Category: the-art-of-narrative
- The River is Freedom, the Raft ParadiseTwain, on the other hand, wrote a prose that seemed entirely American and utterly his own. It seemed to roll off his pen.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
- A State of the Union and a State of MindThis Lauren Groff-type character is the one who interests me most (I’m always trying to get at the person behind the stories, even when she is totally absent). It is her spirit that hovers over this collection.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
- Book to MovieDirector Cord Johnson is a huge Percival Everett fan, and American Fiction seems perfectly to capture the spirit of Erasure. I was astounded.Read more
- Slippery SlopeCrook Manifesto a novel by Colson Whitehead. Doubleday. 319 pp. ***** There is the pleasure of reading a great crime writer, someone like Elmore Leonard at his best, who makes any other storyteller I know look like a rank amateur. There is the somewhat different pleasure of reading a great contemorary novelist, like Jonathan Franzen or ...Read more
- Pandemic Without PanicThe Vulnerables a novel by Sigrid Nunez. Riverhead Books. 242 pp. **** Early reviewers of Sigrid Nunez’ The Vulnerables are linking it to her most recent novels (The Friend, which won a National Book Award, and What Are You Going Through, which was equally deserving of that award), seeing the three books as a trilogy. The ...Read more
- No Full StopSeptology a novel by Jon Fosse. Transit Books. 667 pp. $22.95 ***** Often when I finish a long novel I have a feeling of accomplishment, or relief; “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over,” as the woman says in The Wasteland (about another subject). But in the case of Septology, I feel bereft. It’s ...Read more
- The Ones Left BehindThe Holdovers a film by Alexander Payne. With Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph. In theaters and streaming for an arm and leg on Amazon Prime. ***** Three more or less sane adults (though one is just eighteen), all of whom have strong points, weak points, deeply held secrets, but none of whom is the ...Read more
- The Story of Her TimeMachine Dreams a novel by Jayne Anne Phillips. Vintage. 331 pp. $16.00. ***** This is a masterpiece of American fiction. I’ve been asking myself why I didn’t read it years ago, and I think there are two reasons. Jayne Anne Phillips was getting her start in the literary world at the same time I was, 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
- Master of CrimeChinaman’s Chance by Ross Thomas. Mysterious Press. 334 pp. ***** It’s been years since I’ve read a mystery/crime novel, except for the work of Elmore Leonard, which I reread avidly when it came out in the Library of America (no one told a story better than Elmore Leonard. No one). Some years ago I read such ...Read more
- ChampKing of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero by David Remnick. Vintage. 352 pp. $14.39. ***** Of all the subjects I would have thought I knew everything about, Muhammad Ali is right at the top of the list. I started following his career in 1960, when he won an Olympic Gold ...Read more
- Utopian RealistThe Heaven & Earth Grocery Store a novel by James McBride. Riverhead Books. 385 pp. ***** James McBride has written award-winning and bestselling novels in the past—The Good Lord Bird and Deacon King Kong—also a highly acclaimed memoir, The Color of Water, but The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store—is a different kind of book altogether, beyond ...Read more
- And Coming Out the Other SidePassing Through Veils a novel of dread by John Harrison. WordFire Press. 229 pp. ***** Psychologist B.F. Skinner said there are three things human beings fear: death, their own minds, and other people. That seems to cover the ground. But I sometimes think our mind is what we’re most afraid of. Meditation teacher Larry Rosenberg once ...Read more
- William Kennedy’s Big BookChango Beads and Two-Tone Shoes a novel by William Kennedy. Viking. 326 pp. ***** In an interview in mid-career, William Kennedy talked about his career as a journalist and his decision to begin writing fiction, and to concentrate on the city he had moved away from, but then returned to take care of his father. Someone ...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
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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
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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)