John Pistelli

Nov 24, 2024 | grandhotelabyss.substack.com | John Pistelli

This week I released “Living Too Long with a Single Dream” for The Invisible College, my series of literature courses for paid subscribers. It’s about why The Great Gatsby isn’t overrated. It’s also a pro-capitalist reading of The Great Gatsby, which you may never have encountered before; it’s about how, for Fitzgerald, style is money. Aptly, you will have to become a paid subscriber to listen to it.

Sep 10, 2024 | woman-of-letters.com | John Pistelli |Naomi Kanakia |cultureBy John Pistelli

A friend has been texting me about the new Garth Greenwell novel. My friend’s like, it's so bad! What do people see in it? I'm honestly kind of bemused by the whole exchange. Of course it's bad. Aren't hype-machine books usually bad? Does it even matter if they're actually good or bad? At this point I'm happy if they're even readable! One wants them to be plausibly good, so it's not an overt embarrassment to American letters. But...obviously nobody is reading these books for fun. Like, why would you?

Aug 7, 2023 | washingreview.com | Steve Larkin |Micah Mattix |John Pistelli

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Washington Review of Books. [This month’s WRB Film Supplement does not actually justify the ways of God to Ken, but it does contain two essays by me in Movies across the decades, one on Gerwig and one on Nolan. All praise to Barbenheimer. —Steve]In Vulture, Bilge Ebiri interviews Samuel L. Jackson:[It was so hard to pick just one quote to pull. You have to read this one.

Apr 10, 2023 | grandhotelabyss.substack.com | John Pistelli

Upgrade to paid to play voiceoverMajor Arcana is a serialized novel for paid subscribers. For more details, both about the novel and about subscriber amenities, please see the Preface. The day after Jacob Morrow shot himself through the vitreum in front of the chapel, Simon Magnus’s “Studies in the Graphic Novel” class was cancelled by the department. Simon Magnus was summoned to the office of the department chair.

Apr 9, 2023 | grandhotelabyss.substack.com | John Pistelli

A weekly newsletter on what I’ve written, read, and otherwise enjoyed. This week, I published in text and audio formats a new chapter of my serialized novel for paid subscribers, Major Arcana: “Parts of Speech.” An anonymous commenter weighed in on Tumblr:If you would like to experience such brilliant material for yourself, please subscribe today.