Daphne Merkin

Literary critic, memoirist and novelist. My novel, 22 MINUTES OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, about erotic obsession, comes out in paperback on July 6th, 2021.

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

There is no way of understanding pro-Hamas & anti-Israel sentiment w/out understanding that anti-semitism always has been & will always be here to stay. Most of these protesters don't know the difference between a Palestinian civilian & a Hamas terrorist. It's yet 1 more tragedy.

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

@jorie_graham Dearest Jorie,
This doesn't take away from my affection 4 u but I wish you knew more about the situation in Israel before tweeting your expectable, bien pense thoughts. Hamas has bred nothing but homicidal fury in the Palestinians for decades. Whose government is insane?

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

A Master Anatomist of Ordinary People in Difficult Times https://t.co/fvS9ZzboOt

[Wall Street Journal Opinion @WSJopinion]

Israel has been given a pass for a few days in which it can elicit sympathy, before the country is demonized again as the sole aggressor in the region and Jews fall victim to open, unbridled declarations of anti-Semitism, writes @DaphneMerkin
https://t.co/b4ZjnpBXDT

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

An Israeli Painter’s Broad-Minded Brush by @DaphneMerkin https://t.co/8jwN1v6RDv via @WSJopinion

[The Atlantic @TheAtlantic]

It takes grit and a certain amount of single-mindedness on the part of an author these days to write a very long novel that tries to encompass an entire world, writes @DaphneMerkin. All the more reason to be impressed with the work of Nathan Hill. https://t.co/nUtet3FDob

[Gal Beckerman @galbeckerman]

"From the first paragraphs on, it is clear that we are in the hands of a gifted stylist and an original thinker on whom, as Henry James had it, nothing is lost."

@DaphneMerkin makes the case for Nathan Hill as an heir to Pynchon and DFW.

https://t.co/3EixMzvkC5

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

I am writing in as the author of the rave Helen Garner review. What amazed me was that I, as a voracious & wide-ranging reader, had never heard of her -- yet another sign of the insularity of American book publishing...

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

I wonder how long it will take before the Israelis are seen as the oppressors despite the fact that they have been the victim of wholesale terror in this instance & whether the issue of civilian casualties, always made so much of when Israel counter-attacks, will be sidelined...

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

The writer of the essentially anti-Israeli piece at the NYRB is David Shulman.

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

I stayed up late into the morning 2 read the NYRB piece on Israel,full of the usual bien pense sentiments about The Occupation (as if all of Israel were the occupation) & the sad Palestinians whose lives are ruined& only want peace, only 2 wake up 2 the news this morning of war

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

@ruth_franklin Hi Ruth, Congratulations and mazel tov! As a former book editor, I don't love the title. I think it should be the sub-title, under a more poetic title. But that's a quibble...

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

@HadleyFreeman Because they're terminally self-involved with no sense that there are real people who exist outside of them who may not be interested in why they can't make this class or that appointment.
One of the greater insults in the public domain...

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

@wesyang As someone who regularly murders my skin & wrote a piece yrs ago called "Am I Tan Enough" (asked by Warren Beatty at the beginning of Bugsy when he gets off a tanning machine), I think it is a crucial anti-depressant. Both Sexton & Plath were avid tanners. I rest my case.

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

@Culture_Crit Depressed.

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

I've been working on this piece for over a week, getting totally entangled with her. Such an admirable, wounded creature. : https://t.co/qMRFoCAa4L

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

@billmaher Good friends keep asking why I've never been on your show. Why don't u do one on Sinead O'Connor? She's fascinating & tragic; I'm writing about her now for The New Republic.

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

@elseverwoerd @raiders_jones Nor has Ronan ever agreed 2 a DNA test...There's a new a book about the Farrows that sheds some light on Mia but it disappeared as soon as it appeared.

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

I'm reading an excellent book called WIFEDOM, about George Orwell's first wife -- as opposed to his 2nd wife, Sonia, to whom he was married for about 10 minutes. Revelatory & sad...Altho we know that it continues to exist,I wish we could come up w/ a new word for "patriarchy".

[Daphne Merkin @DaphneMerkin]

@DouthatNYT I agree with you and wanted to say that I admire much of you what you write.