In Slate this week, I argued that the urge to find a logical backstory for the marathon bombing suspect — to imagine that, in the right circumstances, someone could have stopped him — is a habit we’ve honed by watching “quality TV:”

This is how television crowds into our lives: I know I wasn’t the only one who watched the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing while guiltily making comparisons to Homeland. I thought back to the chilling scenes, in Season 1 of the Showtime series, when Nick Brody, the POW-turned-terrorist, donned a suicide vest and prepared to visit destruction on Washington, D.C. I remembered the carnage at the end of Season 2, when a bomb goes off at a crowded event, killing and wounding scores of innocents. The reality of a terror attack—the senseless deaths, the horrific injuries—was, among other things, a kind of rebuke, a reminder of how easily we lap up these entertainments.

—

Why do so many people want to understand Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? To find within him some speck of humanity?

That’s not an accusation; it’s a statement of fact. In the weeks since the Boston Marathon bombings — in columns, in tweets, in hushed and guilty conversations — there has been a widespread urge to get inside the suspect’s head, to imagine him somehow brainwashed, bullied, regretful. Not everyone feels this way, of course. But it’s not hard to view Tsarnaev differently from the 9/11 bombers, or from Jared Lee Loughner or Adam Lanza, two other young men who committed mass murder in recent months.

Those men, the common narrative goes, were sick. Distant. Separate. Tsarnaev was different. Before the mayhem, he seemed to be one of us.

This is a pressing mystery of the bombings, and the fact that we’re hunting for answers doesn’t mean we’re going soft. It doesn’t mean we aren’t angry.

It has to do with unanswered questions, both general and specific, and the hope that somehow, answers could prevent further attacks. How do small numbers of young men grow radicalized? How do they lose their humanity? How do they evolve from boys — with friends, parents, social lives — to killers?

Read the rest of the column here.

Couric wasn’t Oprah, so she didn’t have that grand bearing, that Oprah-esque way of suggesting that someone has Wronged The Nation and Must Be Set Right.
But then, Te’o didn’t wrong a nation so much as he confused and unwittingly entertained it. So Couric’s demeanor fit: She was more like your high school friend’s nice-but-nosy mom, who would sit you down at the kitchen table and pour you a Coke and ask you probing questions about your life. With Te’o, she couldn’t believe the answers — not because she’s a journalist with a killer instinct, but because she’s a human being with a normal amount of sense in her head.

(Read the rest of my post from Boston.com’s The Angle blog here.)

It’s two and a half minutes long, so I left out a lot of guns.

Less than a month after the Newtown tragedy, this is what Hollywood is peddling, without shame: A firearms-glorifying culture that competes, inside our brains, with the impulse to stop the spread of actual firearms. A few weeks ago, the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns posted a video featuring outraged-looking movie stars, urging the public to rally for gun control. Someone soon reposted it on YouTube, spliced with images of those actors shooting guns onscreen.

The blanket charge of hypocrisy wasn’t entirely fair. Some of those scenes were actually trying to spoof gun culture. Sometimes violence is used in the service of art. And studios wouldn’t make these movies if the public didn’t want them, right?

Well, maybe, maybe not.

(Read the rest of my Boston Globe column here.)

That’s how Armstrong tried to present himself for the last two nights, criticizing himself while displaying scant emotion, declaring — unconvincingly — that he’s happier now, with the truth laid bare, than he was when he was winning all those races.

The substance of his confession isn’t really news: He doped for years, lied about it, and vilified anyone who told the truth. That’s why the most instructive thing he said came Thursday night, when he offered a damning explanation of why he did it: not because he wanted to win, not because everyone else was doing it, but because he was too weak to put an end to the story he’d helped create. His was the “perfect” tale, he said, the athlete who beat cancer and went on to win the Tour de France seven times.

“Behind that picture, and behind that story, was momentum,” Armstrong said. “And I lost myself in all that.”

I WON! I won! And here I am, up here, looking down at all of you, and I’m so nervous! It’s terrifying to be adored during award season! I just don’t know what to say!

Luckily, I prepared this acceptance speech.

First, I have to thank this esteemed body of voters, which has been giving me these awards since I was a child. People say this is a second-tier award, but I don’t care, because everybody wants one anyway. Just look at that pop star across the room, glaring at me. She lost a few minutes ago, and now her soul is turning black.

Next, I’d like to thank my team: My manager Bob, my publicist Sue — I adore you, Sue — my folks at ICA, my peeps at CVS, Ms. Prunetta, who makes all of my daily style and juice decisions, and Orville, who gets my groceries.

(Read on.)

LAST WEEKEND, more than 1,000 people gathered in Steubenville, Ohio, a small town with a history of high school football glory, to support the victim of an alleged rape. These kinds of rallies happen from time to time, largely on college campuses. What made this one striking was the fact that many protesters were wearing Guy Fawkes masks.

Those masks are a trademark of Anonymous, the shadowy collective of hackers that has taken on Steubenville as a vigilante cause. In terms of criminal justice, this is far from ideal. But for our culture at large, it represents an unlikely glimmer of hope.

(Read on.)

Twelve amazing authors have come together to offer you an amazing opportunity to sample their latest novels just in time for the holidays—12 awesome samples and quirky holiday-themed interviews in one FREE downloadable PDF.

