AltWeeklies Wire
Charles Burns’s Grand Experimentnew
Black Hole is an illustrated novel focused on sex, the emotional ramifications of sex, our sex dreams, and every Freudian and Jungian sex trope under the sun.
Boston Phoenix |
Matthew Shaer |
11-29-2005 |
Fiction
Tags: Black Hole, Charles Burns
A Bird! A Plane! A Conservative!new
In the first-ever comic book explicitly by and for conservatives, patriotic superhero Captain America is irrelevant because, says co-creator Mike Mackey, "traditional American values are not traditional anymore."
Boston Phoenix |
Mike Miliard |
11-11-2005 |
Fiction
Dowsednew
Rick Moody has made an ambitious leap into a sprawling, overstuffed satiric novel centered on the efforts of various incompetents to create a television mini-series called The Diviners.
Boston Phoenix |
Richard C. Walls |
11-10-2005 |
Fiction
Tags: Rick Moody, The Diviners
Crisis Indeednew
The DC universe goes off the deep end.
Boston Phoenix |
Douglas Wolk |
10-21-2005 |
Fiction
Social Sciencenew
In On Beauty, the 30-year-old Jamaican-British writer achieves greater dimension and restraint than in her first two books, giving readers a social novel that is true both to the times and to the mysterious workings of beauty itself.
Boston Phoenix |
Catherine Tumber |
09-23-2005 |
Fiction
Tags: On Beauty, Zadie Smith
Dante, Dudenew
The Commedia finds a 21st-century vernacular.
Boston Phoenix |
Jeffrey Gantz |
09-02-2005 |
Fiction
Frank King's Gasoline Alley Comes to Hardcovernew
In Frank King’s Walt and Skeezix, editors Jeet Heer, Chris Oliveros, and Chris Ware have produced a handsomely designed, sweet-souled book, along with a forthcoming multi-volume set of his Gasoline Alley comic strips.
Boston Phoenix |
William Corbett |
08-22-2005 |
Fiction
Tags: Frank O. King, Walt and Skeezix
J.K. Rowling's 'Prince' is Full-Bloodednew
They say the third time's the charm, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth volume in J.K. Rowling's coming-of-age saga of the Frodo/Jesus of the wizarding world, is the best since the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Boston Phoenix |
Carolyn Clay |
08-02-2005 |
Fiction
Holding Forth: Marc Estrin's Arnold Hitlernew
Marc Estrin’s sophomore novel follows an alienated protagonist as his life intersects with various historical events and flash points. Arnold Hitler enters a Texas elementary school in the mid ’50s, and witnesses up close the wrenching drama of an early desegregation attempt.
Boston Phoenix |
Richard C. Walls |
07-19-2005 |
Fiction
Other Englandsnew
Who wrote Hamlet? Did Christopher Marlowe help William Shakespeare? Plus, the tragic vision and mystical romance of Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles.
Boston Phoenix |
Jeffrey Gantz |
06-20-2005 |
Fiction
Tags: in, and, of, King, wolves, Nantucket, black, Stolen, Hearts, Lodge, Alex Jack; Joan Aiken, Battersea, Chase, Clatteringshaws, Cuckoo, Dido, Hamlet; Wolves Chronicles, Lake, Lear, Limbo, Midwinter, Nightbirds, Nightingale, Pa, TREE, Willoughby
Superheroes and the Latest Generation of Mainstream Comicsnew
Superhero comic books are the wealthy stepchildren of the comics world. Their sales drive the industry, but they can’t get any respect, even when they warrant it.
Boston Phoenix |
Douglas Wolk |
04-21-2005 |
Fiction
My Blank Pagesnew
The lack of pre-release hype and author sightings on the media radar have made it possible to appreciate the writing in this short-story collection without getting bogged down in the Dave Eggers cult of personality.
Boston Phoenix |
Nina MacLaughlin |
04-14-2005 |
Fiction
Tags: of, a, Dave Eggers, How We Are Hungry, McSweeney's, Know, You, Genius, Heartbreaking, Our, Shall, Staggering, Velocity!, work
Fairy Dust: Jeanette Winterson Floats Awaynew
British novelist Jeannette Winterson's eighth novel marks a return to the trademark intimacy of her acclaimed earlier work. It’s cyclical, circular and surreal, and the Biblical lilt of it is counterbalanced by glimmering flimsiness.
Boston Phoenix |
Nina MacLaughlin |
04-13-2005 |
Fiction
Personal and Political Conundrumsnew
A selection of fiction that Phoenix reviewers liked this year, including novels by Orhan Pamuk, Philip Roth, Edward St. Aubyn, and Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum.
Boston Phoenix |
Phoenix reviewers |
12-29-2004 |
Fiction
Ready to Ware: Comics from McSweeney'snew
For issue #13 of Dave Eggers's McSweeney's Quarterly, Chris Ware dons the guest editor's hat, turning the volume into an anthology of his favorite contemporary comics artists. Also reviewed is Canadian cartoonist Seth's Clyde Fans Book 1.
Boston Phoenix |
Douglas Wolk |
12-01-2004 |
Fiction
