author

With his six-volume magnum opus “My Struggle,” Karl Ove Knausgaard became one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists.

At once epic and intimate in scope, the books used the raw material of Knausgaard’s life to answer questions about male identity, the obligations of fatherhood and marriage, and what it takes to become a serious artist. In his new novel, “The School of Night,” Knausgaard further explores the mysteries of artistic greatness, using as his template Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus.” Knausgaard sets his story in mid-1980s London, where two aspiring photographers named Kristian and Hans try to find their footing in the art world.

I spoke to the Norwegian writer about the devil, photography and Radiohead.

✍️ Author Chat

Your novel’s plot and characters are based on Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus,” which is about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil. Was this something you’ve been thinking about for a while?

I read Thomas Mann’s novel “Doctor Faustus” when I was 19 and it made a big impression on me. It’s been with me ever since then. The devil theme has hovered over some novels I’ve written, so it remained, and then I wanted to set this novel in London, where I now live, and where Marlowe was murdered. I wanted all of this in the background, but I didn’t know how to use it. That came during the writing.

The two young artists in “The School of Night” are photographers, an art form that has long been associated with the occult and summoning the unseen world. One thinks of the spirit photography trend of the 19th century in England.

I wrote about the first photograph in the novel, shot by Daguerre in 1848. I have it on my wall in my office. It’s a Paris street, which I find very unsettling and spooky, because even though it’s daytime there are no people on the street because the exposure was too slow to capture them. There’s just this lone figure, in the center of the frame who looks like the devil. I find it intriguing that the devil might have been present when the first photograph was taken.

Karl Ove Knausgaard, one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists, sets his newest novel, “The School of Night,” in mid-1980s London.

(Solve Sundsbo for D2)

I think one of the reasons for the enduring appeal of the Faust legend is, if given the chance, most people would sell their souls for success, especially artists.

I think you’re right. And it is also a way of explaining something that is really mysterious, how a kind of normal, maybe even mediocre person could achieve something great overnight. When I was 19, I could have cut off my left arm to just have a book published. And when I wrote “My Struggle,” I was so frustrated in my writing, I was willing to go to extremes, to just make something happen. And then I didn’t think much about that when I wrote “The School of Night.” But it’s all kind of obvious to me afterwards that I use that feeling of doing something I really shouldn’t, and I could have stopped, but I still did it.

To your point: Kristian, your protagonist, has an artistic breakthrough when he photographs a dead cat that he has boiled. I guess my question is: A boiled cat?

Oh, that’s just due to the way I write. I never know what’s going to happen in a book. He’s starting to think about inner structures that keep up life somehow. And then, he thinks, how could he take photos of that? Well, maybe a cat. And then you have to practically get a cat. And then it’s like 25 pages of me describing how to boil a cat. I never planned it, you know.

Do you not outline your novels beforehand?

No, never, I’ve never done that. I do really try to be present and see what happens there. And then there will always be consequences of the choices you make, and that will eventually be the novel. And in this case, the character is different from me, so his choices will be different, and that creates a different trajectory, really.

Your characters are music obsessives in ways that only men in their 20s can be: curating their record collections, and so on.

When I was young, music really meant almost everything to me. When I was 15, I went to a local newspaper and asked to review records for them. And I had my own radio show. I’m not obsessed anymore, but I did see Radiohead at the O2 Arena recently. They are the last band I really wanted to see, and it was absolutely fantastic. I had tears running down my cheeks.

(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

📰 The Week(s) in Books

George Saunders’ new novel might be the dark humor read you need right now, writes Robert Allen Papinchak.

(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; cover from Riverhead Books)

George Saunders has published a new novel called “Vigil,” and Robert Allen Papinchak is besotted by it, calling it a “virtuoso achievement, an immersive experience for the reader.”

Nathan Smith had a Zoom chat with author Martha Ackmann about her new Dolly Parton biography, “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool,” and got the lowdown on how Parton’s fixation with over-the-top wigs began. “Her promotions man happened to be dating an actress who had a big part in the television series ‘Mr. Ed,’ ” Ackmann tells Smith. “This actress took her around, showed her L.A. and they went to the Max Factor store and tried on wigs.”

