Yesterday, I woke up with a familiar sensation, or what, for me, is a familiar sensation: a tingle in my upper lip. A slight, hair tickle itch. Fizzy, like I’ve rubbed my mouth with the skin of a habanero pepper. I went to the bathroom and turned on the light, unconcerned about burning my eyes with the sharp, sudden brightness. In the mirror, I saw the faint irritation lining a section of my lip about a quarter-inch long, barely noticeable. From experience, I knew it would erupt in the next few hours. A cold sore.

Emily Rapp is the guest. Her new memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World, is now available from Penguin.

Get the free official app. Subscribe for free at iTunes.

Today the library was hot, humid, and smelly. It was like working inside a giant pair of glass underpants without any leg holes to escape through. The building moved. It breathed. It seethed with bodies and thoughts moving in and out of people’s heads. Mostly out.

Whether naturally born or G-force bred, fighter pilots embody a unique strain: their hell-bent defiance of physical laws kept in check by a meticulous respect for man-made machinery. After serving a dozen years in the Air Force – flying combat missions in the Korean War – James Salter applied that elevated mix of risk and control to definitive novels of erotic discovery and marital malaise. As the author now approaches ninety, his latest novel, All That Is, finds the former officer devoted to a trio of tasks: setting his affairs in order, offering loving remembrance, and demonstrating his intent to stand firm to the end.

The radiator
has been cold for quite
a while and no sooner do we
put our sweaters on than we hear,
beyond our reading, a low, deep, faraway
snap, cool as the cue that comes from the fingertips
of a leaning-in bass singer in a doo-wop group, then more
snaps rise closer and higher in pitch, like other crooners creating

Your first novel is about the relationship between an aspiring female astronomer on Quaker Nantucket in the 1840s and an ambitious black Azorean whaler she’s tutoring in celestial navigation. That must have been a breeze!

Is this a question?

Storm Warning was a beautiful thoroughbred with a challenging personality. So many things spooked the horse: umbrellas, bicycles, small dogs, ponies, even people who removed an item of clothing while riding him. Storm, as he was called, was just a bit neurotic. But he lucked out in one way: he enjoyed a fifteen-year close relationship with Mary Stapleton, who happens to be a psychologist. Acutely attuned to people’s fears and anxieties, Mary transferred her insights and calming abilities to the horse. Even as Mary and Storm competed in the dressage ring, they worked together on Storm’s fears. In Mary’s words, Storm “learned to jump and face all of his terrors with great courage.”

Is it really true that you wrote this book while living in a storage unit?

I wrote the monologue in the storage unit – Life in a Marital Institution (20 Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Hour). The book I wrote in a couple of different houses and apartments, after the lease on my storage unit ran out.

How does one end up writing in a storage unit?

I was living in a very expensive coop apartment in New York City, when I finally accepted the material limitation that to pursue my dream of writing autobiographical stories, I needed more time, and to have more time I needed to lower my expenses.

Do you like asking yourself questions?

Hell no! I want to be asked questions. I want there to be a stream of people thrusting microphones in my face, snapping photographs, and asking me a thousand unanswerable questions which I simple deflect with a wave of my hand and a dazzling smile which reveal my perfect teeth as I keep walking, and pausing – occasionally – to sign autographs and wave and blow kisses. All to the music of Josh Ritter. So it’s kind of a swell but also poignant and about-to-fall-off-a-precipice feeling. Oh, and I’m also rocking some designer bling as I’m doing this. In high heels. Backward. George Clooney may be holding my arm too. Or Jonathan Rhys Meyers (since we share that bit about being expelled from school at the age of 16). I’d be heading off to a rally for some cool social-justice cause or to party hard, depending.

1979

The Listeners 

God was not responsible for what came to pass. People said it was karma, punishment in this life for past sins, fate. People said that no beauty was permitted in the world without some accompanying darkness to balance it out, and, surely, these children were beautiful. But what people said was unimportant; what befell them befell us all.

“Most people would rather convince themselves of being in love than of being happy, just as most people would rather believe they are talking to others when talking to themselves.”  –Sarah Manguso

This story will end with two women naked in a bathtub. Let’s say that, for now, it begins with a drive to Marfa, Texas. I was with one of my best and longest-time friends, Kaitlyn, on our way to spend an annual weekend getaway there. As Dallas faded into a haze in the rearview mirror, we half-joked that this time we were going to Marfa to find ourselves, our “center.” What we meant was that we were looking for some kind of fulfillment or self-sufficiency—maybe happiness is the word—but the joke was that, in reality, we would have preferred to bring our boyfriends with us…except that we didn’t have any. “Finding ourselves,” whatever that meant, would just have to serve as a consolation prize.

Richard caught the early Amtrack from Ardmore so he wouldn’t have to change trains in town. On the way, he tried to focus again on the two books he had bought and must now introduce to the other senior editors and to the heads of sales and marketing and publicity. He thought the books pretty much pitched themselves. And they already know my books do well, he assured himself.

Fiona Maazel is the guest. Her new novel, Woke Up Lonely, is now available from Graywolf Press.

Get the free official app. Subscribe for free at iTunes.

Baltimore-born Elisabeth Dahl has published short fiction, essays, and poetry but scored her debut novel, Genie Wishes, in an unlikely but emerging market for writers—middle grade (MG) fiction. Genie Wishes, which was released in April 2013 from ABRAMS/Amulet, is the story of Genie Haddock Kunkle, who, when the novel opens is starting fifth grade with her best friend, Sarah. Fifth grade brings a host of little earthquakes for Genie—she is elected class blogger and is forced to speak her mind to the entire fifth grade, a new girl—sophisticated Blair—joins their class, and worst of all, Blair and Sarah are becoming fast friends. As Genie approaches the first major crossroads of her young adult life, Dahl handles her with grace, charm, and quiet insight. I spoke with Elisabeth about the difficulties of transitioning from literary fiction to MG and why the books of our youth still hold such power over us.

When her father left the garret, Hannah stayed in her chair like a prisoner, trying to clear the clouds from her mind and concoct a sensible plan. The only thing that looked like salvation was Edward. She’d be allowed to stay if he were home to act as chaperone and guardian— though he’d be first to point out that their roles ought to be reversed. Together, they could manage to oversee the farm and the chronometers, and even a contract with the Coast Survey, should one materialize.