June 2009

The Fiction Issue

San Francisco: 1972 An excerpt from Edmund White’s forthcoming memoir City Boy No Hugging, No Learning Colson Whitehead, one of our most intellectually satisfying writers, has written a “novel” that meanders suspiciously like a memoir. Sam Sacks reviews Sag Harbor. Second Glance: Wave and Say Hello to Frances 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. Notes from a Crritic John Goodman, John Glover, and Nathan Lane are currently starring on Broadway in Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece; Andrew Martin’s got an aisle seat, and reports back on a surprisingly sunny Waiting for Godot.

_____________________A Fiction Portfolio____________________________________________

Viaticum
A short story by Lauren Groff

Queen Hereafter
A excerpt from Susan Fraser King’s forthcoming novel about Margaret of Scotland

Ocean
A short story by Sergio De La Pava

Ma
An excerpt from Elinor Lipman’s novel The Family Man

Yellow
A short story by Sage Marsters

The Giants Hit the Road
An excerpt from Steve Kluger’s novel Last Days of Summer
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Second Glance: The Prince of the Powers of the Air Anthony Burgess is famous, but not for his best book. John Cotter sees your A Clockwork Orange and raises you Earthly Powers.

A Year with the Romans: Supping with Glaucus 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.

Second Glance:
He Hears Them Speaking
You may have passed over Frederick Busch’s many novels on bookstore shelves; Brad Jones convinces you to stop and read the words.

Stillbourne 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.

Reader, I Disemboweled Him
Intrepid reporter Deirdre Crimmins tackles that last literary taboo: Regency zombies.

Delightful Gumbo or Strange Brew? 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.

A Fiction
A poem by Shafer Hall

It’s a Mystery:
“You can change your name … your job description … But really, nothing changes”
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.

May the Horse Be with Him Before Arthas was a character in a new novel, he was a character in a video game (World of Warcraft, naturally) – which makes him fair game for our gaming expert, Phillip A. Lobo.

Upstate 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.

Murder on the Fractureline
China Mieville’s latest book features two cities nervously co-existing in the same space. Khalid Ponte looks at both sides now.

Uppity Blues 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. This Book Will Shoot You 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. Not a Boating Accident 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. Joseph Conrad’s Tragic Predicament “A sorry business this scribbling,” Joseph Conrad once confessed, and we remember him problematically. John G. Rodwan, Jr. reappraises the murky nature of his books.

This month’s cover photo comes to us from Chris Marstall. Marstall lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is the creator of tourfilter.com. Visit psychoastronomy.org for more of his shots.

The illustrations of Samuel Beckett and Joseph Conrad are by Rachel Burgess, of Brookline, Massachusetts. She has a B.A. in Literature from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts. Her work can be viewed at www.rachelsillustrations.com.

May 2009

The Empire Strikes Back?
Edward Lucas, in The New Cold War, puts a modern face on the hoary geopolitical struggle between the Russian bear and the American eagle. Greg Waldmann sorts the players and evaluates the stakes.

Grovely! Grovely! Grovely! And all Grovely! The late Roger Deakin celebrates his beloved trees one last time in Wildwood, and Bryn Haworth gladly finds himself within a dark forest.

The Crowing of Corncrakes The Decemberists seem benign enough, but their songs are blood-dimmed with rape, drownings, and even cannibalism. The body count rises on their new release The Hazards of Love, but Lianne Habinek also discovers fresh wellsprings of feeling.

Doubling Up On a Pair of Losers Jerry Siegel and Miguel Cervantes: each created an immortal literary character (Superman and Don Quixote, of course), but what else could they possibly have in common? Taking his cue from Gerard Jones’ Men of Tomorrow, Robert Latona says: more than you think.

Strange New Worlds J.J. Abrams’ long-awaited Star Trek reboot has hit theaters, and Steve Donoghue looks into whether it carries on a proud legacy, or else overturns it.

Rom Zom Com 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).

Ten Questions for Sarah Ruden
Sarah Ruden, the latest and greatest translator of Vergil’s Aeneid, offers a funny and fascinating glimpse inside the classicist’s world in this Open Letters interview.

