Ron Charles, fiction editor of The Washington Post, will jolt the Conversations@ Efroymson series out of hibernation with a discussion about the future of books and literary criticism at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22, at our well-insulated MFA home.
The St. Louis native will be returning to the Midwest where he spent a dozen years as an instructor of American literature and critical theory before settling into a career in journalism. After serving as a staff critic at The Christian Science Monitor, Charles started his luminous stint at the Post in 2005, becoming one of the preeminent voices in the fiction world while racking up industry accolades like the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award Nona Balakian Citation for book reviews and the top prize for A&E coverage from the Society for Features Journalism in 2011.
In his recent review of E.L. Doctorow’s Andrew’s Brain, Charles displays his trademark wit and his capacity to pen reviews that speak to casual readers and academics alike, sparing his audience from ambiguity and pretension, even when he is not so fortunate:
Early in the book he [the protagonist] says, “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” which makes two of us. He sometimes speaks of himself in the third person; he regularly mocks his unnamed interrogator; and he pays no attention to chronology. It’s our job to put the tragic incidents of his life in order, to unscramble the taunting clues, to unearth the profundities buried in this misanthropic rumination.
“Andrew’s Brain” hurt mine. The problem isn’t that the novel requires a significant degree of intellectual effort; it’s that it doesn’t provide sufficient reward for that effort.
Those who attend the first Conversations@ event of the semester will be rewarded with a glimpse into an oft-forgotten occupation that runs parallel with writing and publishing, one that can reveal itself as fruitful career for eccentrics like us who love reading and writing but dread the prospect of unpaid heating bills.
By all accounts, Charles is a warm and generous personality revered as one of the most influential books critics in the country. You’ll hear something authentic, hilarious, and well-outside the realm of the typical “sh*t reviewers say” (his words, not mine–for verification, be sure to watch the video below that Charles produced as part of his “The Totally Hip Book Review” series).
[youtube]http://youtu.be/XjM-zllpHuA[/youtube]
And don’t sleep on the rest of the Spring 2014 Conversations@ series (all events start at 7:30 p.m. at the ECCW):
Thursday, February 20
A reading by distinguished Butler undergraduate alumni, Matt Yeager and Mike Meginnis, and a conversation on their post-MFA experience.
Wednesday, March 19
A reading by distinguished MFA faculty, Chris Forhan and Dana Roeser
Wednesday, April 16
A discussion panel with three national literary magazine editors: Abigail Cloud from Mid-American Review, Jodee Stanley from Ninth Letter, and Rob Stapleton of Booth.
Monday, April 21
A conversation with Michelle Woods on translating Havel, Kundera and Kafka.