Articles in the criticism Category
Mikhail Chekhov’s Anton Chekhov: A Brother’s Memoir has at last been published in English in its entirety, and its flaws and omissions make it almost as revealing as one of Anton’s own stories.
The jewel-like perfection of Thornton Wilder’s “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” is the subject of Ingrid Norton’s scrutiny in this latest installment of “The Year of Short Novels”
The nation’s book critics naturally congregated when Don DeLillo’s slim new book appeared. In the latest Open Letters Peer Review, John Rodwan supplies a scorecard for the players.
In mythology, Alcestis is the model wife, willing to give up her own life for her husband’s. In Katharine Beutner’s lyrical retelling, the truth is more complex.
The latest novels by Francisco X. Stork and Benjamin Alire Saenz remind us that there’s much, much more to teen fiction than vampire fads.
Justin Taylor’s Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever raises the age-old question about ‘hot’ new collections: can they possibly live up to their own billing? Janet Potter turns in a verdict.
Two new novels by Adam Haslett and Jonathan Dee attempt to show us the way we live now by exposing the quality of the characters who handle (or, as the case may be, mishandle) our money.
When Patricia Highsmith was bored at parties, she would cover the dinner table with her pet snails. As Joan Schenkar shows in her new biography The Talented Miss Highsmith, this may have been the sweetest part of her personality.
Mary Caponegro continues her chronicle of troubled intimacies in the story collection All Fall Down
Felix Holt, the Radical may be George Eliot’s least-read novel, but as Rohan Maitzen shows, its intricately rendered relationships both paved the path for Middlemarch and reflected on Eliot’s own life
Boilerplate traveled the world at the turn of the twentieth century in attempt to dissuade humans from their many wars. Finally, his biography (can such things be?) is revealed, and Lianne Habinek reveals its astonishing contents
Lauren Kate’s new young adult book Fallen is getting the full Twilight treatment, YouTube trailer and all. Kristin Brower Walker looks into what the book is about beyond all that promotional blitz
Philip Roth’s The Humbling is shrouded in the wintry landscape of his late style. Robin Mookerjee enters the cold.
Irma Heldman reviews The Ghosts of Belfast, Stuart Neville’s grand Irish thriller debut in which the anti-hero, Gerry Fegan, a former IRA hitman, is “touched” as in crazy, and long ago would have been given the death sentence if they’d had anyone with the moxie to kill him.
2009 was a strong year for the teen fiction genre, with inventive entries of every style. Kristin Walker selects three winners in a year-end roundup.
Dan Baum and Dave Eggers have made very different books on New Orleans and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; Thomas Larson separates sense from sensationalism.
For a season, Maurice Sendak’s iconic Wild Things have become specifically what Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze want them to be … but what is that? Janet Potter goes out to meet them.
Hilary Mantel’s Tudor novel Wolf Hall recently won the Man-Booker Prize. Each part of that sentence was guaranteed to attract Steve Donoghue’s attention.
Perennially underrated novelist Pete Dexter’s latest, Spooner, continues his fascination with damaged characters. Sam Sacks tours a body of work composed mostly of battered bodies.
Hairy slugs, warring souls, and sexy goblins – Young Adult Fiction is alive and well. Kristin Walker hunkers down with three recent thrillers.
In The Children’s Book, A.S. Byatt tells the long and complicated story of a family’s secrets; Karen Vanuska sheds some light in the corners.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
He wrote over 40 novels, many of which a classics, and that sheer quantity can be daunting. Rohan Maitzen tells us how best to approach the literary dynamo that was Anthony Trollope.
From Charles Todd, author of the critically acclaimed Ian Rutledge series, comes A Duty to the Dead, introducing Bess Crawford, a World War I nurse, who is feisty, fearless, and fascinating. Irma Heldman joins Crawford on her inaugural adventure.
Young adult fiction today is as varied and challenging as young adult life has become. Kristin Brower Walker reads two promising new titles, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and When You Reach Me, that seem destined to make the next Newbery Award shortlist.
Fans of Dan Chaon’s complex, intellectual fiction have eagerly awaited his newest, Await Your Reply. Janet Potter tries to pin down the book’s many identities.
In her new story collection Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Maile Meloy depicts men and women (but mostly men) who want to eat their cake and have it too. Lianne Habinek tells us how successful these characters, and Meloy, turn out to be.
A local, a booster, and a tourist take on New York; Sam Sacks tours the city with E.L. Doctorow, Colm Tóibín, and Colum McCann.
Lydia Peelle revisits the territory of Southern fiction in her short story collection Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, and Karen Vanuska treks the vivid terrain
Hot-ticket director Guilermo del Toro has co-written a vampire novel that just happens to be about 50 percent flawed. Coincidence? Zombie expert Deirdre Crimmins is on the case.