It’s a Mystery: ‘Ah, what the stage lost when I opted for the police’ Donna Leon’s eighteenth Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery About Face has Irma Heldman once again seduced by the witty, erudite Venetian cop with a passion for ancient philosophers, modern women, elegant food, and the constant need to make sense out of the often senseless law.

Postal Worker? Poodle?
Poet’s poet Lyn Hejinian has turned poet’s novelist in Lola, half of her new collection Saga/Circus. John Cotter circles its sagacity.

from Moving Day
Poetry by Maureen Thorson

Last Train for the Coast
The advent of the CD threw the retail music business into a disarray from which it hasn’t recovered. Brad Jones, a veteran of that disarray, reads Steve Knopper’s account of the industry’s Appetite for Self-Destruction.

Joshua Redman Makes His Move Joshua Redman’s new album Compass makes some daring allusions to the all-time titans of jazz; John G. Rodwan, Jr. listens to hear how Redman borrows from those pastmasters and how he departs from them.

Roots Into Entrails
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.

Trouble Shooting You’d think any brand of movie that could produce Super Mario Bros. would have no advocates left, but you’d be wrong! Our gaming expert Phillip A. Lobo diagnoses the problem to date and charts a new path for video game movies.

Uncle Livy
Steve Donoghue’s “Year with the Romans” turns its eye upon Titus Livius, who either wrote poetical history or historical poetry, depending on who you ask.

Son Retour? In 1911, the unthinkable happened: the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. R. A. Scotti tells the story in The Vanished Smile, and Jan van Doop has some ideas of his own.

Grace
Jeff Buckley’s famous father and early death insured him a cult status in the pop culture pantheon. Nivedita Gunturi uncovers the music behind the myths.

Lightning Strikes and Pen Strokes 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.

Second Glance:
‘Do Not, Future People, Bring Up a Child the Wrong Way’
The Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, was compiled in the early 19th century from a much older oral tradition—can it possibly have anything to teach the modern reader? Sean Hughes has some surprising answers.

This month’s cover photo, of the April 2009 eruption of La Cumbre Volcano on Isla Fernandina in the Galapagos Islands, was taken by Joe Sacks, of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

April 2009

Before Nightfall
Just as we approach the time when there will be no more living witnesses to the Second World War, Richard Evans concludes his monumental three-volume Nazi history with The Third Reich at War. Steve Donoghue makes record of the results.

A Deadly Serious Kind of Farce 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.

Cue Chaos
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.

Planned Rampage Novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers have begun weaving the Columbine shootings into their fiction. Reviewing Dave Cullen’s Columbine, Brad Jones concentrates on the sad facts alone.

Message in a Klein Bottle
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.

So This Is What the Dream Is Like Notorious for its violence and misogyny, or misunderstood for its biting social commentary? Grand Theft Auto IV polarizes; video game docent Phillip A. Lobo attempts to broker a meeting.

It’s a Mystery: “I’ve got a mind like a comic book” 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.

Liminal
A poem by Christine Herzer

The Flâneur 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.

Con-Men
That persistent bugaboo of publishers (and recently, the reading public): writers passing off others’ work as their own. Paul Maliszewski’s Fakers looks at some notorious cases, and John G. Rodwan Jr. weighs in.

Rescue Pieces
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.

EMK For half a century, Senator Ted Kennedy has been carving out a legacy in Congress. The legacy and the man come into focus in Thomas J. Daly’s review of Last Lion.

Guide Virgil’s Aeneid has been attracting translators for centuries, and Sarah Ruden’s rendering is notable in more ways than one. (She calls him Vergil, for one thing, but that’s just the start.) Steve Donoghue regards her efforts in the latest “A Year with the Romans.”

Amen to That
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.

Paddy Whacked Malcolm Gladwell is once again on the bestseller lists, this time for Outliers, about the social science of genius. Peter Coclanis begs to differ with the vox populi.

