A literary rekindling? Thank ‘Jane Eyre’

The Dublin-based literary magazine the Stinging Fly was founded in 1997 as a venue for new writers from Ireland and around the world. The winter issue, just out, boasts seven pieces of fiction set in such far-flung locales as Los Angeles and Donegal (who says relative location isn’t everything?), as well as works by 16 poets and a quartet of book reviews.

Also in the issue is a piece by London literary agent Lucy Luck that details the pleasure she found in reading as a child. Her sense of joy quickly dissipated when she entered secondary school and was subjected to the “reading of ‘proper books.’ This was very different from the stories I’d been loving -- these were books read for instruction, so that essays could be written. It was all a bit like hard work.”

Luckily, “Jane Eyre” got under her skin, and her enthusiasm was rekindled. “Now the written word defines much of my day,” she continues, confessing: “Though there is nothing to compare to the thrill of being the first to appreciate a new literary talent, it can be exhausting to only read unpublished books when there are still so many published ones I’ve not managed to start.”

-- Orli Low

Still running after all these years

In 1978, John L. Parker Jr. found a solid niche audience for his debut novel, “Once a Runner.” Who was the audience? Runners. Many of today’s marathon stars consider the book a classic, citing it as essential to their own development. Success, however, didn’t come easy to the novelist, as Benjamin Cheever relates in the current issue of Runner’s World magazine. Parker self-published the book (he even had to set the type himself) and relentlessly peddled it everywhere, including shoe stores and races.

The occasion for Cheever’s piece is the arrival this week of “Once a Runner” ’s long-awaited sequel, “Again to Carthage.” Cheever explores the intimidation factor involved in writing the follow-up to what is now a cult classic and candidly asks Parker why it took so long.

Although Parker admits that his first novel’s success hung over him like a “sword of Damocles the whole time,” he also says the long delay was simply the result of his temperament and age. “[T]he extra time and gnashing of teeth seems appropriate to me now. The first book is all about youth and hormones, winning and losing. . . . This book is a lot more poignant.”

Cheever seeds his piece with interesting comments about the writing life, including glimpses of his father, a master of the short story, and insights into what writing and running have in common. Both are endurance tests, Cheever writes as he considers Parker’s career, and “like the best runners, the best novelists are a little bit insane. However self-effacing, a champion has got to believe in himself.”

-- Nick Owchar

David Grossman explores grief

The new issue of the Paris Review features an extended “Art of Fiction” interview with Israeli novelist David Grossman.

Talking with Jonathan Shainin, Grossman recalls his initiation into fiction; he also discusses his work as a news anchor for Kol Israel, the state radio station, as well as the three vivid works of journalism -- “The Yellow Wind,” “Sleeping on a Wire” and “Death as a Way of Life” -- in which he explored the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the chagrin of many on the Israeli side. Yet the most affecting material here has to do with Grossman’s youngest, son, Uri, who was killed in August 2006 during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Grossman apologizes for not wanting to talk about this (“I need him to be private,” he says. “I’m sorry.”), then goes on to excavate the territory of his grief:

“It’s a painful life now. It’s like hell in slow motion, all the time. I don’t try to escape grief. I face grief in an intense way in my writing, but not only in my writing. If I have to suffer, I want to understand my situation thoroughly. It’s not an easy place to be, but so be it. If I’m doomed to it, I want -- it’s a human predicament, and I want to experience it. . . .

“I’m always questioning what I observe. All the time I see the cracks, wherever I look -- even before what happened to me. It’s a way of seeing, and I cannot say I chose it, but I surrendered to it quite happily because I think it’s an accurate view of the fragility of life. Anything that is calm and safe seems to me like an illusion.”

-- David L. Ulin

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