AltWeeklies Wire
Thomas Pynchon's 'Inherent Vice' is an Endlessly Entertaining Variation on the Detective Yarnnew
Unlike any previous Pynchon work, Vice fully embraces genre. And in doing so it's difficult to tell if the genre is merely pliable enough to accommodate all of Pynchon's literary whims or if the now 72-year-old author has basically been riffing on this form his entire career.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
08-25-2009 |
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
Saskatchewan Writer Delivers a New Russell Quant Mysterynew
Aloha, Candy Hearts, the sixth in the cheeky Russell Quant series, finds our favorite gay private investigator enjoying a whirlwind weekend in Waikiki with his sexy long-distance lover, having surprised himself by saying yes to a proposal of marriage.
NOW Magazine |
Lesley McAllister |
05-29-2009 |
Fiction
David Wroblewski's Debut Novel Is Brilliantnew
Elegance and simplicity grace every page of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle as David Wroblewski finds authentic power through well-crafted scenes and strong character development. Here is fiction with the truth of memoir.
Boise Weekly |
Bill English |
05-27-2009 |
Fiction
Colm Toibin's New Novel Is Quiet and Thankfully Unsentimentalnew
Brooklyn is a quiet, charming novel written with a masterful hand about a girl struggling to understand her new emerging self in a new postwar world.
New Haven Advocate |
John Stoehr |
05-19-2009 |
Fiction
'Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction' Introduces Readers to Living Writers from Across the Bordernew
Chances are that a recognizable literary talent is already dead. This is the challenge that confronts a book like Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction. It features 16 writers, all of whom still walk the Earth.
Tucson Weekly |
Jarret Keene |
04-08-2009 |
Fiction
Well-to-Do Discriminationnew
The Help is a fictional expose of racial discrimination set in 1960s Jackson, Miss., told with pathos and humor.
Jackson Free Press |
Jackie Warren Tatum |
04-03-2009 |
Fiction
One Day in Dallasnew
Adam Braver’s book deserves to be known; it ranks first among novels focused on the death of JFK.
The Texas Observer |
Don Graham |
03-12-2009 |
Fiction
Samantha Hunt Weaves Historical Fiction From Nikola Tesla's Biographynew
Despite being overstuffed with tangential subplots, too-convenient characters, and predictable plot mechanics, The Invention of Everything Else brims with Tesla's prescient ideas about energy.
Portland Phoenix |
Christopher Gray |
03-12-2009 |
Fiction
Zoe Heller's 'Believers' Captivates Despite a Weak Plotnew
Heller’s treatment of fraught and contradictory emotions, together with her unabashed exploration of intellectual musings, endows the story’s eponymous believers with an all-too-rare profundity.
New York Press |
Rayyan Al-Shawaf |
03-05-2009 |
Fiction
Ron Rash's Darkly Riveting 'Serena'new
Asheville author Ron Rash’s sweeping, big screen-worthy tale is far more than a gruesome account of the human and environmental costs of large-scale logging.
Mountain Xpress |
Alli Marshall |
02-18-2009 |
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
'The Lazarus Project' Takes a Trip Through Time with a True-Crime Twistnew
Reading Aleksandar Hemon's latest novel is kind of like staring at one of those paintings where inside that painting is another painting of the painting you're staring at. And like those surreal paintings, it not only challenges your perception of the subject but brings the creation of the work itself into focus.
Chicago Reader |
Greg Boose |
05-19-2008 |
Fiction
Iain M. Banks' Latest Won't Win Him New Convertsnew
His latest sci-fi epic, Matter, is dense, both in terms of weight and scope.
Baltimore City Paper |
Adrienne Martini |
04-08-2008 |
Fiction
Dan Kennedy Nails the Music Industrynew
The former mid-level marketing executive's bitter and very funny account of his experience at a fast-dying music label zeros in on everything that's wrong with the old music biz.
NOW Magazine |
Susan G. Cole |
03-10-2008 |
Fiction
