A new issue of Open Letters Monthly is out. From n+1, as Brooklyn has changed, so has the gentrification novel, and today's writers are more likely to romanticize grimy dive bars than cornice moldings; still, taste continues to be presented as the force that defines city life. A review of Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel by Kristiaan Versluys. A review of Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor by Brad Gooch (and more; and more by Wendy Lesser at Bookforum). From LRB, a review essay on Guy de Maupassant. Grime and punishment: Four new literary stars expose the corruption and sleaze of modern-day life in Russia. A review of The Feminism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Sexualities, Histories, Progressivism by Judith A. Allen. When we read fiction, we also can’t help “reading” the author at the same time. The

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