Ilana Masad

1 month ago | latimes.com | Ilana Masad

Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s new book, “The Expert of Subtle Revisions,” explores the way history is affected by how it is told and who does the telling. This is how the grandfather paradox was first explained to me: Imagine a boy whose grandfather invented a time machine. The boy hates his grandfather and, in a fit of anger, uses the time machine to visit his grandfather as an adolescent and murder him.

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Ilana Masad

This is how the grandfather paradox was first explained to me: Imagine a boy whose grandfather invented a time machine. The boy hates his grandfather and, in a fit of anger, uses the time machine to visit his grandfather as an adolescent and murder him. By doing so, the grandfather won’t have the chance to invent the time machine nor meet the grandmother, so the boy's father and therefore the boy himself won’t be born.

1 month ago | washingtonpost.com | Ilana Masad

In the early 20th century, a lumberjack nicknamed Babe Bunyan (“Bunyan” after folkloric axman Paul Bunyan; “Babe” after his strong ox) is working in an illegal logging camp during winter, when timber inspectors don’t check the frozen forests too carefully. It’s difficult work in uncomfortable conditions, and the laborers pass the time as best they can, drinking dangerously potent homebrewed liquor, sleeping in cramped quarters, making bets and telling stories.

2 months ago | latimes.com | Ilana Masad

About midway through Christine Murphy’s debut novel, “Notes on Surviving the Fire,” her protagonist, Sarah Common, tells a guy she’s dating that rape-revenge movies don’t work. “Action movies are man movies,” she says. “Rape isn’t something men understand.” When the guy asks her to explain more, she gives a little speech that deserves to be as oft-cited as the “Cool Girl” monologue from “Gone Girl”:“I think men think that rape is unwanted sex. And sex is great.

2 months ago | yahoo.com | Ilana Masad

About midway through Christine Murphy’s debut novel, “Notes on Surviving the Fire,” her protagonist, Sarah Common, tells a guy she’s dating that rape-revenge movies don’t work. “Action movies are man movies,” she says. “Rape isn’t something men understand.” When the guy asks her to explain more, she gives a little speech that deserves to be as oft-cited as the “Cool Girl” monologue from “Gone Girl”:“I think men think that rape is unwanted sex. And sex is great.