The Brooklyn Rail

In Conversation

They Can’t Kill Us Until they Kill Us: HANIF ABDURRAQIB with Nicholas Rys

I was introduced to the work of Hanif Abdurraqib through his brilliant essay, “In Defense of ‘Trap Queen’ As Our Generation’s Greatest Love Song” in 2015. In it, I instantly heard something (yes heard, for Abdurraqib’s language is so vibrant and alive that one can’t help but hear its musicality when you read it) fresh, unencumbered, yet familiar.

In Conversation

The Jazz of Life: BUD SMITH with Nicholas Rys

If you are reading literature online in 2018, you’re reading Bud Smith. And you should be. His work has been published by Hobart, Wigleaf, Smokelong Quarterly, and tons of other places. Aimee Bender selected his story, “Wolves,” for the Best Small Fictions anthology. His work in general, and especially in his new story collection Double Bird, published by Maudlin House, is tender and funny, deadpan but deeply serious.

Jeff Jackson's Destroy All Monsters: The Last Rock Novel

By Nicholas Rys

Jeff Jackson’s newest novel Destroy All Monsters: The Last Rock Novel, out on FSG Originals, is unlike any other book published this year. It’s wry and dark, timeless but also entirely of our time, though void of any direct references to our Internet 2.0 media-saturated age.

In Conversation

LEE MARTIN with Nicholas Rys

Lee Martin’s new story collection explores the lives, desires, and quiet moments of people who live quiet, modest lives. His characters dream and want and desire, not for grand things, but for small, intimate things. They are people who often don’t occupy the space between the covers of book.

In Conversation

JEFF JACKSON with Nicholas Rys

With attention carefully drawn to both style and substance, Jeff Jackson’s newest novel, Destroy All Monsters is an artifact in and of itself: the text split into a Side A and Side B like an old vinyl single; the text shaded different colors, different type-faces, prologues and false starts and chapters not falling in line as we’d traditionally expect from a novel.