Denis Johnson’s new novel — his first in nine years — continues the author’s studies of sympathy and redemption as integral parts of human physiology. Still, as in most of Johnson’s work, a feeling of desolation pervades. Set in the ’60s, each segment of Tree of Smoke: A Novel follows a year in the lives … Read more
Junot Diaz’s debut collection of short stories, Drown, appeared ten years ago and drew the kind of attention usually reserved for writers with more established résumés. A big part of that was the cool intensity of the prose, which chronicled the lives of adolescent boys living in hardscrabble communities in the Dominican Republic, or transplanted … Read more
An entrepreneur who sells his memories for three thousand dollars per decade, a verisimilitude inspector for a Civil War-themed amusement park, ghosts who relive their deaths every night when their son comes home from work: This is the stuff of a typical George Saunders story. What, then, happens when Saunders turns his pen to nonfiction? … Read more
It’s been a huge year for Norwegian writer Per Petterson. The acclaim for his latest novel ranged from Thomas McGuane’s front-page rave in the Times Book Review (“A gripping account of such originality as to expand the reader’s own experience of life”) to the $135,000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. .___________________________________________________. Award-winning author Richard Ford … Read more
This French comedy opens with two brothers in bed with a girl. One looks at the camera, apologizes for speaking directly to the audience, and then asks, “How would someone throw themselves off a bridge for love?” Rest assured, we’ll find out. Dans Paris (Inside Paris, not to be confused with One Night in Paris) … Read more
We all have to eat, but do we have to obsess about it? Hell’s Kitchen is a top-ten, prime-time show, Ratatouille is teaching our kids to rhapsodize over crème brûlée, and the Food Network force-feeds us celebrity chefs 24/7. There’s a story going around about a teacher who asked her class to list words describing … Read more
Every year, sculptor John Hock invites a couple dozen fellow artists to come and do their thing at Franconia Sculpture Park, the road trip-worthy destination he co-founded near Taylor’s Falls. The sculptors, who range from established names based in far-flung metropolises to student interns from local art schools, sweat it out all summer; come September, … Read more
These days you can’t turn on a television without encountering an advertisement for some pharmaceutical sleep aid, and sleep centers have sprung up all over the country. Yet for experts like Dr. Mark Mahowald, that explosion of treatment options—and the ceaseless wave of sleep-deprived patients seeking them—is both a blessing and a curse. That’s because … Read more
“This is city girl meets country boy,” quipped Cheri Peterson, pointing a finger between herself and her husband, Kevin. However, such a coupling can work swimmingly when the pair gets to share a sophisticated yet bucolic life as owners and operators of the WineHaven Winery and Vineyard, outside Chisago City. The Peterson partnership, which manages … Read more
You know what printmaking is: creating multiple copies of an image, by any means possible. Print is a parallel art-world with its own histories and propensities. Some techniques are ancient, like woodcuts; some are former industrial processes, like stone lithography or screenprint; some are intimately allied with books and illustrations, like intaglio. Print is a … Read more