AltWeeklies Wire
Nick Cave's New Novel is All Sex, Drugs and Hand Creamnew
When I interviewed Nick Cave for the Phoenix three years ago and he told me -- drolly, languidly, literarily -- that his next writing project was about "a sexually incontinent hand-cream salesman" on the south coast of England, I assumed he was taking the piss.
Boston Phoenix |
James Parker |
10-08-2009 |
Fiction
Two Boston Poets Use Their Art for the Good of the Tribenew

What if a poem were a social force? Boston poets Rafael Campo and Franz Wright have laid bare a live wire between poetry and isolation.
Boston Phoenix |
James Parker |
11-26-2008 |
Books
Pants Afirenew
If your father presided over a blood-drinking sex cult, or if you ran with wolves and had your wounds healed by their antiseptic saliva, you're a fully accredited citizen of Fabrication Nation. You should write a book.
Boston Phoenix |
James Parker |
03-13-2008 |
Books
Liar's Professionnew
"Unauthorized" rock biographers offer the illicit, illegitimate, sniggering-behind-your-hand versions of famous lives.
Boston Phoenix |
James Parker |
02-14-2008 |
Books
Steve Martin: Philosopher in Bunny Earsnew

His just-published memoir, Born Standing Up, verifies what you always suspected -- Steve Martin never was your typical comedian.
Boston Phoenix |
James Parker |
01-04-2008 |
Nonfiction
Easy Reading For Difficult Peoplenew
Stylistically, novelist Tom Perrotta is invisible, and his fictional milieu is half-dead. But we love him because he delivers so much.
Boston Phoenix |
James Parker |
10-10-2007 |
Fiction
The Greatest Travels Ever Toldnew
Penguin's Great Journeys series excerpts the great texts of travel literature, from Herodotus to Ernest Shackleton, in 10 slender and beautifully designed paperback volumes.
Boston Phoenix |
James Parker |
09-27-2007 |
Nonfiction
In Search of Kerouacnew
As we approach the first-edition anniversary of anti-luminary Jack Kerouac's On the Road, we stick out our thumb and ask: "Whither goest thou, America?" And a thoroughly Beat America answers: "Lowell." Plus a schedule of Kerouac celebrations.
Boston Phoenix |
James Parker |
08-30-2007 |
Books
Tags: Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Gangsta to Gangsternew
Two books about hip-hop expose and explain the scenes in New Orleans and New York.
Boston Phoenix |
James Parker |
12-20-2005 |
Nonfiction