An incomplete list of things I’ve read and watched that have inspired Lives We Might Have Lived. Depending on the school of literary criticism, examining the works an author was familiar with and inspired by may or not be useful for studying a text, but it is always fun. I hope that the most ardent adherents to Barthes would still allow themselves the simple pleasure of knowing how life and art inspires life and art.
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy
The Outpost, by Jake Tapper
The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
First Cow, directed by Kelly Reichardt
Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney
Atonement, by Ian McEwan
No Country for Old Men, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (the book, too, but if I have to choose one it’s the film)
The Farewell, directed by Lulu Wang
Driftless, by David Rhodes
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
The Deer Hunter, directed by Michael Cimino
The Bear, by William Faulkner
Big Two-Hearted River, by Ernest Hemingway
A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor
I Refuse, by Per Petterson
True Grit, by Charles Portis
eloquent mumbler 