Imaginary career …

… the sacred and the mundane - bookforum.com / current issue. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

A collection such as Suitable Accommodations is usually an opportunity to celebrate a writer’s work, particularly when that work is not as widely appreciated as it ought to be. On this basis alone, it’s unfortunate that Katherine Anne Powers chose to frame this volume as the great book her father never wrote, instead of as a companion to the great books he did write. Worse, the conceit seems to have begotten other unfortunate editorial decisions. The volume ends midway through Powers’s life—just as he receives the National Book Award and the widest recognition he would ever have—because, KAP writes, “the novel Jim might have written concludes here.”