In an excerpt from this new book, “Football,” Chuck Klosterman makes a case for America’s favorite sport as best viewed in the privacy of our living rooms. “It’s not just that you can see a game better when you watch it on television,” he writes. “Television is the only way you can see it at all.”

Finally, Bethanne Patrick gives us the lowdown on the must-read books of February.

📖 Bookstore Faves

Fear not, grown-ups: Our kids are not digital zombies just yet. In fact, children’s bookstores are thriving in Los Angeles. Children’s Book World is the largest independent bookstore of its kind in the city, with over 80,000 titles for sale. The store is a wonderland of printed matter for kids, with readings, book clubs and even musical performances. I spoke with the store’s manager Brien Lopez to get the lowdown on what our kids are reading.

What’s selling right now?

T.Z. Layton’s “The Academy” series, which is about a global soccer competition for tweens, is one of our best sellers. This series has lots of boys who were not avid readers becoming strong fiction readers because they are about a subject they love and they are really fun reads.

What kind of YA books are popular right now?

For our particular store we sell lots of sunshine romance particularly targeted to new teens like Lynn Painter’s books, as well as both mysteries and suspense thrillers like Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ “Inheritance Games” series. Dystopian sci fi is also popular, like Soyoung Park’s “Snowglobe” duology.

Who are the popular authors?

We just had a 2,000-person event with Dav Pilkey for his new “Dog Man” book and how he gets kids excited about books and reading just can’t be underestimated. We also had big events with beloved authors Katherine Applegate, Stuart Gibbs and Max Brallier. Middle grade fiction and graphic novels are very popular at our store.

Are kids still interested in books, despite all the distractions in their lives?

Kids definitely are interested in books if they are allowed to read about subjects they enjoy and books they love. The moment you tell a child there is a good book versus a bad book to read you have stopped that kid’s reading journey in its tracks. Let kids read the books they love and they will do it for a lifetime.

Children’s Book World in Los Angeles is located at 10580 1/2 W. Pico Blvd.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

Writer Neil Gaiman denied sexual misconduct allegations first brought forth against him over a year and a half ago in a statement released Monday.

Gaiman, the bestselling fantasy author behind “The Sandman” comic books, and novels and shows “American Gods” and “Good Omens,” called the allegations, which emerged in the summer of 2024, a “smear campaign” that are “simply and completely untrue.”

“These allegations, especially the really salacious ones, have been spread and amplified by people who seemed a lot more interested in outrage and getting clicks on headlines rather than whether things had actually happened or not,” Gaiman wrote.

Five women first accused the 65-year-old British author of sexual misconduct in the summer of 2024, appearing in the Tortoise Media podcast “Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman.” The women claimed Gaiman had them call him “master” during their alleged sexual encounters.

Eight women then accused the author of assault, abuse and coercion in an article published by New York magazine just over a year ago.

Scarlett Pavlovich, Gaiman’s former nanny, filed a lawsuit against the author and his estranged wife Amanda Palmer, almost exactly a year ago, accusing the couple of human trafficking. She alleged that she was brutally and repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by Gaiman while working for the couple without pay.

“Gaiman repeatedly physically and emotionally abused Scarlett, raping her vaginally and anally, humiliating her, forcing her into sexual conduct in front of Gaiman’s child, and forcing her to touch and lick feces and urine,” the complaint states. Gaiman called Pavlovich “slave” and ordered her to call him “master,” the complaint states.

The abuse took place while Pavlovich was providing babysitting services for the couple in New Zealand in 2022, according to the suit.

All other allegations against the author stemmed from the 1990s to 2022, when he was living in the United States, Britain and New Zealand.

The author has sold more than 50 million copies of his books worldwide, and many have received film and television adaptations over the years. His work drew a large female readership, typically uncommon for comic-book writers. The allegations clashed with the self-proclaimed feminist writer’s public persona.

Gaiman has spent the last year out of the spotlight, after publishing company Dark Horse Comics cut ties with him shortly after the New York magazine article was published. Gaiman was also dropped from various film and TV adaptations of his work, including the final season of Amazon’s “Good Omens” and the streamer’s new “Anansi Boys” TV series.

He was also left out of press for the final season of Netflix’s “The Sandman” last year and Disney halted development of “The Graveyard Book” months after the initial allegations.

