metaphor for our relationship to nature? Fuck off.” Patricia Lockwood on Marian Engle’s Bear. | London Review of Books

• A reading list to commemorate Women in Translation Month. | CLMP

• “The life of a writer isn’t something that capitalism funds. Capitalism, as an incredibly inhumane system, is hostile to art making.” Kate Zambreno on the economics of a literary life. | Observer

• Veronica Esposito asks Laurence Jackson Hyman, the oldest child of Shirley Jackson, about producing a volume of his mother’s letters. | The Guardian

• “Writing didn’t serve the purpose I wanted it to, which was to fix the fundamentally broken relationship between myself and other people.” Kristen Roupenian on the author, the work, and the public. | The New Yorker

• Bryan Washington shares a new short story about a private chef who spends lockdown cooking for wealthy Houstonians. | The Cut

• “As a child, I lived within the boundaries my mother built, both safe and sick.” Alice Hattrick explores their relationship with their mother and chronic illness. | Granta

Also on Lit Hub:

Mona Awad’s question for any writer on the verge of giving up • Ali Black on unlearning craft and teaching Black poetry • How Philosophy is failing the pandemic • Thomas Dai on Nabokov’s cross-country butterfly-hunting trips • What’s asked of Black characters in YA and children’s literature • Louis Chude-Sokei on the (racist) books that shaped his literary curiosity • The literary film and TV to watch this August • Signature cocktails—and favorite scents—of famous authors • James Tate Hill on how we listen to contemporary memoir • Zach Schultz grieves the loss of Anthony Veasna So and marvels at his debut collection • Samantha Montano considers the insidiousness of disaster capitalism • Daniel Sherrell navigates love and desperation in the time of climate change • Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi finds lessons in history, from Tehran to Orange County • Stephen Kurczy visits the “Log Lady” of the Quiet Zone • American policing is operating exactly as it was designed to • How General Motors responded to Elon Musk’s plucky little startup • Darrel J. McLeod on returning to his Indigenous heritage as a teacher • The case for messy, emotional family stories • Charif Majdalani on Lebanon’s water crisis • Shugri Said Salh on what it means to be the sole keeper of her family’s stories • Life as an emergency doctor during COVID-19 • On the “ironic and often fatal prison” of tying health insurance to full-time employment • Annie McDermott on translating Mario Levrero’s “beguiling, preposterous, uncategorizable book” • Visiting the houses of Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, and more • On the power of social influence • Reading Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet during our year+ of COVID-19 • Lucy Jones enumerates the science-based health benefits of playing in the dirt • Anna Qu returns to China in search of a past she never knew • Marcello Di Cintio on the ride-share founded to protect Indigenous women