Edwin Frank on Love and Death in the American Novel

In this episode of Private Life, Edwin Frank joins Jarrett Earnest to discuss Leslie A. Fiedler's Love and Death in the American Novel (1960), which was reissued by NYRB Classics in April. They discuss the preoccupations of Fiedler’s literary criticism, the process of putting together a collection of criticism, and Frank’s book Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth Century Novel (2024).  Edwin Frank is the editor of New York Review Books as well as the founder and editorial director of the NYRB Classics series. In addition to Stranger than Fiction, he has also released a collection of poems, Snake Train (2015). Leslie A. Fiedler (1917–2003) was a literary critic and novelist. He published two novels and three short story collections, as well as dozens of volumes of criticism, including The Stranger in Shakespeare (1972), Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self (1978), and Fiedler on the Roof: Essays on Literature and Jewish Identity (1991).  Next week’s episode will be a selection from Love and Death in the American Novel, read by the writer Rachel Kushner. You can find Love and Death in the American Novel at nyrb.com or at your favorite bookseller.