Category: sex
- Weird From the Get GoNo One Belongs Here More Than You stories by Miranda July. Scribner. 205 pp. $18.00 **** The First Bad Man a novel by Miranda July. Scribner. 276 pp. $18.00 **** I have now read the complete prose fiction of Miranda July, and I must say I’m dumbfounded. As I said before, I think All Fours is a ...Read more
- Mary, Erica, MirandaAll Fours a novel by Miranda July. Riverhead Books. 326 pp. ***** My original idea—as I mentioned in my last post—was to compare the outrageous women from different generations, my mother’s (Mary McCarthy), mine (Erica Jong), and my son’s (Miranda July). I’d been reading Mary McCarthy already, I’ve read Erica Jong—and written about her—in the past, ...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
- Losing ItBetween the Temples a film by Nathan Silver. With Jason Schwartzman, Carol Kane, Robert Smigel, Caroline Aaron, Madeleine Weinstein. Streaming on Netflix. **** Between the Temples has a homegrown, home-movieish feeling that I associate with movies from the sixties and seventies (the golden age of cinema as far as I’m concerned). From the opening shot, where ...Read more
- Keep an Eye on IgorAnora a film by Sean Baker. With Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Yura Borisov. Streaming (by purchase) on Amazon Prime **** Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes. My feelings about this movie are largely informed by a conversation I had with my wife the morning after we saw it, as we took our long hike ...Read more
- Looks Pretty Good to MeMy Old Ass a movie by Megan Park. With Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza, Percy Hynes White, Maria Dizzia. Streaming on Amazon Prime. ***** I tend not to like movies about time travel. I don’t like gimmicky movies in general (a contemporary teenager goes back to the fifties and is at a total loss because they don’t ...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
- 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 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
- 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 Nothing of GodShe was scorned, kicked around, physically abused, sexually abused, told that she doesn’t count, that she barely even exists. Somehow it is these very things that give her the resources to undertake this adventure.Read more
- We Are Stardust We Are GoldenThis novel isn’t just about the commune. It’s about the whole Sixties dream, and what it did to someone who was raised in it.Read more
- Embodied MysticThis author deeply understands mystical spirituality, true religion, in a way that few people do.Read more
- What Is Sex?Lauren Groff seems to be gently suggesting that sex is a human energy that doesn’t necessarily interfere with a religious life. They can co-exist. They should co-exist.Read more
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Dogen for the MassesWeird From the Get GoTwo MasterpiecesMary, Erica, MirandaUntil the End
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (218)art (114)Buddhism (170)Christianity (125)creative process (249)death and dying (139)meditation (124)movies (161)music (36)race (106)religion (188)sex (172)spirituality (171)the art of narrative (255)Uncategorized (20)world literature (23)