AltWeeklies Wire
'Famous Suicides' Takes on Love and Loss, in Chicago and Ancient Japannew
Mura's book takes as its epigraph Walter Benjamin's oft-repeated statement that history is a tale told by the victors, but the novel shows up this line as a lie. History belongs not to the winners but to the writers and the survivors, who never really win.
Willamette Week |
Matthew Korfhage |
10-16-2008 |
Fiction
Sarah Vowell Makes Pilgrims Piss-Pants Hilarious in Her Latestnew
The book is two parts extensive review of key Pilgrim documents -- like the letters and journals of John Winthrop, Roger Williams and John Cotton -- and one part humorous, anecdotal stories of Vowell's experience researching the topic.
Willamette Week |
Whitney Hawke |
10-08-2008 |
Nonfiction
Tags: Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates
Unzipping the Mysteries of 'The Big Penis Book'new
Edited by Dian Hanson, the oversized, flesh-colored tome is a treasure trove of every big dick that ever worked the streets of smut, porn or anything that called for the services of someone with an unnatural growth between their legs.
Willamette Week |
Byron Beck |
10-01-2008 |
Original Work
Paul Auster Builds an Elaborate Fantasy to Reflect on Real-life Lossnew
The first sentence of Brooklyn novelist Auster's new book reads like Proust channeled through Kafka: "I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle with another bout of insomnia, another white night in the American wilderness."
Willamette Week |
Matt Buckingham |
09-17-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Man in the Dark, Paul Auster
Chuck Klosterman Attempts Fiction in 'Downtown Owl'new
The standard complaint about Klosterman as a pop-culture essayist is that he is a literary slacker, stubbornly quotidian: He can write about the familiar with fresh insight, but he refuses to write about anything other than the familiar.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
09-17-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Chuck Klosterman, Downtown Owl
Want to Sell a Book? Make a Movie.new
Oregon's own Powell's is teaching New York a new trick. It's called Out Of the Book, and it's a series of bite-sized films about ... what else? Books and the quirky people who write them.
Willamette Week |
John Minervini |
09-17-2008 |
Books
A Thin New Book Builds a Thin, Old Case Against the Chemical Industrynew
Nena Baker, a former investigative reporter for The Oregonian, has written a slim volume about toxins in the environment that builds an even slimmer case against the chemical industry.
Willamette Week |
Matt Buckingham |
09-03-2008 |
Nonfiction
Slavoj Zizek on 'Violence'new
In this book, he argues that in addition to the “subjective” violence we normally associate with the term (backstabbing, slap fights, waterboarding), there is an additional “objective” violence inscribed into our language and politics.
Willamette Week |
Staff |
09-03-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: violence, Slavoj Zizek
Dirk Wittenborn Explores Psychopharmacology and Murder in 'Pharmakon'new
Wittenborn's previous novels, back in the early '80s, before his coke habit and virus-calcified heart brought him low enough to write screenplays, dealt with the safety-netted high wire of art brokers and the congenitally rich.
Willamette Week |
Matthew Korfhage |
08-13-2008 |
Fiction
Thomas Frank on What's Wrong with Obamanew
Before he morphed into one of the few real leftists still taken seriously by the mainstream press, author Thomas Frank had an even lower profile.
Willamette Week |
Corey Pein |
08-13-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
'Comic Book Tattoo': The Most Prominent Comics/Music Mashup Yetnew
Measuring 12-by-12 inches (just like the sleeves of your LPs), it features 50 stories inspired by the songs of well-known comics fan Tori Amos. It also marks the return to comics of Mike Dringenberg, one of the creators of seminal '90s comic series Sandman.
Willamette Week |
Brandon Seifert |
07-16-2008 |
Original Work
David Wroblewski Rewrites 'Hamlet' but with Puppiesnew
His debut novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle , tracks a young dog trainer as he tries to get up the nerve to murder his murderous uncle.
Willamette Week |
John Minervini |
07-09-2008 |
Fiction
Andre Dubus Ill Gets Pulpynew
Dubus III, who also wrote House of Sand and Fog, has achieved some Houdini-caliber misdirection, and his third act may bring you tumbling to the ground.
Willamette Week |
John Minervini |
06-25-2008 |
Fiction
Sasa Stanisic's Debut Novel Explores How Children Discuss Warnew
There is a reason, of course, why Stanisic might choose a child to give voice to atrocity: it's that the adult language of casualty counts and "shelling at Srebrenica," the newsman's reflex, no longer carries much meaning.
Willamette Week |
Matthew Korfhage |
06-18-2008 |
Fiction
Brendan Mullen Revisits the Burn-hot, Burn-fast Punk Life of L.A.new
As he did in his earlier books, We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk and Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs, Mullen documents, with hundreds of photos and fliers and memento mori, the history of the Masque.
Willamette Week |
Nancy Rommelmann |
05-28-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
