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tonydomestico.bsky.social
Critic and associate professor of literature at Purchase College, SUNY
41 posts 340 followers 123 following
Prolific Poster

I spoke with Edwin Frank (@nyrb-imprints.bsky.social) about his book, "Stranger Than Fiction," for the @commonweal.bsky.social Podcast. www.commonwealmagazine.org/podcast/what...

"People are sometimes presumptuous, at other times predictable, but often they are both." New story by Yiyun Li (@appletwigli.bsky.social) in the New Yorker www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

On a NEW EPISODE of the Commonweal podcast (feat. @tonydomestico.bsky.social), Edwin Frank explains why the twentieth-century novel has the ‘power to breach.’ Listen now! www.commonwealmagazine.org/podcast/what...

Great critic on one of our greatest writers.

My February column on a literary biography, a theology of fiction, and a collection of poetry for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/inflooding-r...

"The world is forever being resupplied with former believers, young and old, fervid and tepid alike, and Lodge expressed no ill will to the faith he was born into." @dominicpreziosi.bsky.social on reading David Lodge for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/my-year-davi...

I wrote about a new life of Robert Frost for the Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/0...

the golden bowl not the super

"Gallant’s characters are not only in transit but seem to have no fixed abode." Cynthia Zarin on Mavis Gallant for @bookpostusa.bsky.social books.substack.com/p/review-cyn...

This weekend's WSJ Fiction Chronicle leads with the latest from Adam Haslett, a brilliant writer who has turned out something dismayingly trite, a trauma-redemption narrative as formulaic as it is nonsensical. I have a bad feeling it will do well for him (gift link). www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

NYC friends! @commonweal.bsky.social is hosting a poetry reading with our friends Danielle Chapman and Pádraig Ó Tuama, both of whom have new work to share! Come! RSVP below cwlmag.org/boxed-juice-event

"Paul saw a promising mauve cover deep down, gay books keeping generally to that end of the spectrum, but when he dug it out it was a survey of historic thimbles, which wasn't quite gay enough." - Alan Hollinghurst, "The Stranger's Child"

Rest in peace, David Lodge. Here he was in 2016 for Commonweal. www.commonwealmagazine.org/when-escalat...

I wrote about Rachel Kushner's "Creation Lake" for @bookpostusa.bsky.social books.substack.com/p/review-ant...

r.i.p. to jimmy c., whose unquestionable moral seriousness, when it collided with material realities of power, yielded a complicated legacy. we went through it here (alongside the philosophy of john dewey & some psycho-autobiographies of the american consumer)

"He had the look ... of many young Germans who became Nazis: the look of the white-collar man who cannot climb up because he has no special talent to make his own ladder and society will not let him use its existing ladders, which are reserved for other people." - Rebecca West, "Radio Treason"

Happy birthday, Charles Portis. Here's something I wrote on him for @bookpostusa.bsky.social in 2023. books.substack.com/p/review-ant...

‘Listen, here's what I'd like to do: I'd like to live in a trailer and play records all night.’ Happy birthday to author Charles Portis. Born December 28, 1933.

Some of my favorite books of the year, including titles by Danielle Chapman, Tricia Romano, Tony Tulathimutte, and others, for Commonweal. www.commonwealmagazine.org/descriptive-...

“No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today’s / Dusk room aglow / For the last time / With candlelight. / Faces love lit, / Gifts underfoot. / Still to be so poised, so / Receptive. Still to recall, to praise.” James Merrill, on dying and on living.

Some of my favorite books of the year, including titles by Danielle Chapman, Tricia Romano, Tony Tulathimutte, and others, for Commonweal. www.commonwealmagazine.org/descriptive-...

"When we tune into Auden’s signal, we find a dilemma that defines, for many of us, our age as much as his." James Chappel for Commonweal www.commonwealmagazine.org/haunted-home

"She could see a thin line of colored light feathering the horizon, a peek of the sun's red petticoat. The ocean had a dullish shine like something that had been glazed in butter and then chilled in the refrigerator." - Rachel Kushner, "Telex from Cuba"

The definitive story of one of the greatest and most entertaining baseball players of all time: bookshop.org/p/books/rick...

"A steep staircase led up to the gallery, where one sat under the huge shapes of Edwardian frescoes dedicated to the obsessive devotion felt by the British aristocracy for the horse." - Rebecca West, "Radio Treason"

Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise. - Robert Frost, "My November Guest"

"This relentless turning away from common sense, this flight from an ideologically ingrained worldview, is what Jameson means when he talks about theory as a liberation." @c-also.bsky.social on Jameson's "The Years of Theory" www.chronicle.com/article/good...

"She seemed to have a way of relating everything to nineteenth-century novels." - Kate Atkinson, "Death at the Sign of the Rook"

Reader, I wept.

One of my fave Christmas movies

One good thing that's happening is that the @bostonglobe.com Best Books of 2024 package will be live tomorrow! In print on Sunday. I'm really proud of it: 75 books divided among fiction, nonfiction, and children's, contributed by some of my favorite critics. Check it out!

Every word for world is singular yet pleural - Camille Ralphs, "My Word: From the Spiritual Diary of Dr Dee"

"Kippered by our shared solitude, we found focus over old poems, giving ungainly readings of translated verse: *I know that my grief will not stop the green*." - Greg Gerke, "In the Suavity of the Rock"

"It's difficult to rest, doctor. There is so much in my head that wants to come out." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

"Sometimes a white-robed figure passes rapidly by ... and in dark corners loom the wooden figures of popes and of the knights whose order founded the monastery. They take on an appearance of life, as sad memories do, when the dark has fallen." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

Saturday night with Stanley Cavell. 🖤

"Anger had always exhausted him—and even more the thoughts which were liable to come after." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

"In your company, Sancho, I think more freely than when I am alone." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

"He went out, closing the door not with a bang, but with what one might perhaps describe as a snap." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

"Dictionaries are always out of date," her companion said. "You can't expect them to keep up with inflation." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

"Laughter is not an argument." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

"There are many holy words written which are not in the Bible or the Fathers." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

"Now he couldn't resist opening a little square envelope which was lying on Sancho’s bedside table – it made him think of his childhood and the tiny letters his mother would sometimes leave for him to read before sleep." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

"In their walk Father Quixote thought they resembled two ducks--one ready for the table and one needing more nourishment." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"

"What makes me sad is when you mock my books, for they mean more to me than myself." - Graham Greene, "Monsignor Quixote"