"[I]nto that abundance that is silently and invisibly working on every variation, into full and enfolding abundance, into the extreme abundance of silence, yes into its opulent abundance, its sweet unity and abundance…"
Articles about Evan Dara or his novels, including The Lost Scrapbook, The Easy Chain, and Flee.
Guest Post by Gabe Cweigenberg Can we talk about the fireflies? How about Chomsky? What I mainly want to focus on is the relationship Chomsky has to the book. I guess you could say he’s one of the recurring characters. So, in the fifties,… Continue Reading “Can We Talk About the Fireflies?”
“For a book that has no discernible narrator and a multitude of anecdotal scenes which often times don’t resolve themselves and changes literary mid sentence this is a very readable book. Dara has drawn comparisons with Gaddis, especially Gaddis’ debut The Recognitions, but this… Continue Reading “The Lost Scrapbook – Goodreads Review”
As preparations for the release of Evan Dara's new work are nearing completion, we wanted to let faithful readers know that this is not a novel, but a play set for the stage. There is no need to prematurely evict a Danielewski or a… Continue Reading “This is Not a Novel”
While updating the resources for this site, I included an expanded entry for a series of posts from a pseudonymous blogger named Ba Jin. Back in the summer of 2015, he offered a memorable chronicle of his first reading of The Lost Scrapbook, which… Continue Reading “A Reading of The Lost Scrapbook”
This week, I’ve been consumed by the works of a pair of powerful storytellers, whose devotion to detail in chronicling their respective historical sagas is inspiring and daunting. The first is Lacy M. Johnson’s The Fallout, which covers the cover-up of the radioactive legacy of… Continue Reading “Decisions Made Too Fast”
Last month, I sketched out the case that Manuel Puig may have had more to do with the look and sound of Evan Dara’s novels than William Gaddis. But, while setting it up, I wrote that he had broken his silence on only one… Continue Reading “Postscript on Dara and Gaddis”
After reading the accounts of the attendees of this year’s 4th annual David Foster Wallace Conference, held once again at Illinois State University, it’s clear that the state of the union of DFW studies is strong. The papers, presentations, and podcasts sowed more seeds… Continue Reading “American Literature in Transition, 1990–2000”
In the 22 years since Evan Dara published his first novel, he has granted no interviews nor provided any substantive insight regarding his background or his working methods. Except once.