See You on the Other Side by Jay McInerney review – the clumsy finale of a classic New York series The bright young things of 1992’s Brightness Falls are now in their 60s in this verbose, clunky novel that seems more interested in lifestyle than inner lives

"It’s like seeing the world of Gatsby through the eyes of Tom Buchanan."

Great (critical) review of Jay McInerney's See You on the Other Side from Marcel Theroux:

The Stone Table? Will it ever see the light of day, do you think? Lewis's stuff is out of copyright in less than 10 yeas but I assume the estate will have trademarked Narnia and various characters to prevent unauthorised spin-offs, as Orwell's did.

Yeah I mean that's par for the course, unfortunately.

Oh I missed that! My ignorance saved me.

Weird one today. The purple ('hardest') one I thought so obvious that I suspected it to be a red herring. Cultural differences working in our favour for once?

Connections
Puzzle #1045
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦

I can't believe there's no Urban Cookie Collective gif on this damn platform.

Well judging by the PSB Facebook group I'm on, there are people out there who would pay you a kidney, or even a liver, for the signed one.

Congratulations, I guess?

Boy that sure was a good secret today, wasn't it, Stuart? Really made the game worthwhile!

Parseword #83
⏱️ 1m1s
⭐️ No Hints
🐑 Secret Found

My son did it the other day! I told him it was a ‘heavy metal S’ but I can’t remember if we called it that at the time.

Schools banning smartphones won't solve anything, the kids will just bring in Panini sticker albums of their favourite deadly ticktocks and misogynists rants.

Would immediately buy the mid-century novel that began with this sentence.

More fun or less fun than lying on your side for a week waiting for the retina to stick back on?

I’ve never read her but noticed this 👇

(One year ago today, oddly!)

My full review of Crime and Punishment. If you ask me, this Dostoevsky person has a big future ahead of him/her/them

Thanks.

Phil, is there an archive of old Radio Times listings? I’m watching One Foot in the Grave with one of my sons and telling him how part of the pleasure was the misleading listings in Radio Times for each episode. Of course I can’t actually find any to show him.

Fwiw I think her best are the ones that immediately preceded this one: My Phantoms / First Love. Though all of her books are worth reading for line-by-line pleasure. Bless you btw for describing her as young: at six years her senior, I reckon that puts me within shouting distance of youth myself...

Great reviews. I agree The Palm House is imperfect, though it's tempting of course to overlook this given she still seems a bit under-appreciated by the wider market. The novel arrived a year later than originally billed and I wonder if she had trouble with it (see also its episodic form).

My Fiction Chronicle is on novels by Jay McInerney, Gwendoline Riley and Therese Bohman. Gift link: www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

She is absolutely wrong, and inadvertently revealing her ignorance. It’s a correct (but uncommon these days) possessive, like saying “he consented to my using his lawnmower.” Most people would say “me using” but “my” is correct. It’s the shaking of the sail, not “the sail is shaking”!

Four. Right?

"Well, more sort of pithy, I suppose."

BMW started their electric range with vehicles that look very unlike their usual cars (pictured) and I guess they didn't do well enough, so they've gone full-on since then on trying to make them look exactly like their petrol models.

Poor Geoffrey Durham...

From Manifesto to Mr Loverman: Bernardine Evaristo’s best books – ranked! From the secret gay life of a British-Caribbean man to that controversial shared Booker win, the author has blazed a trail across the literary landscape. Here are seven of her top titles

Here's my ranking of Bernardine Evaristo's novels and memoir, now online:

That is a thing of wonder.

Lincoln Travelodge gave stranger key to couple's room Woman says she was left feeling shaken and believes the chain needs to do more to improve security.

Time for the Star to run a livestream of a lettuce with the face of the Travelodge CEO. (This latest fuck-up happened AFTER the news last month.)

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

My Phantoms author Gwendoline Riley on winning $175,000: ‘It was unimaginable. I felt overwhelmed.’ Renowned for her darkly funny novels exploring failed relationships, the writer has been awarded the Windham‑Campbell prize for a body of work. She explains why it will change her life – if not her ou...

"There’s the me who’s going to suddenly be able to relax, and I think that will affect how I write, definitely."

Possible comic consequence of Riley's Windham-Campbell win: the money makes her contented and she starts writing easy-going bog standard literary fiction.