AltWeeklies Wire
Wilmington's John Jeremiah Sullivan Roughs it in Pulpheadnew
The wide-ranging subjects in Pulphead are unified into a coherent book by Sullivan's fine prose and lively voice, which can be scholarly, snarky, lyrical or harsh as suits the occasion.
In his new novel, Nightwoods, Charles Frazier returns to the Appalachians for inspirationnew
Frazier has a natural dramatic instinct, and Nightwoods is a shrewd piece of writing—shrewder still for its I-see-what-you-did-there literary and cultural references.
Lewis Shiner's Dark Tangos, a Novel of Argentina's Dirty Warnew
Dark Tangos is a frank and direct look at the horrific underpinnings of the Argentinian people's complaint against their former government, and Shiner's precise and unmannered description, much like his description of the tango, is more illuminating than more stylized prose.
Tags: Dark Tangos
Clyde Edgerton's new novel, The Night Train, is his best in yearsnew
The Night Train is very much about the slow, pained shift in race relations during one important moment, but its 200 pages speak to life, not laws.
Tags: Clyde Edgerton
In His Memoir, Jimmy Creech Recounts His Struggles Against Anti-Gay Religious Discriminationnew
Adam's Gift is about the tumultuous years in his life when, as a Methodist pastor, he was called in the words of the subtitle "to defy the church's persecution of lesbians and gays."
Interrogating Donald Rumsfeldnew
Published by McSweeney's, Donald imagines what would happen if the former defense secretary were abducted to a detainment center much like Guantanamo or Bagram and subjected to "enhanced interrogation."
Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Eric Martin
Emma Donoghue Hits Her Stride With Roomnew
In her research for Room, Donoghue says she was intrigued by the way people tend to "personalize" kidnapping cases they read about or see in the news.
Tags: Emma Donaghue
Algonquin Books' 25th edition of New Stories From the Southnew
Are guest editor Amy Hempel and series editor Kathy Pories pointing us to a change in Southern literature?
Tags: Amy Hempel
Rosanne Cash keeps composure, discusses new memoirnew
Cash discusses her feelings about the film Walk the Line, her early musical influences and having Morrissey as an in-law.
Tags: Rosanne Cash
Tar Heel poets write about cookingnew
In The Sound of Poets Cooking, a combined cookbook and poetry anthology, more than 60 poets ladle out enticing recipes and crafted verse, woven thematically together.
Tags: Richard Krawiec
It's Time to Reread Gore Vidal's Enduring Lincolnnew
A reappraisal of Gore Vidal's 1984 novel about the 16th president, in his bicentennial year.
Ron Rash's Sensational Appalachian Talenew
In the late 1920s, before George Pemberton's Boston Lumber Company constructed its western North Carolina logging camp—the setting for Ron Rash's haunting fourth novel, Serena—it set aside a portion of its land for a graveyard.
Tags: Ron Rash, Serena: A Novel
Clyde Edgerton's Modesty Sells 'The Bible Salesman'new
Like Henry, his protagonist, Edgerton wants to sell you a story, and if you give him a few pages' worth of your time, you have little chance of resisting him.
Lewis Shiner's Novel of the Destruction of Haytinew
There are secrets upon secrets in Black & White, sins upon sins, but they all revolve around a single, penetrating absence: Hayti, the African-American community gutted by the construction of the Durham Freeway 40 years ago.
Andre Dubus III Tells a Pre-Sept. 11 Tale from the Darker Corners of Floridanew
Like his last novel, 1999's House of Sand and Fog, his latest demonstrates with haunting clarity that Dubus is supremely qualified for the position.
