Category: sex
- 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
- Portrait of GeniusThis is the most compulsively readable book I’ve encountered in many a moon. I couldn’t wait to pick it up every night.Read more
- Two Gay MenGood Grief a film by Dan Levy. With Dan Levy, Ruth Nessa, Himesh Patel, Luke Evans. Streaming on Netflix ** Rustin a film by George C. Wolfe. With Colman Domingo, Ami Ameen, Glynn Turman, Chris Rock. Streaming on Netflix ***1/2 Good Grief tells the story of a man whose husband dies. Marc (Dan Levy) is living an ...Read more
- Make That March December. Maybe February.May December a film by Todd Haynes. With Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton. Streaming on various platforms. ** With all due respect to the various people who have suggested that this movie be nominated for Best Picture (including both reviewers at the New York Times), and fully understanding that Todd Haynes is into weird character ...Read more
- And of a MarriageAnatomy of a Fall a film by Justine Triet. With Sandra Huller, Milo Machado Graner, Samuel Theis. Streaming on Amazon Prime. ***** A friend whose opinion I respect recently said he hated this movie—and all courtroom dramas—because many things take place that never happen in a courtroom. I can’t argue with that, not having been in ...Read more
- Who Can You Trust?Out on the Rim a novel by Ross Thomas. Thomas Dunne Books. St. Martin’s Minotaur. 340 pp. ***1/2 I used to think I’d like to be a writer like Ross Thomas. He was an accomplished stylist, had an insider’s knowledge of the world of international intrigue and crime (I’m not sure where he got that), a ...Read more
- Enough AlreadyThe Bell a novel by Iris Murdoch. Penguin Classics. 296 pp. $16.00. **** Iris Murdoch. I can’t live with her and can’t live without her. Years ago, when my mentor Wallace Fowlie had retired, he wasn’t interested in much modernist fiction, but loved Iris Murdoch, so he always had plenty to read. My favorite New York ...Read more
- The Spirit Behind the StoryThe Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother by James McBride. Riverhead Books. 295 pp. ***** I was so overwhelmed by The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store that I decided to reread James McBride’s memoir of life with his mother, The Color of Water. I knew his own situation influenced the novel, ...Read more
- But We DoDidn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta a novel by James Hannaham. Back Bay Books. 308 pp. $17.99 ***** There was an aesthetic dilemma about Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta which, as I read the book, seemed insurmountable. Carlotta herself—who is not quite the narrator (it’s in third person) but ...Read more
- Strange BedfellowsRoscoe a novel by William Kennedy. Penguin. 291 pp. $15.00 ***** Roscoe is William Kennedy’s political novel, and we should have seen it coming. As far back as Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, we knew that Albany was essentially run by a couple of guys named Roscoe Conway and Patsy McCall, who were important presences in that ...Read more
- The True TempleBeyond the Abbey Gates (formerly The Age of Miracles) a novel by Catherine MacCoun. Trumpeter. 337 pp. $15.95. ***** I defy anyone to read this novel and decide what the author thinks is sacred and what profane; religious, irreligious; the right way to live, the wrong way. It turns every preconception you have on its head. ...Read more
- Sex! Passion! Betrayal! Murder!The Flaming Corsage a novel by William Kennedy. Viking. 209 pp. $23.95 ***** In Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, there is a subplot involving a man who, though not the protagonist, is central to the story. Martin Daugherty is the son of a renowned playwright, who is suffering dementia in a nearby nursing home. Martin himself is ...Read more
- Magic Not-Quite-RealismQuinn’s Book a novel by William Kennedy. Penguin Books. 289 pp. $16.00. I don’t know quite what to make of Quinn’s Book, the fourth novel in William Kennedy’s Albany cycle. I noted before that each of the first three books seemed more and more focused on a mystical Catholic view of things, with Ironweed taking a ...Read more
- Man of PrincipleBilly Phelan’s Greatest Game a novel by William Kennedy. Penguin Books. 282 pp. $14.00 ***** To get the suspense over with immediately, since it’s the first incident in the novel: Billy’s greatest game was when he bowled 299 in a match against a man named Scotty Streck. They were competing for the best three game total, ...Read more
- Charmingly DespicableLegs a novel by William Kennedy. Penguin. 317 pp. $17.00. ***** William Kennedy burst onto the literary scene in 1983 with the novel Ironweed, his fourth. My memory is that he’d had trouble finding a publisher because his earlier novels hadn’t sold. In an act of desperation he got in touch with Saul Bellow, whom he’d ...Read more
- Art Imitating LifeChampion an opera by Terence Blanchard. Libretto by Michael Cristofer. With Eric Owens, Ryan Speedo Green, Ethan Joseph, Latonia Moore. ***** I have never reviewed an opera and certainly don’t have the qualifications. I’ve only been attending for a few years, and know little about the art form. I sometimes think television reviewers watch so much ...Read more
- What Strikes Fear into Every Man’s Heart?Women Talking a film by Sarah Polley. With Rooney Mara, Judith Ivey, Emily Mitchell, Kate Hallett. Streaming on Apple TV. ***** Reflections on a Movie In Women Talking, a group of women finally gets together to talk about the things nobody has been saying. It is based on a novel about Miriam Toews, and borrows its premise ...Read more
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The River is Freedom, the Raft ParadiseThe Nothing of GodWe Are Stardust We Are GoldenA State of the Union and a State of MindEmbodied Mystic
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (114)American literature (195)art (108)Buddhism (162)Christianity (119)creative process (230)death and dying (128)meditation (117)movies (152)music (36)race (94)religion (179)sex (156)spirituality (166)the art of narrative (236)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)