With each new novel, post-modern legend Jonathan Baumbach subtly reimagines the shape of the wheel. In his latest, YOU, subtitled, Or the Invention of Memory, the narrator remembers or imagines or invents the story of a not easily defined relationship with a complex and variable woman known in the novel only as You. The style will captivate, needing no explanation as to why Baumbach s novels continue to connect with a wide variety of readers. You are warily approaching the first sentence of my new novel, not wanting to be taken unaware, or not wanting to be plunged into something from which there is no perceptible exit or perhaps both at once, separate and inseparable concerns. The opening sentence, with your unspoken consent, has edged its way into the barely remembered past.

You: Or the Invention of Memory

Literature & Fiction

Jonathan Baumbach

Contemporary

Rager Media

Shots in the Dark collects all of novelist and critic Jonathan Baumbach's writings on film together for the first time. Includes major essays on directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Orson Welles, Brian De Palma and Robert Bresson, an autobiographical reflection on how his cinephilia has influenced his writing, a set visit to the debut film directed by his son Noah Baumbach, a consideration of fellow critic Pauline Kael, and a film-inspired poem written toward the end of his life. Jonathan Baumbach (1933-2019) was born in Brooklyn and was the author of seventeen books, including, Separate Hours, Reruns, Babble, The Life and Times of Major Fiction and A Man to Conjure With. His short stories have been widely anthologized, including Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories and All Our Secrets are the Same. He taught in the English department at Brooklyn College for over 30 years where he helped establish the MFA in creative writing. In 1974, he co-founded the Fiction Collective with Peter Spielberg, the first American non-profit author-run publishing house for experimental fiction. He has written extensively on film and is a former two-time chairman of the National Society of Film Critics. His first reviews were written in 1957 for Jonas Mekas's Film Culture when he was 23 years old and in the army. From 1973 to 1981, he was the regular film critic for Partisan Review. Published by Cat Thread Books.

Shots in the Dark

Film Desk Books

A literary magazine of fiction, poetry, and artwork, Open City has a youthful, adventurous spirit and an uncanny knack for finding vibrant and original voices. It’s a rare cultural phenomenon: a literary journal that entices readers and writers from each new generation, and makes people genuinely excited about literature and the thrill of discovering something fresh. Open City #22, a special double-sided fiction/nonfiction issue, features writing by Sam Lipsyte, Edmund White, Stanley Crouch, Priscilla Becker, Matthew Kirby, Ann Hillesland, and a stunning fiction debut by Suhay Rosario.

Open City #22: Fiction/Nonfiction

Jocko Weyland

Sam Lipsyte

Priscilla Becker

Herbert Gold

Open City Magazine

Leni Zumas

Vestal McIntyre

Jerry Stahl

Vince Passaro

United States

Open City Books

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Books by Jonathan Baumbach