Reviews
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The Importance of Being Nice
Abject admiration is the worst way to start a review. Isn’t it the blurbist’s job to kiss a writer’s behind, the critic’s to skewer it on the formidable barb of his or her literary intellect?
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The Purifying Flame
Glen Duncan’s new novel, A Day and a Night and a Day, is an intense and involving story of a man pressed violently against his own limitations.
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A Baker’s Dozen of My Feelings about David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
“Like most North Americans of his generation, Hal tends to know way less about why he feels certain ways about the objects and pursuits he’s devoted to than he does about the objects and pursuits themselves. It’s hard to say…
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The Only Band That Mattered
The author remembers his time with Joe Strummer and reflects on the band’s definitive new book, The Clash.
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A Review of Deb Olin Unferth’s Vacation
Obsession distorts the lens through which we view the world; things that once seemed unfathomable become terrifically and terrifyingly plausible.
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The Silence of Thousands of Miles
A Review of Matthew Eck’s The Farther Shore “The war is now a story. How will it get told?” – William T. Vollmann
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Lost and Found
I first heard about Stoner back in grad school. I’d been on a Denis Johnson jag (weren’t we all?) and so naturally assumed the novel was a florid account of reefer madness. This is how Stoner begins: William Stoner entered…
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Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB by Jaime Lowe
“A nigga don’t come out of jail and get his toes done,” ODB is quoted in a new biography, as he pointed out the earth-tones and the feng-shui waterfall in a manicure parlor. “How are the kids gonna feel about…
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To Preserve One Life
A Review of Writing in the Dark, by David Grossman BY BRIAN SCHWARTZ In the Hebrew language, I am sure, there are several different ways to say “enemy.” I have little grasp of what these words might be. I imagine…