In Dan Fesperman’s meticulously crafted World War II thriller, The Arms Maker of Berlin, he opens up old war chests and lets the genies of the past wreak havoc upon the present. Irma Heldman is on the case.
The primitivism of small-town life gets a thorough examination in Robert Cohen’s Amateur Barbarians; Joshua Garstka strolls these suburbs and reports back
Brian Evenson’s stories are populated by wanderers, ciphers, and schizophrenics lost in the fog of their own frustrations. John Madera attempts to navigate the miasma of Fugue State.
Meet Artie Cohen, a Russian Jewish cop with a conscience. In Reggie Nadelson’s Londongrad, he’s got the weight of the world on one shoulder and New York crime on the other. Irma Heldman follows his travels in the latest “It’s a Mystery.”
J. Courtney Sullivan’s novel Commencement has been compared to fellow Seven Sister Mary McCarthy’s The Group. Laura Tanenbaum assesses how Sullivan fills some mighty big shoes.
Who’s the greatest hater, a killer or his victim’s avenger? Deirdre Crimmins takes a stab at David Moody’s Hater.
Flotsam and jetsam clutter Javier Calvo’s novel Wonderful World, but do they choke its flow? Lianne Habinek, our steadfast guide, charts its course.
They’re back! Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played with Fire marks the return of Mikael Blomkvist, the intrepid investigative journalist, and his sidekick Lisbeth Salander, the world-class punk hacker. Irma Heldman is on their trail.
Adam Golaski grew up reading Jay McInerney and wanting to walk in his shoes. In How It Ended, those soles are a little scuffed.
The bowling alleys and corner stores of Jim Krusoe’s middle America are the source of oddities beyond imagining—until you’ve read Sharon Fulton’s review of his novels, that is
Aleksandar Hemon’s prose has scarcely been mentioned without the accompanying adjective ‘Nabokovian’; John Madera looks at Hemon’s new collection of stories Love and Obstacles to see whether the modifier fits.
In The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie has written his most Melvillean novel. John G. Rodwan, Jr. indulges in some Melvillean digressions as he explains just exactly what that means.
Colson Whitehead, one of our most intellectually satisfying writers, has written a “novel” that meanders suspiciously like a memoir. Sam Sacks reviews Sag Harbor.
She was a bestseller in her day, now virtually unknown. Fanny Burney, and her great novel Evelina, gets some long-deserved attention from Tracey Kelly.
Anthony Burgess is famous, but not for his best book. John Cotter sees your A Clockwork Orange and raises you Earthly Powers.
Steve Donoghue takes the emperor’s box to thumbs-up or thumbs-down an array of Roman historical novels, as “A Year with the Romans” continues.
You may have passed over Frederick Busch’s many novels on bookstore shelves; Brad Jones convinces you to stop and read the words.
Eric van Lustbader throws every cliche in the kitchen into Robert Ludlum’s endless Bourne saga, attempting to keep the pot boiling. Greg Waldmann tastes the stew.
Intrepid reporter Deirdre Crimmins tackles that last literary taboo: Regency zombies.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck displays a long list of literary influences; John Madera asks what these well-made stories have to say.
With The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer takes his place in the panoply of classic spy fiction—at the very top with Deighton, Greene, and Le Carré. Irma Heldman is on the inside and tells all.
John Cheever’s cocktail parties may be gone, but the Library of America has punched up their commuter ticket with a new Collected Stories and Other Writings. That’s Christen Enos in the club car.
China Mieville’s latest book features two cities nervously co-existing in the same space. Khalid Ponte looks at both sides now.
Master of the mannered sneak-attack, Kazuo Ishiguro has enraptured readers for years – including Karen Vanuska, who walks us through Nocturnes, his new collection of linked stories.
Shifting from a Vietnam epic, newly-minted National Book Award winner Denis Johnson goes noir in Nobody Move; John Matthew Fox leads us down these new mean streets.
It wouldn’t be summer without a giant killer shark novel, so Steve Donoghue goes for a fun swim with the, er, mother of them all, Meg: Hell’s Aquarium.
“A sorry business this scribbling,” Joseph Conrad once confessed, and we remember him problematically. John Rodwan reappraises the murky nature of his books.
Exiled to the basement, pelted with garbage, and unlucky in love: zombies have it rough in S.G. Browne’s new novel Breathers. Dierdre Crimmins lends a sympathetic ear (figuratively, of course).
A Nazi picaresque wouldn’t seem to be a likely read, but Karen Vanuska reviews a new reprint of Jakov Lind’s 1962 World War II novel Landscape in Concrete and finds its grim, absurd power undimmed by the years.
