AltWeeklies Wire
Financial Collapse Plus War Plus Suicide Plus Closeted Men Equals OK Novelnew
Finished in September 2008, the very week that Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Union Atlantic offers a lucid perspective on the manner in which the greed and venality of a privileged few can drive the economy toward and beyond the brink of collapse.
San Antonio Current |
Justin Isenhart |
02-24-2010 |
Fiction
T.C. Boyle, Still Goading the Opinionated After All These Yearsnew
A new collection of stories is something to get excited about. My appetite for Wild Child was whetted reading A Death in Kitchawank, in a recent New Yorker. I know that I plan to spend a few hours as a happy subject of literary manipulation, as soon as I lay hands on Boyle's latest.
New Haven Advocate |
Eva Geertz |
02-02-2010 |
Fiction
Jamie Iredell Bends His Prose Poems Into a Novelistic Arcnew
The narrator of Jamie Iredell's Prose. Poems. A Novel. is named Larry, but no one ever calls him that. His co-worker Sharon calls him a "fucking son of a bitch" – a more fitting moniker despite its lack of brevity.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Wyatt Williams |
01-19-2010 |
Fiction
Amy Bloom's (Mostly) New Stories Look for What Matters Mostnew
Amy Bloom's new collection is a revelation of the emotional violence and loss within friendship and complicated love. Many writers would do well to heed Bloom, who can compound the very essence of a relationship in a single phrase.
New Haven Advocate |
Nora Nahid Khan |
01-19-2010 |
Fiction
Joshua Ferris’ Second Novel Has Legs and Knows How to Use Themnew
Whereas Illinois native Joshua Ferris, author of the award-winning debut novel Then We Came to the End, voluntarily relocated to New York, the protagonist of his thoughtful and unsettling second novel, The Unnamed, finds that a force beyond his control governs his physical movement.
New York Press |
Rayyan Al-Shawaf |
01-14-2010 |
Fiction
Accessibility's Rainbow: Thomas Pynchon's 'Inherent Vice'new
A mere three years after the infamously reclusive author released Against the Day, a 1,000-plus-page world’s fair of themes, characters and pastiched genres, Pynchon may have thrown us his strangest curveball yet by delivering a novel that is accessible, readable, and relatively short: that is, rather un-Pynchonesque.
Tags: Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
Madison Smartt Bell Brings the Civil War to Your Doorstepnew
Devil's Dream's frontispiece includes a photograph of the small-eyed, dark-bearded Civil War general Nathan Forrest. Prepare to flip back to that single photograph over and over again as you read.
Baltimore City Paper |
John Barry |
12-08-2009 |
Fiction
Book Quarterly: J.M. Coetzee, Zadie Smith, Stephen King, Nabokovnew
The discerning critics of Philadelphia City Paper review this season's most notable tomes: Summertime by J.M. Coetzee, Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith, Under the Dome by Stephen King and The Original of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Katherine Hill, K. Ross Hoffman, Justin Bauer, Lauren F. Friedman |
12-08-2009 |
Fiction
Barbara Kingsolver Makes a Misstep as She Tries to Make Her Point in 'The Lacuna'new
Kingsolver has created a reserved, unassuming character in Harrison Shepherd. He's so unassuming, in fact, that he becomes a cipher. Kingsolver's trademark nuanced characterization is not well-served by this collaged point of view.
Tucson Weekly |
Christine Wald-Hopkins |
11-11-2009 |
Fiction
Why 'High Fidelity' Fans Will Hate Nick Hornby's Latest Booknew
Hornby's sixth fictional offering, Juliet, Naked, features another developmentally arrested male who's trapped in a codependent relationship with his record collection. Chances are Fidelity fiends are not amused. Here's why.
Las Vegas Weekly |
Smith Galtney |
10-29-2009 |
Fiction
Manhattan Goes Meta in Jonathan Lethem's 'Chronic City'new
Unlike Pynchon in The Crying of Lot 49, which this book at first resembles, Lethem keeps his readers (and his narrator) at too critical a distance, and explains far too much, and thus leaves me still waiting for that novel where Lethem finally knocks one all the way into the bleachers.
Willamette Week |
Matthew Korfhage |
10-21-2009 |
Fiction
Josh Bazell Turns His ER Experience into the Year's Best Debut Novelnew
Bazell, who wrote Beat the Reaper while working on his residency at a California hospital, crafted an ingenious, fast-paced thriller that also managed to be a work of art.
New Haven Advocate |
Drew Taylor |
10-20-2009 |
Fiction
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
Dan Brown's Latest Saga Thrills Until it Drops the Threadnew
The ending sucked. Sorry to be so abrupt, but I appreciate that this is a long review, and I appreciate that you might not finish it, and unlike some other book reviewers, I can't in good conscience discuss The Lost Symbol without bringing up the ending.
Las Vegas Weekly |
Rick Lax |
09-24-2009 |
Fiction
'AM/PM' Gives Us 120 Impeccably Compact Stories of Love, Discomfort & Concert Souvenirsnew
These single-page stories were written, one in the morning and one in the evening, over the course of two months. This timeline, and their brevity, may make it sound like this is a simple little book, but it's not.
Eugene Weekly |
Molly Templeton |
09-11-2009 |
Fiction
