Archive | September 2009
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Seattle Bookfest, October 24-25, 2009
This isn’t new news, but Seattle is going to have another book festival: Seattle Bookfest. It has been a while since we’ve had one of these and it is always good to support local authors, which is what my quick glance over the schedule caught. It is good to see Paul Doyle is leading this [...]
Among Thieves – A Review
Mez Packer’s Among Thieves is British ska noir, a combination of the 2 Tone seen in early 80′s England and drug dealers and low grade criminals. What gives the book promise is the setting with the music and rebelliousness and an energy set against a dreary England rife with unemployment and disappointment. The characters would [...]
Rupert: A Confession – A Review
Rupert: A Confession belongs to that genre of writing called the compulsive explainer, which features a narrator who is unable to control his need to explain the world, often in intricate detail, as he sees it even if it is in his best interest not to explain so much. It can be a difficult way [...]
Ten Days In A Madhouse by Nellie Bly – A Review
What shocks one generation can seem so tame to another, or in those shifting ironies of time what seemed natural is now the shocker. Over the last 100 years in the United States that shifting shock has most often come with the changes in race and gender relations. But the shifts have also come in [...]
Death in Spring – A Review
—Men who are eager to kill are already dead. (pg. 99) To distill Mercé Rodoreda’s Death in Spring into an essay is not so much difficult, but it quickly takes the magic from this brief yet symbolically complex novel. Set in a mythical village where the laws of nature mostly work as expected and the [...]
Clarice Lispector Review in New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books has a long review essay by Lorrie Moore that also draws on some of her other works.
This Side Of Paradise – A Review
The problem with coming of age stories is that once you have come of age and look back at what may have been a small fraction of a life, it may seem just a pacing moment in the larger picture of a life. Moreover, it is such a specific event that others have no way [...]
New Quarterly Conversation with News from the Empire Review
The Quarterly Conversation just published issue 17. It includes my review of Fernando Del Paso’s News from the Empire. There are some other interesting articles, too. Definitely worth the look.
Inglorious Bastards – A Review
Along with John Woo, Quentin Tarentino made violence chic. Sure there was graphic violence in film, just watch some Peckinpah. The difference is with Tarentino the scenes of violence are dovetailed with the humorous insider jokes, the one who understands that the song playing in the background signifies something and that the composition of the [...]
