The early monks of the Egyptian desert often faced their demons head on. Abba Antony in the hot sandy silence of the wilderness found himself attacked by several wild beasts at once. They roared and hissed, they buffeted his makeshift cell until it shook. He stared them down. They gnashed their teeth and left. Often, … Read more
The most important decision most people will ever make is picking the person who owns the last face they see at night and the first face they see in the morning. My mother used to warn my sisters and me to avoid being “unevenly yoked” as we shopped for spouses. For me in particular, that … Read more
Here’s my favorite line from First Comes Love—Marion Winik’s horrific yet touching memoir of marriage to an openly gay man who, between being diagnosed with AIDS and his eventual death several years later, stops working and starts skimming cash from Marion in order to support his drug habit: “There was a letter from the bank … Read more
The sun is peeking out, the snowman who stood sentry in my neighbors’ front lawn has surrendered, and though some of us will get itchy eyeballs and stuffy noses, we’re all going to get a present soon: an extra hour of daylight. I can’t help but get mushy like Mr. Snowman this time of year. … Read more
Let’s all do our part to make sure the state can afford its single most important obligation to the people: building new highways and adding lanes out to Eagan, beloved constituency of our Governor and State Auditor. Sacrifices must be made, of course, and we’re ready. In these troubling times, Minnesota families must assume a … Read more
DeLillo’s last book, Underworld, was one of those seasonal doorstops that the cognoscenti gets in a lather about—you know, the 800-page tome that everyone talks about and no one reads, the one that ends up atop a growing column of hardcovers in the basement, the last addition to which was Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon, or … Read more
Staggering Genius golden boy Dave Eggers’ journal swells from magazine to full-fledged 478-page paperback book for its tenth issue. The breathlessly pulpy title is only a little tongue-in-cheek. Mammoth Treasury, guest-edited by Michael Chabon, sets loose its writers on the plot-driven adventure story, the idea being that maybe they can help recapture the ripping yarn’s … Read more
For Joseph Heller, there was only one catch, and that was Catch-22. Although his blockbuster first novel catapulted him to lifelong prominence as one of the century’s most important novelists, its very success would haunt him for the rest of his career. Because he was only important for the one novel. Everybody loved the crazy … Read more
Just as the trees are beginning to bud again, spring brings a flowering from Minnesota’s local authors and independent presses, including several notable debuts. From Coffee House Press comes The Grasshopper King, Slate columnist Jordan Ellenberg’s wryly funny Boyle-cum-Borges satire about a crabby, untalented, yet mysteriously important Kafka-like poet and the two academics who wreck … Read more
It’s nearly perfect that the mischief-minded David Sedaris first gained fame for being an elf. If you’ve heard of Sedaris at all, you know about his hilarious, sardonic memoir “The SantaLand Diaries,” detailing his petty humiliations as one of Kris Kringle’s helpers at Macy’s department store. Insightful, bitter and genuinely sidesplitting, it struck a nerve … Read more