Are novels boring? In Defense of An Art Form

Even in an age when fiction must compete with blogs and Facebook and tweets and God knows whatever else is about to take over, novels continue to amaze and astound and entertain me, in all of their various forms and setting and styles. One of the latest styles, however, starts to worry me, posing questions about exactly what a novel is and whether it still excites a shrinking coterie of fiction readers.  read more

The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen

My mission as Books Editor at Paste has always been broader than books. I’ve devoted six years at the magazine to the consideration of good writing and good writers from a Southern perspective—to literary review with a southern accent, if you will.   read more

Thomas Mullen: The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers

Robbing banks, stealing hearts Atlanta-based writer Thomas Mullen set his critically lauded first novel, The Last Town on Earth, in the Pacific Northwest during the terrible Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. From the 90-years-past reality he invokes in the evergreen mists of Washington, he clearly researches as well as he writes. Mullen also had an uncanny prescience—H1N1 was just a series of random letters and numbers when he released his frightening account of a world dying in a flu plague....  read more

The Booky Man: Plague Upon Your Houses

Undecided on that flu shot? Read Thomas Mullen. You’ll be ready to stand in line for a vaccination....  read more