Unnamable is back...
...a revenant in your inbox
What began almost four years ago as a project to interview writers who, in my opinion, were at the bleeding edge of our art, has been on hiatus since the end of 2022.
In the meantime, a lot has happened. I have taken on some significant writing projects, including my recently published book, The Third Solitude: A Memoir Against History. I have also translated one book and begun translating another by the same author. A second book project is in the works (about which I shall have more to say soon).
After much hemming and hawing I have decided to revive Unnamable (formerly The Unnamable) for the simple reason that the kind of writing I most admire appears to be receiving even less attention than it did at the beginning of this decade. I believe this has to do, in small part, with the collapse of Twitter, where for a brief period writers used to gather with some sense of digital community; it was easier to read one another. The greater share of the blame lies at the feet of the big publishing houses, who have further restricted their domain of concern with the aim of making sales more reliable and predictable. We are the poorer for it.
In the coming months, I hope to introduce you to some writers you may not know, or else bring you further into the minds of those you’ve heard about or grown to admire. I will be discontinuing the “Nameless Questionnaire,” but may revive it somewhere down the line.
Two new things: First, in proportion as I widen my own intellectual horizons to non-literary artists working today, this site will now increasingly highlight painters, musicians, photographers, and troubadours of the transmedia, even as its primary subject will remain the writer. Lastly, with a promise not to turn this into a soapbox, I will also occasionally share my own thoughts with you, in lieu of a separate substack created for that purpose. I invite those of you who didn’t sign up for these new features — and those of you who had entirely forgotten you ever subscribed and now wish you hadn’t — to unsubscribe, if you so desire. That said, you’re sure to lose a good thing…
Like Facebook I have dropped the “the.” Unlike Facebook, I have no plans to ruin your attention span. In fact I hope to do the opposite.
As always it is free to subscribe. But a little also goes a long way in the daily life of a writer who doesn’t earn much. As you like.
— BL