Percy’s work featured in national media
The work of St. Olaf College Writer in Residence Benjamin Percy has recently been featured in Esquire magazine and the Wall Street Journal, as well as on National Public Radio.
Percy wrote an essay on aging for the April issue of Esquire, in which he discusses his anxiety about growing old and shares stories from the lives of his grandfather and his father.
“Physical aging is what we see, but psychological aging is what we feel. They don’t always advance together,” he writes in the essay. “Often the mind gives in before the body. Once the indestructibility of youth is gone, people start to feel old even though their body remains quite capable.”
In addition, the May issue of Esquire will feature an excerpt from Percy’s next novel, Red Moon. The excerpt, which is already available online, begins with the prosaic scene of a man sitting on an airplane before things turn horrific when a werewolf emerges from the restroom.
Red Moon, which has been listed as one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2013, is due out May 7. A video trailer of the book is currently available on the Entertainment Weekly website.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal has published an article that Percy wrote on the use of ticking clocks in fiction, a device that also appears in Red Moon.
“Maybe there’s nothing so terrifying in the world as the long, few seconds that tick down when a character hears a strange sound behind a door — and approaches it,” Percy writes.
Finally, Percy’s review of Aleksandar Hemon’s new memoir appeared on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” In the review, Percy says that the book is “a collection of thorned, blood-red roses that make beauty out of [Hemon’s] broken past.”