AltWeeklies Wire
'Through Black Spruce' Charts Epic Flight Northnew
Joseph Boyden's 2005 debut novel, Three Day Road, was a rare flash of literary illumination. A desperate tumble through the heart of darkness, it led us deep into the boreal forest and even deeper into the mud and muck of Flanders during the First World War.
The Georgia Straight |
Alexander Varty |
10-03-2008 |
Fiction
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
Irvine Welsh Keenly Appropriates the Boilerplate American Crime Novelnew
It's amazing what a linguistically gifted writer can do once he decides to wander outside the confines of his comfort zone.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
09-30-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: crime, Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh's Wimpy 'Crime'new
Welsh, known best for his druggy humor, gleefully scatological bent and the gruff pub vernacular of his characters, plays it amazingly straight and close to the vest in his most recent novel, Crime. So close and earnest, in fact, that you can hardly believe you're reading Welsh.
NOW Magazine |
David Jager |
09-29-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Irvine Welsh
Philip Roth Goes Back to Collegenew
One of Portnoy's favorite words takes on new resonance in Roth's 29th novel.
Boston Phoenix |
Richard Beck |
09-24-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Philip Roth, Indignation
Joe Meno Wallows in 'Demons in the Spring'new
But when Meno feels sad, he revels in it: He's made a career out of doing just that with Hairstyles of the Damned, a conversational punk-rock update of J.D. Salinger's most famous, and The Boy Detective Fails, a book that knows it's a book, but doesn't let that get in the way of breaking some hearts.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Jakob Dorof |
09-23-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Demons in the Spring, Joe Meno
Philip Roth's Latest Gives Us a World Caught Between Warsnew
Since 2000, Roth has compressed the thematic dynamism of his masterpieces into tales that can be read in the time it takes you to watch a baseball game. Indignation, his latest bravura performance in the form, is a haunting, bleakly comic time-capsule of a book
Las Vegas Weekly |
John Freeman |
09-19-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: Philip Roth, Indignation
Historical Fiction 'The Black Tower' Delivers the Goodsnew
Palace intrigue, mysterious deaths and a naïve young doctor overwhelmed by France's most prominent police detective. What's not to like?
Creative Loafing (Charlotte) |
Erik Spanberg |
09-17-2008 |
Fiction
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
Julia Glass Spices Up the Sister Novelnew
Being a sister myself, I can always relate to stories about this special bond, but I had to roll my eyes a little when I read the synopsis. Good thing I also glanced at the list of Glass' literary achievements, which convinced me to at least read the first chapter. That's all it took to pull me into the vivid world of Louisa and Clem Jardine.
Charleston City Paper |
Erica Jackson |
09-17-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: I See You Everywhere, Julia Glass
'Bedlam South' is an Old War from a New Grishamnew
Mark Grisham (brother of John) and David Donaldson have a story they want to tell about the American Civil War, the birth of the practice of psychology in the United States and the hand of God in human affairs. That's a tall order for a debut set in a landscape already so thoroughly tunneled and trenched.
C-Ville Weekly |
Elizabeth McCullough |
09-17-2008 |
Fiction
'High Life' Surfs Waves of Bloody 'Gorno'new
A reprint edition of High Life is belatedly securing Matthew Stokoe's rank as either a literary assassin or putrid gore hound.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Erik Morse |
09-11-2008 |
Fiction
'What Happened to Anna K.' Reimagines Tolstoy's Heroine in Contemporary Queensnew
Irina Reyn, who teaches creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh, has taken the plot of Anna Karenina, based it in Queens, and turned it into a considerably shorter novel very much dependent on its present-day setting.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Adam Colman |
09-08-2008 |
Fiction
Paul Auster's New Novel Ruminates on Post-9/11 Family Schismsnew
Auster's new novel ruminates on the fault lines and schisms within a marriage, a family and the landscape of post-9/11 America.
NOW Magazine |
David Jager |
09-08-2008 |
Fiction
