account_circle by Ryan Gleason
Ryan Gleason is a literary editor at Pif Magazine. He can be found reading and writing in a Seattle puddle or at ryan.gleason@pifmagazine.com.

Book Lovers

2666

Issue No. 158 ~ July, 2010

Roberto Bolaño’s final novel 2666, released posthumously, is a sprawling literary tome. It’s the kind of work that possesses a staggering amount of angles, gliding through time periods, characters, both widespread and intimate violence, sexuality, and Bolaño’s expertise, the imagining and dismantling of artists.

One on One

Brenda Eisenberg

Issue No. 158 ~ July, 2010

This feels like an important story to write. For one thing, it offers a fresh angle on the apartheid story, through the eyes of a young orthodox Jew. But also, it looks at powerlessness in the face of a system you feel you can’t change and how young people turn to extreme solutions when they experience that impotence.

Essay

Literature, The Northwest, and Me

Issue No. 161 ~ October, 2010

My finger drifts along the books’ spines. I insist on being casual, skimming through hundreds of alphabetized names and titles as though they were one relentless, underwhelming sentence.