Author: rakemag

While Jonathan Safran Foer just made New York Press’s “50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers” list, Ms. Krauss would likely beg to differ; she married him. What does this have to do with Krauss’s The History of Love, published just a month after Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close? Quite a bit, it turns out, when you look between the covers. The following aptly describes both books: A very old Holocaust survivor who has spent his postwar life in tortured isolation trades chapters with a very clever young person who is on a journey across New York City to uncover a mystery. In both books, the journeyer’s mythically wonderful father has died young. Both books indulge in Internet-age visual play, with graphics and page layout trickery to enhance the story. Both have a distant and mournful mother whose children wander recklessly in a world proven unpredictable and cruel, as well as a man who, grief-stricken into silence, is reduced to yes-and-no gestures to communicate with a child. The similarities continue — Call it the single-mindedness of marriage, or something else, but Krauss is darn lucky she writes as well as her husband. Her book is completely engrossing, beautifully told, and, despite the above (not to mention its generic snooze of a title), quite original.

A new Ann Beattie book is no longer the event it once was, which is something of a shame. She’s been kicking out such consistently accomplished fiction for so long now that it’s become easy to take her for granted. When she first made her name with a series of New Yorker stories in the seventies, Beattie was most often compared to older writers of frigid urban realism like the Johns Cheever and Updike, or her contemporary, Raymond Carver. Nearly thirty years later those comparisons are still in the ballpark; Beattie’s mastered an economy of style and a terse, emotional shorthand that often masks her versatility. She has an uncanny feel for the way real people talk, and her subtle descriptions of the idiosyncrasies, neuroses, and frequent sense of disconnection that bedevil her characters are as timely as ever.

Year after year, this lecture series brings in some of literature’s heaviest hitters, and yet somehow maintains a surprisingly low profile. Isabel Allende, May’s featured author, is a former journalist and the niece of slain Chilean President Salvador Allende, who was overthrown in a CIA-assisted coup in 1973. Since her first novel, 1985’s The House of Spirits, Allende has garnered international acclaim for a dozen books that are distinguished by their powerful female characters, connections across generations, and rich historical detail. Her latest, a novel on the legend of Zorro, is due this month. Adath Jeshurun Congregation, 10500 Hillside Lane, Minnetonka; 952-847-8637

Before there was David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, or even, for crying out loud, Dave Barry, there was Fran Lebowitz, a caustic, chain-smoking New Yorker who came on like a cross between Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker. In the seventies, Lebowitz was nothing less than a Manhattan celebrity; her Social Studies and Metropolitan Life were best sellers, and she was frequently a hugely entertaining talk show guest. God knows what happened, but the woman clammed up and disappeared. Until we got wind of this rare surfacing, we’d assumed Lebowitz had fallen off the planet. We’re more than a little curious to hear what she’s been up to, and what she thinks of the world she seems to have left behind. And also whether she’ll light up on stage at the Fitz. 651-290-1221, www.fitzgeraldtheater.org

No other living American writer can drop us into the wild, wild West or a Texas countryside like Rick Bass. Writing with empathy and great humility, he makes characters we can touch; we meet them in Montana valleys or while trespassing on a Texas ranch. His newest effort, The Diezmo, combines those qualities with gorgeous desert-landscape love scenes. The Diezmo also feels darker than Bass’s previous efforts; it’s a re-creation of a murderous history along the Texas-Mexico border that conjures Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses.

Aimee Mann has made several unusual but ultimately inspired moves in her career, including writing the stunning soundtrack to the film Magnolia and co-founding United Musicians, an organization that allows artists to retain copyright ownership of their work. Musically, with her smoky jazz voice and sharp, melodic pop sensibilities, she can hardly do wrong with her new record, The Forgotten Arm. This one’s a concept album, telling the story of two lovers, one of which is a Vietnam vet on a road trip across America in the 1970s. Mann’s familiar themes of addiction and broken relationships make wrenching yet cathartic appearances in these songs.

Soul Coughing disbanded five years ago, and frontman Mike Doughty seems sublimely content with the way his life has progressed since. He’s traded the psychotic sample stylings of Soul Coughing, as well as his moniker, M., for more traditional songwriting that he calls “small rock” and for collaborations with the likes of Dave Matthews and local fave Dan Wilson, who produced his new solo recording. It still sounds like Mike Doughty, but this is Dan Wilson-flavored Doughty. Haughty Melodic is consistently excellent, the music both upbeat and beat up. And really, who can match Doughty for lyrics? He and keyboardist Dan Chen will perform at Cedar Cultural Center on May 14. Be there or be lo-fi.

In an attempt to reach younger audiences, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra began offering Saturday morning children’s concerts at deep discounts. Progressive. Now it’s presenting a new work, commissioned along with other chamber orchestras, for violin, chamber orchestra, and jazz saxophone. Very progressive. In the scramble to be king of the tenor-sax hill, Joe Lovano is the schoolyard bully, possessing a mean tone combined with a nearly unparalleled sense of rhythm and chromatic harmony. He’s joined by guest violinist Ruggero Allifranchini, a founding member of the Borromeo Quartet. On the program are “A Man Descending,” by composer Mark Anthony Turnage, which was written to accompany Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Lark Ascending.” 651-291-1144; www.thespco.org

Broadway has been cluttered lately with Hollywood actors living out their little fantasies. We like them well enough onscreen, but these girls and boys can’t really sing or dance, and they don’t eat enough–which makes a difference to those who believe that good curves can really make a show. Sassy, classy Broadway broads like Gypsy Rose Lee and Lola gave the audience–even those in the cheap seats–something to feast on, with elegant, accomplished burlesque shows that set a standard many of today’s dancers couldn’t ever touch. But the lads of OutLoud!, a small ensemble of the Gay Men’s Chorus, know what it takes to be a woman. In this extravagant tribute to the art of the femme fatale, these scorching songbirds have the heels, heart, and feathers necessary to bring the grand dames of the Great White Way back to life. 612-624-2345; www.music.umn.edu/facilities/tedMann.php

One of the more uplifting moments during last month’s worldwide festival of death was Stevie Wonder’s performance at lawyer Johnnie Cochran’s funeral. His appearance made it painfully obvious that millions of pilgrims in Rome had been shortchanged by the papal entertainment committee. It also reminded us that while he is always handy for an all-star celebrity event (he’s even on the list to appear at Michael Jackson’s trial), he’s been notably absent from the recording studio–until now. A Time 2 Love, the first new Stevie Wonder record in a decade, contains flashes of his lyrical genius, funky good spirits, and ability to befriend just about anybody, including Prince, who plays guitar, and En Vogue, who sing backup.