Whether you like to read mysteries, romance, young adult, women’s fiction, or suspense—this group has a book for you.

First Snow – Christine Cunningham
After The Fog – -Kathleen Shoop
A Charming Crime -  Tonya Kappes
Come Back To Me – Melissa Foster
Read Me Dead – Emerald Barnes
The Halo Effect – MJ Rose
Dancing Naked In Dixie – Lauren Clark
The Last Supper – Michaelene McElroy
The Hurricane Lover – Joni Rodgers
The Hounding – Sandra de Helen
Milkshake – Joanna Weiss
The Ninth Step – Barbara Taylor Sissel

Each excerpt is prefaced by information about the book and its author. Concluding each excerpt is an order page with clickable links to several online retailers
You can download the PDF “Holiday Sampler” here http://bit.ly/eBookSamples, and share it with friends by sending them this link: http://bit.ly/eBookSamples.

So go ahead and sample these fantastic novels from amazing writers! And don’t forget to help spread the word!

Happy holidays and happy reading!

What is the working title of your book?

Well, the title on my computer file is “Rich Bostonians in Progress,” but I can’t really imagine that on a bookshelf. Titles are hard for me, so I’m going to wait. But the theme is class warfare, and the many ways it plays out in people’s real lives.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

A couple of years ago, a book editor told my former agent that she was interested in books about the very rich. I didn’t take it as a directive, but it got me thinking. I started recalling the encounters I’d had, mostly as a journalist, with very wealthy people. Some characters sprang to mind (I’ll never say who) but also, a specific memory: I was in a cavernous apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which had been renovated n a really ostentatious way, and, in a powder room, I came across the very same ceramic drawer pull that I had recently put in the kitchen of my much, much smaller house. The idea cracked me up at the time – this little blue knob was the one place where our lifestyles intersected! – but now, it got me thinking about those interactions, between upper- and middle-classes, upper- and working-classes, and where people might find common ground.

What genre does your book fall under?

Like my first novel, “Milkshake,” I consider this social satire – it would fit under “humor” in the Amazon listings – though it also counts as general fiction. (And it has a love story!)

 Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Ooh, I love this one! The centerpiece of the book is a patrician matriarch and her husband, and in my dream world, they’re played by Susan Sarandon and Tom Wilkinson. The narrator is a young do-gooder who serves the sort of role Anne Hathaway played in “The Devil Wears Prada” (though perhaps less fashion-forward), so I’ll take her, as well. And for the black-sheep son of the rich family? Paul Dano. There’s also a great part I’d give to Jamie Foxx.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

When the ne’er-do-well son of a wealthy family pulls a “performance art” stunt that roils Boston, he and his family try to make amends — forcing them to collide with different classes, and different worlds.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’ll have to see when it’s finished. It’s great to be able to explore both options, and to tap into a growing and vibrant indie community if I decide to go that way.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It’s still going!

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

That’s a tough question, because I don’t want to sound like I’m making false or self-aggrandizing comparisons. But I loved “The Corrections” for the way it really dug into the emotional life of a family, and, more recently, I loved “The Art of Fielding” for the way it explored a specific place. And Christopher Buckley’s books are always models to me, for the way he wields satire and social observation.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I had so much fun writing “Milkshake” – and got such interesting, heartfelt reactions from readres — that I knew I had to try again. Even if it killed me.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I hope it will be funny! Think an old guy who wears a Speedo around the house and is obsessed with the Mayan flute. And then picture him played by Tom Wilkinson.

Thanks again to Samantha, who has her own second-novel-in-progress. And then go read Meredith O’Brien’s blog, “Notes from the Asylum,” where she chronicles her novel, “Mortified: A Novel About Over-Sharing,” which sounds terrific!

Praise for Milkshake

“SMART, COMPASSIONATE, gently ferocious and always hilarious, MILKSHAKE is about the spectrum of women’s mothering choices, breasts, breastfeeding, and babes, and how competition doth make fools of us all. Utterly charming.”

– Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us and The Stormchasers

“I REALLY RELATED to the characters of the book, and didn’t want to put it down…It’s definitely a great read for any mom.”

- Jodi Grundig, momsfavoritestuff.com

“IT’S NOT JUST THE social commentary factor (which, by the way, is not in any way anti-breastfeeding — only anti-zealot) that makes this novel such a pleasure. It’s the imminently amusing characters and clever storyline that make it a chuckle-out-loud, parodying page-turner about the politics of the new momism.”

– Stephanie Knaak, motherhood-cafe.com

“READ THIS BOOK while you’re in the middle of nursing a cluster-feeding 6-week old; read it while you pump; read it while you formula feed. Just read it, because no matter how you’re feeding your baby, you’ll laugh at yourself. And god knows, we could all stand to do a little more of that.”

– Suzanne Barston, fearlessformulafeeder.com

“MILKSHAKE SATISFIES with bright wit, fast-paced story, zingalicious dialogue and engaging characters. For those of us who tend to take ourselves a little too seriously when it comes to personal choices and political stands, it’s a friendly but incisive calling out. For those of us who’d rather not see the man behind the political curtain, it’s a gentle nudge with an electric cattle prod.”

– Joni Rodgers, New York Times bestselling author of Bald in the Land of Big Hair and The Hurricane Lover

Download MILKSHAKE on Kindle today or pick up a copy in print.