I’m a sometime Deadspin reader, and have been a fan of Drew Magary’s ridiculous posts on parenting and the Williams-Sonoma holiday catalog for a few years now. But I thought he was a grade-A jackass when he was on Chopped a few years ago, and kind of took a break from him for a while. But then I read his book of essays on how his life has changed since becoming a father (and yes, he made me cry with his story about his son who was born extremely […]
A Sort of Ghost Story
Angela Flournoy’s debut novel The Turner House garnered many awards, including National Book Award finalist (2015). It’s the story of the Turner family — Francis and Viola and their 13 children — over two generations and their life in the house on Yarrow Street in Detroit. When the novel begins, it seems that life in that particular home is about to end, and the Turner family is divided over how to handle this. Yet the house is not the only issue that confronts and divides […]
A historical romance with a murder investigation and lots of angst
Leila Beaumont is a beautiful and very talented portrait artist, as celebrated throughout Europe as her husband, Francis, is becoming reviled. While Leila is aware of Francis adultery, his tendency to drink and take drugs to excess, she is unaware that he also ran a brothel in Paris and tended to make money through the blackmail of prominent members of society. While she hasn’t allowed him in her bed for years, Leila is nonetheless grateful to Francis for rescuing her when she was orphaned in […]
… and Then the Murders Began.
“The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years — if it ever did end — began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.”* And then the murders began. There’s a meme going around Facebook where you add “then the murders began” to the opening line of a famous story. Stephen King’s It doesn’t really change much when you add that line, because, you see, that is when […]