Most newspapers and magazines posted their lists of the best books of 2009 by the end of November. I was no exception (you can see mine at the Florida Center for the Literary Arts Website). The problem with these early lists, though useful for Christmas shopping, is they risk missing worthwhile books published late in the year, especially from small independent publishing … [Read more...]
‘Invisible’ a masterful chronicle of ambition, mystery and loss
It would be too much to say that Paul Auster’s latest novel constitutes a comeback or even a return to form. His recent work, although sometimes roughed up by critics, has not exactly been inferior, or the product of an imagination grown slack with maturity and success. Yet for all that Auster accomplishes with, say, Man in the Dark (2008), it is a small book. Its effects, … [Read more...]
Los Lobos delightfully reimagines Disney catalog
When I first learned that Los Lobos was about to put out an album of Disney songs, I was righteously indignant. Such a misguided project could only be a sellout, at best, and, at worst, a complete collapse of creative drive. What in the world could the trailblazing East L.A. Chicano rockers have in common with Cliff Edwards, as Jiminy-freaking-Cricket, crooning When You Wish … [Read more...]
‘Hell’ a darkly comic riff on the real land down under
The temptation to construct a review of Robert Olen Butler’s novel Hell entirely from quotations and excerpts is almost more than I can resist. And really, why should I resist? In Butler’s propulsively clever yet unsettling vision of the afterlife, I would be unable to avoid eternal damnation no matter what I chose: virtue or vice, piety or sacrilege, ethical rectitude or … [Read more...]
ArtsPreview 2009-10: The season in books
Readers rejoice! The show will go on, sputtering economy notwithstanding. The book show, that is. All five major South Florida literary festivals – Miami Book Fair International, the Key West Literary Seminar, the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, the Boca Festival of the Arts, and Broward’s Lit/Live! – are scheduled to take place over the next five months in more or less their … [Read more...]
Bringing an ancient American city back to life
Throughout American history, Indians have been viewed as either bloodthirsty savages, to be exterminated in the name of Manifest Destiny, or, more recently, noble savages who lived in reverence of Mother Earth. Though one of these conceptions is more benign than the other, they are equally products of white condescension and bigotry. Neither leaves room for the possibility … [Read more...]
National Poetry Slam leaves streets sparkling with spoken words
For five days last week downtown West Palm Beach was the coolest place on earth. Or it at least it seemed that way during the 20th National Poetry Slam that brought 68 teams of mostly young poets to Clematis Street for a rolling competition that was part counterculture festival, part sporting event. Contestants declaimed from the stages of venues such … [Read more...]
Ali shows deft plotting hand in ‘Kitchen,’ but overwrites like the Dickens
One of the knocks on modern literary fiction is that it seldom shows people at work, where, after all, most of us spend the preponderance of our time. And yet, as Monica Ali inadvertently demonstrates with In the Kitchen, it is possible to go too far in the opposite direction. Showing the tedium of a working life is one thing. Making it tedious for the reader is quite … [Read more...]
‘Angel’s Game’ a fresh, spellbinding take on genre novel
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of the international bestseller The Shadow of the Wind, poses an affront to those serious readers who believe they know what makes for literary quality. What to do with a novelist, clearly motivated by a popular rather than artistic impulse, who nonetheless writes with wit, skill and creative energy? Zafon’s new novel, The Angel’s Game, is the … [Read more...]