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
In 'Scorch Atlas,' Blake Butler Rains Gravel and Glassnew
Blake Butler aims his telescope at the future, and if what he finds there and shows us in Scorch Atlas even approaches the truth, we can all only hope we won't be around to see it.
Boston Phoenix |
Nina Maclaughlin |
09-10-2009 |
Fiction
Giving Good Gimmick: Granta at 30new
To sustain a good literary magazine over decades it pays to have a gimmick. Thirty-year-old Granta's secret to success: themes, like this issue's "New Fiction Special."
Boston Phoenix |
William Corbett |
06-30-2009 |
Fiction
'The Missing' Takes a Lyrical Turn in the Southnew

Tim Gautreaux writes of a South that never changes. But for the people of his third novel, a new age is dawning.
Boston Phoenix |
Clea Simon |
05-14-2009 |
Fiction
Bloody Good Jane Austennew
Despite his decidedly lowbrow preoccupations (zombies, martial arts, and crude jokes about balls), author Seth Grahame-Smith is a sly devil, a parodist with as strong a sense of Austen's prose stylings as of her sharp observations.
Boston Phoenix |
Clea Simon |
04-23-2009 |
Fiction
Kerouac and Burroughs's Lost Noir is Published At Lastnew

The publication of And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, the last known unpublished manuscript by any of the Founding Fathers of the Beat Generation, had to wait for the death of Lucien Carr.
Boston Phoenix |
George Kimball |
10-23-2008 |
Fiction
Philip Roth Goes Back to Collegenew
One of Portnoy's favorite words takes on new resonance in Roth's 29th novel.
Boston Phoenix |
Richard Beck |
09-24-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Philip Roth, Indignation
Tricky (Philip K.) Dicknew
Published last spring, the first Philip K. Dick volume in the Library of America series caught this wave at its peak. This second offering might not be so fortunate.
Boston Phoenix |
Peter Keough |
07-31-2008 |
Fiction
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
Revenge on Icenew
Celebrated spy novelist Charles McCarry offers a sad tale from the Deutsches Reich with love.
Boston Phoenix |
Clif Garboden |
05-10-2007 |
Fiction
Yule Logs: Holiday Book Gift Guidenew
Reviews of some smart books for smart people -- fiction and nonfiction from Virgil to Cowboy Kate.
Boston Phoenix |
Phoenix Staff and Stringers |
12-08-2006 |
Fiction
Tags: 2006gift
Wet, Hard, and Dreamingnew
The slipcased three-volume graphic novel following the bawdy exploits of Alice, Dorothy, and Wendy is out to destroy the distinction between pornography and erotica.
Boston Phoenix |
Charles Taylor |
09-21-2006 |
Fiction
War and Peacenew
Since September 11, publishers have been rushing to publish non-fiction books about anything relating to the upheavals in the Middle East. They've been much slower about supplying us with imaginative tales from these regions, but the trickle has begun.
Boston Phoenix |
John Freeman |
01-03-2006 |
Fiction
Tags: Various Titles, Various Authors
Speeding Through Lifenew
The Phoenix lists the best fiction and poetry of 2005.
Boston Phoenix |
Jon Garelick |
12-23-2005 |
Fiction
Tags: yearinreview2005
The Better To Givenew
These are not typical gift books. These are books for the rest of us -- books we would actually buy for ourselves, and our loved ones, be they geek or hipster, intellectual or meathead.
Boston Phoenix |
Boston Phoenix staff |
12-13-2005 |
Fiction