Max Pearl

In 2022 I had the pleasure of interviewing my favorite living author, Mexican novelist Fernanda Melchor, for New York Magazine. Ninety-five percent of that two-hour conversation hit the cutting-room floor—so I dusted off the transcript and published it as a two-part Q&A on Separator. It’s incredibly juicy, full of cutting wisdom, unforgettable anecdotes, and unexpected asides (like our shared past lives as hardcore ravers). Link in bio—don’t forget to subscribe. Saludos!

I’m very, very excited to be back in everybody’s favorite little magazine, The Baffler, with an essay about José María Velasco, the 19th-century landscape painter who forever changed the way Mexico sees itself. It’s also about the landscape genre more broadly, often considered suspect for its history as a kind of blood-and-soil propaganda, co-opted by everyone from the Manifest Destiny movement to the Nazi Party. I was thrilled when London’s National Gallery announced A VIEW OF MEXICO, the long-overdue travelling retrospective of this forgotten virtuoso, and then shocked when I saw it in Minneapolis to find they’d completely glossed over this history. My essay, about the importance of holding two thoughts simultaneously, at the link in bio.

In 1985, Ana Mendieta fell 34 floors from the high rise where she lived with her husband, the sculptor Carl Andre—who was later acquitted of her murder. The ensuing controversy drove battle lines through the New York art world and provided a rallying cry for future generations of artists and activists. For @vulture , I wrote about how to untangle Mendieta the artist from Mendieta the martyr. Huge thanks to my tireless editor @madelesque —link in bio as usual 🔗

I’m a couple cups deep on an air-o-plane and the movie selection sucks, so I find myself swiping through photos and reflecting on all the fine things I ate this season. Follow along, hungry people, starting with the best god damn Korean fried chicken I ever did have at Tofu Tofu in Chinatown, NYC, followed by the only photo I have from our house party where Jime made ~150 tamales like an absolute beast. Next up: crispy pork belly with prikking sauce at Chiang Mai Diner in Bushwick, plus steaming spoils from the Third Annual Bukka Osberg Crawfish Boil (shout out @molly__o ), which I later transformed into mud bug breakfast tacos with the leftovers. Moving right along: devilish mung bean jelly noodles (only $6.99) from NY Lhasa Liang Fen in Jackson Heights, and the bowl of pomodoro pasta I got for FREE at Jean’s after answering a full-page ad in the New York Review of Books (long story). Then some highlights from our Guatemala trip: the picosita—kinda like a michelada but with pico de gallo and shrimp on top—plus a rich soup called revolcado made with cow’s head, and a comforting caldo de gallina with our intrepid travel buddies at Mercado Central in Guatemala City. Topped off with one last shrimp cocktail at a roadside shack before we flew back to NY. Back in the frigid city I needed tropical comfort, so I had pernil and a piña colada at Super Pollo, an institution, plus a $7 jianbing (basically a Chinese savory crepe) in Greenwich Village. And of course we end with dessert: the platonic ideal of a cinnamon bun procured from, yes, Radio Bakery—where, by the way, there is no line Monday through Thursday 😉

This week on 𝓢𝓮𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓽𝓸𝓻, I wrote about LOVE AND DEATH IN THE AMERICAN NOVEL, the 500-page landmark work of literary criticism which argues that our entire narrative tradition stems from our unique aversion to sex. It took me for-fucking-EVER but feels like a post worthy of the newsletter’s one-year anniversary—if you can believe it! Link in bio, and please consider a paid subscription so I can take my editor @nhurowitz to lunch. Thanks for reading and here’s to another year fighting the fight against illiteracy 🥂 @nyrbooks

I wrote about JOBS—having one, not having one, and how it can be hard to know which is worse. Link in bio. Like, subscribe, and don’t forget to have that TPS report in my inbox by EOD

I wrote about BOMARZO, the greatest book you’ve never heard of—unless you are Argentine, or a huge nerd, or both. This newly reissued historical novel tells the story of a 16th-century Italian duke who, in an experimental twist that presaged “Interview with the Vampire,” chronicles his lifelong obsession with power from a place of immortality, roughly 400 years after the events of the novel take place. If that makes it sound like the kind of inscrutable tome worshipped by self-satisfied “brodernists,” I assure you it is a gripping and adventurous read. My essay for @nationmag , out now and at the link in bio

Can’t believe it’s been TEN YEARS since we snuck out of my grandpa’s house and got hitched in a bilingual ceremony at a Miami court house. I was wearing a purple bathing suit because I assumed this was a preliminary appointment and they wouldn’t marry us right then and there. There were pink paper cut-outs of cherubs hanging on the walls of the windowless room. We went out for pernil at Palacio de los Jugos after, then went to the club, and it’s basically been one big party ever since. Time flies when you’re having fun, but don’t you wish it would slow down just a tad?! I do. Happy anniversary @jimenajimena and sorry not sorry for the corny post

I translated a story by the Argentine novelist Federico Falco, from his debut 2004 collection. It’s about the tragedy of living in a world drained of wonder, and it’s devastating. Link in bio if you need a good cry 🐕

It was an honor and a treat to fill in for N+1 founder Keith Gessen last night, interviewing @sophiepinkham at the magazine’s headquarters to celebrate her book launch. My favorite chats were about what didn’t make it in, including one chapter on a Russian eco-nationalist Pagan cult called the Anastasia Movement that formed around a series of ‘90s fantasy novels. Given that I only had about two hours to prepare I’d say it went quite well! Here’s hoping they invite me back 😜 @nplusonemag

I ordered my copy of GRINGOS (1991) before embarking on our recent trip to Guatemala—not realizing that the book’s scruffy narrator and I would be following similar routes through the country’s northern jungles. It was perfect, not just because he and I were traipsing up and down the same Mayan pyramids, but because it evoked a bygone era of pre-internet expat life, when it took gumption, curiosity, and maybe even a bit of insanity for a gringo to shed the comforts of home. My essay on this cult adventure novel by the author of TRUE GRIT at the link in bio ;-)

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