Month: August 2004

Ellroy. Tough-guy writer. L.A. noir. Calls himself Demon Dog. Uses short sentences. Not even complete ones. Sounds tougher that way. (Not faking toughness—see here? In new book? Page 115. Right—his mug shot.) Sure, he wrote L.A. Confidential. Still, not his fault about Kim Basinger winning Oscar when she can’t act. New book, this Destination: Morgue!…

Anyone who knows Bill Hillsman knows two things. He’s both a very serious and a very funny guy. And he is a master at the art of promotion, including self-promotion. Here’s a man with no compunction about self-praise: “Regarded as without peer nationally when it comes to achieving results through unorthodox marketing methods to a…

One of our favorite second novels is Wilton Barnhardt’s Gospel, a rollicking, world-spanning adventure starring a couple of hapless and deeply flawed archaeologists. Reading The Egyptologist, the second novel by Minneapolis-born Phillips, brought back good memories of Gospel, perhaps only because of a superficial similarity in setting and the fact that both books are damn…

Truly smart poetry, with its seductive surfaces, sometimes risks the hollow note. But the poems in Earthling, the first book from Minneapolis poet Steve Healey (just published by Coffee House Press), display a heart that beats with the iambic resonance of a credible soul. Intelligent, playful, and fast-moving, they also contain a sense of genuine…

The publication of political books is coming so thick and fast that you’d be forgiven for wondering if a recent NEA study, the one about the decline of reading in America, just plain got it wrong. Among them is the paperback release of Molly Ivins’ best-selling Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America, with an…

Considered one of Chekhov’s best—if shortest—plays, The Cherry Orchard’s mix of comedy, tragedy and romance in in turn-of-the-century Russia is still relevant, given the hardships that continue to plague the country. Madame Ranevskaya leaves her no-good husband in Paris and returns to her homeland estate to tend to its beautiful orchard. She struggles with money,…