Searching for the Real ‘Anna O.’
The woman behind one of Freud’s most influential case studies, writes Gabriel Brownstein, was not the straightforward success story of legend. THE SECRET MIND OF BERTHA PAPPENHEIM: The Woman Who Invented Freud’s Talking Cure, by Gabriel Brownstein Bertha Pappenheim stopped eating and sleeping. She lost her language and ability to move. Her eyes crossed and […]
Watching Pixels Die: Sony, HBO, and “The Last of Us”
WITH THE ARRIVAL of Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan’s Amazon Studios adaptation of Bethesda Softworks’ Fallout on April 10, the long-heralded convergence of prestige video games and prestige television finally seems fully underway. A version of this synthesis had long seemed inevitable. Despite decades of usually half-hearted attempts and the prevailing sense that Hollywood has […]
“We’re Never Alone”
Tobias Wolff at the Spring Revel in 2024. The Review was thrilled this year to honor Tobias Wolff with the Hadada Award , our annual prize for lifetime achievement in literature. At this year’s Spring Revel on April 2, Wolff spoke to a gathering of writers, artists, and friends. We are pleased to publish his […]
The Power of Darkness: How Night Skies Inspire Creative Thoughts
In the summer of 1957, Daphne du Maurier was riding high. Her latest book, The Scapegoat , had been lapped up by the critics she most respected, and a film adaptation was under way. Even better, her favorite actor (the legendary Alec Guinness) had been cast in the lead role, and the script was being […]
The Lifelike Illusions of A.I.
In January, 1999, the Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency had issued a memo on its intranet with the subject “Furby Alert.” According to the Post , the memo decreed that employees were prohibited from bringing to work any recording devices, including “toys, such as ‘Furbys,’ with built-in recorders that repeat the audio […]
‘The Idea of You’ soundtrack producer says he wasn’t thinking about One Direction while writing music for August Moon
Entertainment ‘The Idea of You’ soundtrack producer says he wasn’t thinking about One Direction while writing music for August Moon Facebook Email Twitter LinkedIn Copy Link Read in app Paul Bergen/Redferns, Alisha Wetherill/Prime, Dave Pedley/Getty, Tyler Le/BI Savan Kotecha is the lead songwriter and producer behind “The Idea of You” soundtrack. The movie features a […]
Leslie Jamison Writes A Different Kind of Love Story In “Splinters”
Leslie Jamison’s new memoir Splinters follows the aftermath of divorce and the awakening of motherhood, but it explores desire more than it does any kind of death. Jamison wants to make meaning, to connect, to love, to feel, to mother, to write, and to revise her life endlessly. There are losses and grief along the […]
Lost Boys: On a Hidden Fraternity of the Forsaken in the American West
All images from The Crick , published by Twin Palms Publishers. © Jim Mangan. 1. The boys arrive slowly, appearing one by one on horseback over the lip of the ravine, plunging down the steep banks with their mounts sliding on their hocks, or in the case of Ephraim arriving in a truck pulling a […]
Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s Queer Caper
Few things are more comedically satisfying than an odd-couple pairing. Oscar and Felix, Lucy and Ethel, Tom Wambsgans and Cousin Greg: if the tensions are plentiful, so are the laffs. In “Drive-Away Dolls,” the new caper from the married couple Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke, we have Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), two […]
The Art of the Mini Sales Pitch: How to Subtitle Your Book So People Will Read It
About a year after my essay collection, Some of My Best Friends , was published, I got an email from my editor. Subject line: “Thinking caps, please: a new subtitle.” I’d known that this was coming. When we started kicking around ideas for the paperback, my team saw an opportunity to jazz things up. A […]