I don’t think the point of Beloved is to ask whether Sethe is justified, but whether it’s understandable that she >!kills her own child.!< In fact, I think the point might be to force readers to ask themselves whether they can still have compassion for a person who does that, if that person’s circumstances are desperate enough.

Yeah, I did a double take at that. It’s a book about the evils of capitalism, OP. You might want to re-read it.

Yes! Once you know he was young, it becomes more obvious on a re-read, since he really went ham on the prose, which is what younger/newer writers tend to do until they internalize the old adage “less is more.” But he was so good with his prose in The Last Unicorn, I don’t mind. :)

It’s so wonderful on so many levels. And he was like 23 or 24 when he wrote it. It’s rare that you find a writer that young who understands character and story so well.

The Last Unicorn is one of my all-time favorite books. Absolutely beautiful prose, sensitive character work, and (in the character of Schmendrick) a pitch-perfect depiction of what it’s like to be at the mercy of artistic inspiration.

I unironically love The Eye of Argon. There is such exuberance in it, and such an obvious love for the sword and sorcery genre. It’s fun, entertaining, and tremendously enjoyable. RIP, Jim.

Yeah, Joan Didion was such an incredible writer all around, and the deaths of her loved ones… you can feel her personal grief in the way she writes about them.

I don’t think any publishers manipulated Anne Rice. That’s not really how publishers work. (Source: am an author.)