Category: the-art-of-narrative
- 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
- 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
- Call It What You Want. I Call It Great.A Thousand and One a film by A.V. Rockwell. With Teyana Taylor, William Catlett, Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney, Josiah Cross. Streaming on Prime and other platforms. ***** A Thousand and One is the best movie I’ve seen in years. It focuses on the black underclass—a group I need to learn about—but isn’t about pimps, whores, ...Read more
- The Family PhelanVery Old Bones a novel by William Kennedy. Viking. 292 pp. $22.00 When we read Ironweed, about a man—Francis Phelan—who accidentally kills his infant son and then, in shame, becomes a hobo for the rest of his life; or Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, about that man’s son, who lives as a gambler and numbers writer who ...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
- The Quick and the DeadIronweed a novel by William Kennedy. Penguin. 227 pp. $18.00 ***** Despite my huge admiration for the first two novels in the Albany cycle, I can see why Ironweed was the prize winner. Kennedy’s writing reaches an apotheosis in this book, perhaps from the subject matter, perhaps just because he was growing in confidence. In 1983, ...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
- The Way We’re All CrazyThe Dog of the South a novel by Charles Portis. From Charles Portis: Collected Works. Library of America pp. 261-461. $45.00 ****1/2 I see The Dog of the South as a real step forward in the work of Charles Portis. His first novel, Norwood, gave an indication of where he was heading. Then he wrote a ...Read more
- Famously ObscureTrue Grit a novel by Charles Portis. From Charles Portis: Collected Works. Library of America. pp. 111-261. $45.00. ***** One of the most wonderful things about True Grit is the voice of its narrator, whom we take to be the fourteen-old-girl who is going through this adventure, but who is actually much older, “a woman with ...Read more
- Cherchez la FemmeUnder the Glacier a novel by Haldor Laxness. With an introduction by Susan Sontag (thank God). Vintage. 240 pp. $17.00 ***1/2 I have to admit that Susan Sontag made more sense of this novel than I did. I actually finished the book with no idea what the hell was going on. Fortunately I had the Sontag introduction, ...Read more
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All Shook UpWhat's in a Song? IIWriting for his LifeWhat’s in a Song?Mixed Feelings
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (127)American literature (226)art (123)Buddhism (171)Christianity (132)creative process (262)death and dying (144)meditation (125)movies (167)music (42)race (110)religion (196)sex (187)spirituality (174)the art of narrative (266)Uncategorized (21)world literature (23)