The author last publicly addressed the allegations a day after the New York magazine article was released, and wrote he had stayed quiet “both out of respect for the people who were sharing their stories and out of a desire not to draw even more attention to a lot of misinformation.”

At the time, Gaiman wrote that he “could have and should have done so much better,” admitting that he “was obviously careless with people’s hearts and feelings, and that’s something that I really, deeply regret. It was selfish of me. I was caught up in my own story and I ignored other people’s.”

Gaiman’s most recent statement comes just days after an unidentified Substack user who goes by TechnoPathology posted the latest in a series of articles over the last year defending the fantasy author.

Gaiman claimed he hasn’t been in contact with the anonymous poster but would “like to thank them personally for actually looking at the evidence and reporting what they found, which is not what anyone else had done.”

He said “the actual evidence was dismissed or ignored” by most reporting, including “mountains” of “emails, text messages and video evidence that flatly contradict” the claims.

The author also announced in the statement that he’s been working on a book throughout the “strange, turbulent and occasionally nightmarish year and a half.” The project is his longest since the 450-plus-page “American Gods,” he said.

“It’s a rough time for the world,” Gaiman wrote. “I look at what’s happening on the home front and internationally, and I worry; and I am still convinced there are more good people out there than the other kind.”

Demond Wilson, who was best known for playing Lamont Sanford, the son of Redd Foxx’s character on the 1970s TV show “Sanford and Son,” died in his sleep at his home in the Coachella Valley on Jan. 30. He was 79.

Wilson’s publicist, Mark Goldman, confirmed that he died from complications related to cancer.

“Demond was surrounded by love throughout his final days,” Goldman said in a statement. “A devoted father, actor, author, and minister, Demond lived a life rooted in faith, service, and compassion. Through his work on screen, his writing, and his ministry, he sought to uplift others and leave a meaningful impact on the communities he served.”

Demond Wilson attends the 2016 Chiller Theater Expo at the Parsippany Hilton in New Jersey on April 22, 2016.

(Bobby Bank / WireImage)

Grady Demond Wilson was born in Valdosta, Ga., on Oct. 13, 1946, and grew up in New York City. His mother, Laura, was a dietitian, and his father, Grady Wilson, was a tailor. Wilson learned tap dance and ballet and appeared on Broadway at just 4 years old. After serving in the Army from 1966 to 1968 in Vietnam, where he was wounded, he made his TV debut in 1971, playing a burglar alongside Cleavon Little in Norman Lear’s sitcom “All in the Family.” That role led to his casting in “Sanford and Son” in 1972, which was notable at the time for having a nearly all-Black cast.

Redd Foxx, left, broods next to Demond Wilson about one of the 3,000 pieces used on the “pleasantly junky” set of “Sanford and Son.”

(NBC)

Although “Sanford and Son” was his most famous role, Wilson also appeared in “Baby, I’m Back,” “The New Odd Couple” and “Girlfriends.” His last TV appearance was in “Eleanor’s Bench” in 2023.

Despite his success, Wilson left acting, sold his Bel-Air mansion and Rolls-Royce and became an interdenominational preacher in 1983.

The change was not surprising given his background. “I was raised a Catholic, was an altar boy, and at 14 I seriously considered becoming a priest,” Wilson told The Times in 1986. When he was 12, his appendix ruptured and he nearly died, leading him to promise to serve God as an adult. “I was always aware that God was the guiding force in my life,” he said.

Disillusioned with Hollywood, Wilson moved his wife and children to what he jokingly called a “respectable, Republican, upper-middle-class” neighborhood in Mission Viejo. He wanted his five children at the time to have “normal childhoods.” “We’ve left the rat race and false people behind,” he said.

Wilson was also an author. He published “The New Age Millennium: An Exposé of Symbols, Slogans and Hidden Agendas” in 1998, and his autobiography, “Second Banana: The Bittersweet Memoirs of the Sanford & Son Years,” in 2009. He also wrote 11 children’s books.

Wilson is survived by his wife, Cicely; his six children, Nicole, Melissa, Christopher, Demond Jr., Tabitha and Sarah; and his two grandchildren, Madison and Isabella.

The stunning circular walking trail, perfect for a relaxed day out, is believed to have inspired one of the most famous authors of our time — and it’s right here in the UK.

