Category: american-literature
- Unfinished LivesLincoln in the Bardo a novel by George Saunders. Random House. 343 pp. ***** I haven’t been a fan of George Saunders’ short stories. I read Tenth of December with admiration but without much pleasure. The stories seemed clever and aesthetically interesting, but I couldn’t get into them as narratives. I’m more a John O’Hara guy. ...Read more
- American OriginalRecollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years by Diane di Prima. Penguin Books. 424 pp. $18.00. **** In this astonishing and inspiring memoir—424 tightly packed pages full of remarkably detailed writing, which covers maybe 30 years of a hugely eventful life—there are several moments that stand out for me. One is when, ...Read more
- And Is He PissedValdez Is Coming a novel by Elmore Leonard. From Elmore Leonard: Westerns. Library of America. pp. 279-414. ***** I shouldn’t make too much of Elmore Leonard. I probably already have. He was a genre writer who didn’t care what genre he was in, switched from Westerns to Crime novels when the Western market fizzled out. He ...Read more
- She Wasn’t Crazy. The World Was.The Known World a novel by Edward P. Jones. Harper Perennial. 388 pp. ***** It isn’t often that I read a novel, then sit down immediately and read it again. I wasn’t planning to do that this time. But as I pondered my previous review of The Known World, I saw structural things about the novel ...Read more
- Elmore the GreatLast Stand at Saber River and Hombre from Westerns by Elmore Leonard. Library of America. pp. 1-278. ***** I love the story of Elmore Leonard’s formation as a writer that Greg Sutter tells in his excellent chronology at the back of the Library of America volume. Born in 1925, Leonard grew up in Detroit and attended ...Read more
- Writing Like GodThe Known World a novel by Edward P. Jones. Harper Perennial. 388 pp. ***** I have a friend who, when he wants to compliment a writer’s style, says, He (or she) writes like a god. He’s said that a few too many times at this point, but I know what he means. He reads a number ...Read more
- Plain TruthAll Aunt Hagar’s Children stories by Edward P. Jones. Harper Perennial. 399 pp. ***** Edward P. Jones, it would seem, can write about anything, and anybody. He published his first book of stories, Lost in the City, in 1992 (otherwise known as half-a-lifetime ago). It was a bit of a late arrival on the literary scene; ...Read more
- Academics as a Blood SportStoner a novel by John Williams. From John Williams: Collected Novels. Daniel Mendelsohn, editor. Library of America. pp. 257-486 **** William Stoner, after growing up on a hardscrabble farm in rural Missouri, has two major epiphanies in his early adulthood. The first occurs when he attends the University of Missouri as an agricultural student, and takes ...Read more
- I’d Call Them BattlefieldsThe Groves of Academe a novel by Mary McCarthy. From Mary McCarthy Novels & Stories 1942-1963. Library of America. pp. 289-508. ***** I’ve always loved novels of academic life. I love the academy, as bonkers as it often is, and love reading about the odd, distorted presences that inhabit it. I would also say that, in ...Read more
- Drag Queen to Bodhisattva Street Zen: The Life & Works of Issan Dorsey by David Schneider. Shambhala. 246 pp. ***** I resisted reading this book for a long time. Back in the early nineties, when my wife was in divinity school and we began meditating, she worked one summer at an AIDS hospice in Boston and continued to work with ...Read more
- He Debuted as a MasterLost in the City stories by Edward P. Jones. Amisted. 243 pp. $15.99. ***** There was a time when I read book reviews the way, as a kid, I used to read the sports pages. At my house we got the Sunday New York Times and Saturday Review, also the New Yorker. It wasn’t as if ...Read more
- The Vanity of Human WishesButcher’s Crossing a novel by John Williams. Library of America. John Williams, Collected Novels. Daniel Mendelsohn, editor. pp. 1-255. ***** There was a moment in Butcher’s Crossing when I was strongly tempted to stop reading. Our protagonist, Will Andrews, had staked a man named Miller to a project that Miller claimed could not fail. Though buffalo ...Read more
- The Alice Munro ConundrumA Disturbing Truth I regard Alice Munro as an almost unparalleled short story writer. I can’t think of anyone whose stories I admire and enjoy more. A major part of what she writes about is the odd byways of the female psyche, women who think in ways they shouldn’t and go on to wayward behavior. Women ...Read more
- The Critic as ArtistThe Company She Keeps and The Oasis from Mary McCarthy Novels & Stories 1942-1963. The Library of America. pp. 1-287 **** In everything I’ve read by Mary McCarthy so far, it seems that a social critic/satirist is in charge and an artist is struggling to be set free. The Company She Keeps, her first book, is ...Read more
- She’s OursRunaway stories by Alice Munro. Vintage. 335 pp. $15.95 ***** I first heard of Alice Munro in the early eighties, when I had hooked up with my agent and first editor and they were both enthusiastic fans; my agent, Virginia Barber, was also Munro’s, and my editor, Sherry Huber, was an avid reader who constantly recommended ...Read more
- Master of the FormDelicate Edible Birds and Other Stories by Loren Groff. Hachette Books. 306 pp. ***** Before reading Lauren Groff’s first book of short stories, I saw her as a novelist who had apprenticed on the shorter form. Her first novel was big in various ways, did well both commercially and critically. She followed with two massive, ambitious ...Read more
- Let It RingTelephone a novel by Percival Everett. Graywolf Press. 216 pp. **** I had thought of Percival Everett as an offbeat comic novelist who sat down to write a novel with no idea where it was headed (see . I Am Not Sidney Poitier. Even Erasure, though a biting satire, had a comic premise, and the novel ...Read more
- Yes You Can Go Home AgainThe Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. Penguin Books. 460 pp. **** The Monsters of Templeton is Lauren Groff’s tribute to her hometown, Cooperstown, New York. Apparently it was founded by the father of James Fenimore Cooper, it’s most famous citizen (but not, at this point, its finest novelist; Groff has far surpassed him), and includes ...Read more
- You Need to be WritingCrowded by Beauty: The Life and Zen of Poet Philip Whalen by David Schneider. University of California Press. 352 pp. $23.92. ***** Goods Short Stories by David Schneider. Cuke Press 168 pp. $13.00 **** Philip Whalen was what used to be called a Man of Letters, back in the days when there were such people. In fact, ...Read more
- The Other SideWhereas Huck Finn gives us an idyllic vision of life in 19th century America, James gives us the other side, in all its brutality. It’s a necessary and important corrective.Read more
Recent Evening Mind Posts
Unfinished LivesAmerican OriginalLosing ItKeep an Eye on IgorAnd Is He Pissed
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (215)art (113)Buddhism (169)Christianity (125)creative process (246)death and dying (139)meditation (123)movies (160)music (36)race (105)religion (187)sex (170)spirituality (170)the art of narrative (252)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)
Print
Unfinished LivesAmerican OriginalLosing ItKeep an Eye on IgorAnd Is He Pissed
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (215)art (113)Buddhism (169)Christianity (125)creative process (246)death and dying (139)meditation (123)movies (160)music (36)race (105)religion (187)sex (170)spirituality (170)the art of narrative (252)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)