Veteran comics illustrator David Mazzucchelli takes center stage writing and drawing his first full-length graphic novel, Asterios Polyp, and Sharon Fulton takes a look at the result.
Jeanette Winterson has made a career of pushing her prose poetry into different worlds. But by abandoning Earth altogether, has she left her readers stranded? Karen Vanuska heretically challenges The Stone Gods.
Rare indeed these days for mention of Iran to provoke smiles—and so Iraj Perezkzad’s beloved farce My Uncle Napoleon gains new relevance. Bryn Haworth takes a fresh look at an old friend.
Oprah favorite Wally Lamb has co-opted the Columbine shootings, the Iraq war, and Hurricane Katrina for his latest bestseller, The Hour I First Believed. Julie McGinley directs a pointed look at his formula that makes tragedy equal growth.
Celebrated young novelist Jesse Ball’s latest, The Way through Doors, twists and pulls at the nature of narrative itself. Lianne Habinek threads the labyrinth.
Bernie Gunther is back! In the newest incarnations of Philip Kerr’s crime series, the charismatic, cynical P.I.—more ready with a ribald wisecrack than a gun—has survived the decadent dog days of the Weimar Republic only to get down and dirty on the mean streets of Munich. Irma Heldman tags along after him.
Arthur Phillips’ new novel, The Song Is You, takes a sentimental bachelor’s soundtrack and sets it to adult themes of family tragedy. Sam Sacks listens to hear whether the opus reveals new growth in the novelist—and whether it will grow on the reader.
Much critical buzz has accompanied Philipp Meyer’s debut novel American Rust (there’s talk of a Pulitzer)—Karen Vanuska cuts through the hype and attempts to nail down the thing itself.
Anne Easter Smith’s The King’s Grace builds its plot around the mystery of the Princes in the Tower—and borrows its conceit from Josephine Tey’s classic A Daughter in Time. Finch Bronstein-Rasmussen examines the book and the mystery.
In her new novel Lark and Termite, Jayne Anne Phillips grapples with the challenge of using intricate language to convey wordless innocence. Sam Sacks is sympathetic to her goal, but he can’t help thinking of William Faulkner …
Irma Heldman is back on the beat, first with a rollicking, bawdy yarn depicting an infamous, turn-of-the century caper masterminded by Professor Moriarty—Sherlock Holmes’ archenemy. Then she matches wits with a cheeky mini-tome refuting the great detective’s solution to his most illustrious case.
Chris Adrian’s preoccupation with “unorthodox angels” persists in his third book, A Better Angel. John Matthew Fox ranks Adrian’s demons in this artful story collection.
Karen Vanuska finds plenty to praise in Louise Erdrich’s The Red Convertible: New and Selected Stories—as well as some loose bolts and steam under the hood.
It was a year full of fine additions to the genre, but according to regular “It’s a Mystery” columnist Irma Heldman, two among them were decidedly the cream of the crop. One is a first and one a twenty-first!
Mary Borden’s long-forgotten 1929 memoir of World War I, The Forbidden Zone, takes its readers into the harrowing world of a front-line trauma nurse. Joanna Scutts joins her in the trenches and assesses the damage.
Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives took the literary world by storm, and his latest posthumous release, 2666, is five times as long and ten times as ambitious. Find out what tales dead men tell as Sam Sacks tackles this immense and problematic monster.
Before Mexico, Tangier, or even rehab, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs were deeply involved in a real-life murder plot. Now the book they wrote about it finally gets its day in court and Andrew Martin delivers his literary verdict on And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks.
What is it about Booker and Nobel judges that make one reach for Chambers Biographical Dictionary only to hurl it across the room in despair? Sam Sacks seeks the source of prize-winner Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger.
Heaven help the author who becomes a cult figure in his own lifetime – Sharon Fulton reads the latest from fan favorite Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book, to see what all the fuss is about.
Fans of Sylvia Brownrigg’s fiction admire the hidden complexity beneath its surface simplicity; we plumb the depths of The Delivery Room and Morality Tale with Karen Vanuska.
Never before have so many vampires lurked on our bookshelves, so, just in time for Hallowe’en, Sharon Fulton unearths dozens of undead novels and sinks her teeth into their relative merits in the first installment of her Fan(g) Guide!
What constitutes particularly Southern fiction? In reckoning Ron Rash’s Serena, Karen Vanuska goes below the Mason-Dixon line in search of something that sets Southern fiction apart – aside from all the dead bodies stacked like cordwood.
It’s been over 30 years since Gore Vidal wrote his penetrating and acerbic essay on the bestseller list, and we thought it was time to give that infamous mainstay of the literary world another look. Open Letters has cracked into the bestseller list and invites you to join us in discovering what’s really there…
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