A breathtaking walking route in Lancashire boasts an incredibly famous link to a bestselling author and has formed the inspiration behind a mammoth blockbuster film trilogy.

It’s well known that JRR Tolkien drew inspiration from Lancashire’s spectacular countryside whilst penning The Lord of the Rings, which was clearly reflected in his portrayal of Middle Earth. For decades, countless visitors have travelled from across the globe to trace the footsteps of the legendary fantasy writer.

During World War Two, Tolkien and his spouse frequently stayed at a guesthouse within Stonyhurst College’s grounds, where their son had allegedly been evacuated. This timeframe coincided with his writing of The Lord of the Rings, reports Lancs Live.

He’s believed to have sought refuge in Hurst Green village in the Ribble Valley, whose verdant and enchanting environment directly shaped The Lord of the Rings as well as his children’s fantasy tale The Hobbit.

Indeed, devotees of The Hobbit will recognise that Hobbiton and the Shire drew their inspiration from Hurst Green’s magnificent rural splendour and neighbouring regions.

The terrain surrounding Stonyhurst College also appears within Tolkien’s bestselling novels, and there’s even a complete 5.5 mile circular route called the Tolkien Trail which guides walkers through numerous locations they’d encounter referenced – or directly inspired by – in Tolkien’s masterpieces.

Renowned for his passion for woodland scenery and the natural world, several names and locations in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings bear striking resemblance to those found in reality around Hurst Green, including Shire Lane and the River Shirebourn, which shared its name with the very family who owned the Stonyhurst estate.

Tolkien is famously reported to have devoted considerable time ‘in a classroom on the upper gallery of Stonyhurst College’ crafting Lord of the Rings.

The Tolkien Trail itself is packed with historic sites, each more captivating than the previous. Beginning and concluding near the Shireburn Arms – a celebrated gastro pub in Hurst Green – the approximately five-and-a-half-mile Tolkien Trail guides walkers through breathtaking vistas.

The Shireburn Arms itself is a 17th-century establishment which has preserved many of its period features. Celebrated for its cuisine, this independent pub features a welcoming fireplace in the public room – particularly popular with visitors during the colder months.

The Tolkien Trail guides walkers past Stonyhurst College and the historic yet famous Cromwell’s Bridge, named after Oliver Cromwell.

Initially built in 1562, Cromwell is believed to have led his forces across the ancient bridge whilst travelling from Walton-le-Dale to participate in the 1648 Battle of Preston.

The Tolkien Trail also leads visitors past Hacking Hall – a 17th-century, Grade I listed Jacobean residence located near where the River Calder meets the River Ribble. Despite being privately-owned, it remains a beloved landmark amongst walkers, particularly those who have embarked upon the Tolkien Trail.

Tolkien’s Trail also guides adventurers through verdant fields and agricultural pathways, offering hikers classic Ribble Valley countryside panoramas.

Additional remarkable features along the route include a 19th-century observatory, the 18th century Hodder Place – a former educational establishment that initially functioned as a mill owner’s home – alongside a partially-medieval barn.

Peaceful waterside sections and endless vistas of the Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) render the Tolkien Trail an ideal ramble for those seeking to undertake a relaxed stroll.

Between two and a half to three hours represents an appropriate timeframe to dedicate to this historical walking route.

Delighted visitors have flocked to Tripadvisor to praise the trail, with one writing: “The Tolkien Trail is a scenic 5.5-mile walk through the beautiful Ribble Valley, offering lush woodlands, riverside paths, and peaceful countryside.

“Inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s time at nearby Stonyhurst College, the trail is easy to follow and perfect for a relaxed day out. The mix of history and nature makes it a must for Tolkien fans and casual walkers alike. A great spot for a picnic with magical views!”.

Meanwhile another hiker said: ” Loved the walk. Great views and stunning scenery. Can understand this would inspire the imagination. Easy recommend.”

One visitor said: “The views and the surrounding area are exactly what you want on a walk, fresh air and green spaces with rolling hills and the rivers to marvel at too.”

How to get there

The village of Hurst Green is located approximately 5 miles west of Clitheroe and nine and a half miles northeast of Preston. Limited car parking is available in the village.

Regular bus services also operate between Clitheroe, Preston, and Whalley, stopping at Hurst Green.

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