All Our Brilliant Friends
The explosion of novels about intense female friendships, in the Elena Ferrante mold, is changing the genre—and making it more fun.
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Illustration by Celia Jacobs A Book That Doesn’t Seek to Explain Itself
In his movies and his writing, the South Korean director Lee Chang-dong has long used images to suggest what can’t be expressed.
Photo-illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Source: Stephane Cardinale / Corbis / Getty. The Cure for Guilty Memories
A fantastical new novel from Karen Russell turns the whispered secrets of a Dust Bowl town into a bold metaphor for repressed history.
Photo-illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Sources: AntaresNS / Getty; MmeEmil / Getty. The Novelist Who Learned to Write Anger—And Its Aftermath
Susan Choi’s new book, Flashlight, considers the evolution of rage.
Sohrab Hura / Magnum The World That ‘Wages for Housework’ Wanted
The 1970s campaign fought to get women paid for their work in the home—and envisioned a society built to better support motherhood.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Jacquie Ursula Caldwell / Library of Congress; Getty. The Novel I’m Searching For
Five years after the pandemic, I’m holding out for a story that doesn’t just describe our experience, but transforms it.
Illustration by María Medem Two Different Ways of Understanding Fatherhood
Recent entries into the literature of parenting offer disparate visions of dadhood as part of a man’s private, or public, life.
Illustration by Dror Cohen In Defense of Marital Secrets
Lauren Elkin’s Scaffolding suggests that total honesty can take a relationship only so far.
Mikael Siirilä Rachel Kushner’s Surprising Swerve
She and her narrators have always relied on swagger—but not this time.
Illustration by Sarah Mazzetti When Victimhood Takes a Bad-Faith Turn
Wronged explores how the practice of claiming harm has become the rhetorical province of the powerful.
Illustration by Najeebah Al-Ghadban. Source: Getty.
