I like starting novels in the middle. By skipping all those establishing shots, which exclude as much as they reveal, you’re able to catch the author and the characters off their guard. Also, once you have finished, you can start again at the beginning and have the paradoxical pleasure of reading the book for the … Read more
Wisely, the makers of Shattered Glass have not pitched their story to viewers—or the media—as being about the inner workings of a hundred-year-old publication or the pitfalls of modern political journalism. No, according to the film’s writer-director, Billy Ray, Shattered Glass is “bigger than journalism”—it’s about “right and wrong.” Reviewers and critics have generally bought … Read more
Don’t ever let anybody tell you that fabulousness can’t be found in the first-tier suburbs. Since her cabaret debut in 1996, the former beauty queen and current post-office switchboard operator known as Miss Richfield 1981 has been wowing audiences with her combination of civic boosterism and flamboyant fashion sense. (Sometimes she answers to the name … Read more
American Guitar Stallions, by Keith PilleReviewed by Keith Pille I come to bury American Guitar Stallions, not to praise it. Which is good, because burial, not praise, is what this stinking sack of crap merits. Deep burial. In a fortified and lead-sealed vault. American Guitar Stallions is easily among the worst novels of the new … Read more
It’s not just women, of course; it takes two not to tango. So why do married couples have such a hard time talking about sex? Part of the problem, I realize now, is that women are uncomfortable talking about sex apart from all the other things that go into a relationship. Men have an easier … Read more
Aw, hell. You won’t believe what I got myself into. So I’ll just tell you. I’m going to be a guest speaker at my old high school for career day. Delicious irony #1: I never completed high school.Delicious irony #2: Either they never bothered to check this fact, or they don’t care. My dilemma came … Read more
My teenage daughter hurt my feelings the other day, and this bizarre thing happened. The light in the room shifted, there was a faint static, and a tremor ran through my body. Suddenly, I was channeling my brother-in-law’s Jewish mother (odd, since she is still alive and well in Louisville). “Sophie,” I heard myself lament. … Read more
Remember those low-budget horror films from the 1950s? Other-worldly music would play, and then a creepy creature would land its spaceship in a swamp in the middle of nowhere, slither out, and tell the first startled Earthling, “Take me to your leader.” Now, as then, we laugh at the idea that there could possibly be … Read more
Already the only writer to win the Booker Prize twice, South African novelist Coetzee nabbed an even bigger honor in October in this year’s Nobel. He certainly didn’t net such accolades by avoiding controversial topics-consider 1999’s Disgrace, a complex story about animal rights, racism, and his homeland’s iniquitous history and uncertain future. He’s notoriously enigmatic, … Read more
Often considered Holland’s best hope to win the Nobel Prize, Harry Mulisch has built a reputation chiefly on two powerhouse novels-his World War II epic The Assault, and his sky-spanningly surreal The Discovery of Heaven, an ambitious work in the Umberto Eco vein. Mulisch’s aim in his latest, Siegfried, is pretty ambitious as well-an attempt … Read more