Category: the-art-of-narrative
- Where Memory ResidesSwann’s Way a novel by Marcel Proust. A new translation by Lydia Davis. Penguin Classics. 468 pp. $20.00 ***** In the fall of 1969, I was ecstatic to be taking Wallace Fowlie’s course on Proust. My brother had taken it two years before, in the spring. On the counsel of my writing mentor, Reynolds Price—he always ...Read more
- Going StraightCool Machine a novel by Colson Whitehead. Doubleday. 352 pp. $30.00. ***** I know of no other writer who is so satisfying as both a literary novelist and a thriller writer as Colson Whitehead. Graham Greene was great at both, but seemed to keep the genres separate. Someone like Elmore Leonard is a superb storyteller, period, ...Read more
- Loosely Is the WordVineland a novel by Thomas Pynchon. Penguin. 385 pp. $21.00 **** One Battle After Another a film by Paul Thomas Anderson. With Teyanna Taylor, Leonardo Di Caprio, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti, Benicio del Toro. ***** I have now read my third Thomas Pynchon novel, and all I can say is, I’m trying, folks, I’m trying. I greatly ...Read more
- SaintsLives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann. New York Review Books. 199 pp. ***** The Oyster Diaries a novel by Nancy Lemann. New York Review Books 240 pp. ***** Transcendence for Beginners: Life Writing and Philosophy by Clare Carlisle. New York Review Books. 194 pp. ***** Lives of the Saints is not a book I would expect to ...Read more
- The Sublime and the RidiculousGravity’s Rainbow a novel by Thomas Pynchon. Penguin Classics. 776 pp. *****? A Hell of a Woman and After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson. From Jim Thompson: Five Noir Novels of the 1950’s and 60’s. Library of America. pp 1-284. *** I can’t remember when I’ve both been annoyed by and admired a novel as much ...Read more
- Writing for his LifeDevouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life by Todd Goddard. Black Stone Publishing. 518 pp. **** In the late seventies, when my writing career was getting started, I followed the literary world the way other men follow the sports pages, and I vividly remember the event that put Jim Harrison on the map: Esquire published the ...Read more
- Mixed FeelingsThe Magus a novel by John Fowles. Back Bay Books. 656 pp. **** I can’t remember ever being as exasperated by a book that I basically liked as I was by The Magus. What I read—after my enthusiastic reading of The French Lieutenant’s Woman—was that, while that was considered his greatest novel, The Magus was his ...Read more
- What Do I Call This Thing?The Flamethrowers a novel by Rachel Kushner. Scribner. 383 pp. ***** Rachel Kushner is a writer who is so riveting line by line that you forget to step back and ask yourself what you’ve been reading. Then your wife asks and you say, it’s about an art student in New York named Reno (named for the ...Read more
- UnforgettableThe French Lieutenant’s Woman a novel by John Fowles. Little, Brown and Company. 467 pp. ***** The French Lieutenant’s Woman was one of the favorite novels of my friend Levi, who had read it multiple times. In fact, I believe he gave me the copy I have, for my birthday or for Christmas; like most book ...Read more
- WSNothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare’s Love Life by Anthony Burgess. Norton. 234pp. ***** I am constantly amazed by Anthony Burgess. Using the evidence of the surviving poetry, especially the sonnets, and what is known about the chronology of the plays, Burgess has spun an utterly credible narrative of Shakespeare’s early life. More astounding ...Read more
- Don’t Miss This OneA Gathering of Old Men a novel by Ernest J. Gaines. From Gaines: Four Novels. Library of America. pp. 405-583. ***** Though I almost didn’t read it—I’d been disappointed by In My Father’s House, which I found oddly inert—A Gathering Of Old Men might be Ernest J. Gaines’ best novel. It is certainly the most suspenseful; ...Read more
- Mallon Works MagicWatergate a novel by Thomas Mallon. Vintage. 429 pp. ***** I’ve resisted the three political novels at the heart of Thomas Mallon’s recent work, Watergate, Finale, and Landfall, about three presidents whom I’ve always detested, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush (the younger). Mallon and I are friends, though we haven’t seen each other in years, but I ...Read more
- A Few More Words on FaulknerStories by William Faulkner. Library of America. 1160 pp. ***** I have now, so help me God, read every word William Faulkner wrote and published, at least all the prose. I enthusiastically reviewed this book some weeks ago, and had just a couple of small sections to go. Also, I hadn’t read the first volume in ...Read more
- Charmed LifeThe Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983-1994 by Thomas Mallon. Knopf. 573 pp. $40.00. ***** It seems forever since I’ve posted on my website, but I spent much of July reading and reviewing a new biography of Peter Matthiessen for the winter issue of Tricycle. I’m also still reading bits and pieces of Faulkner ...Read more
- ImposterFaulkner: Stories (Knight’s Gambit, Collected Stories, Big Woods, Other Works). Library of America. 1160 pp. ***** For some time I’ve been claiming (rather proudly) that I recently completed a project of reading and rereading all of William Faulkner. It was five Library of America volumes, and it took me months, reading the novels in order. I ...Read more
- Aspiration Meets RealityThe Group a novel by Mary McCarthy. From Novels 1963-1979. Library of America. pp. 1-359. ***** I said here recently, in my study of outrageous women from several generations, that All Fours is a better novel than anything Mary McCarthy or Erica Jong had written. That may still be true. But at that point I hadn’t ...Read more
- 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
- Two MasterpiecesNickel Boys a film by RaMell Ross. With Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Hamish Linklater, Trey Perkins. Streaming on various platforms. ***** I felt about the movie Nickel Boys exactly the way I felt about the book; I wanted to see it but was half afraid to. There are many ways a movie could have ...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
- 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
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Where Memory ResidesGoing StraightNoisy NeighborsLoosely Is the WordThis Lane Is Your Lane, That Lane Is My Lane
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (132)American literature (231)art (123)Buddhism (174)Christianity (133)creative process (266)death and dying (144)meditation (128)movies (171)music (46)race (113)religion (199)sex (194)spirituality (177)the art of narrative (271)Uncategorized (21)world literature (23)