Edward St. Aubyn Is Compulsively Readable
'The Complete Patrick Melrose Novels' is a bitter comedy of manners that takes readers on a sordid, stylish, disturbing, funny and profound moral journey.
Michael Antman
Michael Antman is a two-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Balakian Award for Excellence in Reviewing. He is the author of the novel Cherry Whip (ENC Press, 2004), and recently completed a new novel, Everything Solid Has a Shadow. His website, where most of his writing is collected, is at Michael Antman Author.com.
Minae Mizumura’s ‘A True Novel’ Makes for a Truly Engrossing Tale
This deeply engrossing and sophisticated Japanese novel unpeels itself in multiple nested narratives over its 855 page length.
Reality, One Grain at a Time
There’s more of value in one Calvino essay about Roman pig sties than there is in a week’s worth of slop from the Huffington Post.
Joyce Carol Oates’ ‘Lovely, Dark, Deep’ Is Not Bad, Pretty Good, Okay
A line in one of the stories here neatly summarizes Oates’ works: “In private, a nervous collapse is an illness. In public, it can be a career.”
Soul Murder and Dreams in ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage’
Like the cobwebs and spider webs that colonize a neglected basement, Haruki Murakami’s filamentous plot threads trail uncannily across our psyches.
Which Is Better, Gorgeous Writing or a Gorgeous Blonde?
In The Black-Eyed Blond, Benjamin Black provides such a satisfying incarnation of Raymond Chandler's sensibility, it's almost possible to pretend Chandler is back among the living.
Walter Mondale’s ‘Good Fight’
Walter Mondale is remarkably engaged and up-to-date for a man who held the Vice Presidency more than 33 years ago.
On Being Up a Creek with Only a Paddle
Love Is a Canoe is about how people in love will latch onto any floating bit of debris to salvage their sinking relationships.