“Stephanie,” this month’s main page photo, was taken by Jonas Sacks, a Dutch/American Cinematography student currently living in Los Angeles. Jonas likes to use available (or natural) light, and explores the boundaries of motion picture negative film through stills. His website is www.jonassacks.com

March 2009

Foreign Items, Quality Various
China’s burgeoning modern literature – by citizens and expats alike – presents challenges to Western audiences (and sometimes to Chinese censors). Sam Sacks samples three new novels, including Yiyun Li’s The Vagrants.

Worth the Risk It’s been twenty years since the robbery of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Jan van Doop retraces the art crime of the century in Ulrich Boser’s The Gardner Heist.

No Poorer For It Culture critics decry video games – including 2K’s BioShock – as mindless, pointless haphazard wastes of time. Phillip A. Lobo offers one fan’s spirited rebuttal.

It’s a Mystery: “Don’t be so sure I’m as crooked as I’m supposed to be” Dashiell Hammett’s daughter, Josephine Hammett Marshall, hand picked the very talented, three-time Edgar winner Joe Gores to write Spade & Archer, the prequel to The Maltese Falcon. The result, Irma Heldman says, surely has Hammett smiling among the “angels.”

Big Kid Thug or genius? Artist or gangster? In his brief, troubled life – and now in the new movie Notorious – The Notorious B.I.G. was an enigma. Andrew Martin sorts myth from legend.

Archimedes and the Plesiosaur
Peter Ackroyd’s Thames: the Biography is a rambling, list-laden account of the much-storied river. Our London correspondent Bryn Haworth tests the waters.

Second Glance:
The Wit and Woe of Mavis Gallant
Mavis Gallant wrote some of the best – though too often neglected – short stories of the 20th century. In this regular feature, Karen Vanuska unearths the treasures.

Frank Lloyd Wright Annex T.C. Boyle is the latest writer to dramatize the story of the women in Frank Lloyd Wright’s life. Caedmon Haas tours The Women and blueprints how well Boyle’s latest biographical novel stands up. The Inner Voice A poem by Charles Jodoin A Year with the Romans: Ten Tips on Terence He was a slave who wrote his way to freedom – unless he wasn’t, and unless he didn’t. Steve Donoghue’s “A Year with the Romans” looks at the great comic playwright Terence.

Blue Music The one jazz album even hardened jazz haters own – Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue – turns fifty this year. John G. Rodwan, Jr. plays out the tracks of its long, strange life.

Who Moved My Charioteer?
In How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer tries to anatomize the choosing brain. Lianne Habinek – with an assist from some guy named Plato – anatomizes the anatomizer.

On Finding That My First Novel Can Be Bought on Amazon.com for $0.01
Here today, gone tomorrow – remaindered on Amazon.com the day after that! Martha Moffett turns in a cautionary tale of the tangled fate of one novel.

President Pepys Ronald Reagan was the only modern U.S. President to keep a daily journal. Steve Donoghue plumbs The Unabridged Reagan Diaries in search of the diarist’s soul.

The Two Year Anniversary Quiz!
Celebrate Open Letters’ Two Year Anniversary by joining us in an impossible quiz!

The illustrations of Frank Lloyd Wright’s lover and of Isabella Stewart Gardner are by Rachel Burgess, of Brookline, Massachusetts. She has a B.A. in Literature from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts. Her work can be viewed at www.rachelsillustrations.com. Her favorite poet is W.B. Yeats.

February 2009

Excess
A poem by Paul Violi

Writhing on the Floor Harold Pinter, a giant of 20th century literature, is dead, but the legacy of his work lives on. In a letter from London on a recent performance of Pinter’s No Man’s Land, Bryn Haworth takes a look at how the poet and playwright prepared his own memorial.

The Trouble with Harry
Norwegian Jo Nesbø, a musician, songwriter and economist, is also one of Europe’s most acclaimed crime writers who, to date, has given us two thrillers that are beautifully spun and deeply evocative. Veteran mystery maven Irma Heldman explores the latest hit from Scandinavia.

More Harm than Good In 1979, the mighty Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan – and quickly got bogged down in a quagmire from which victory seemed impossible. In The Great Gamble, Gregory Feifer examines what happened; Zac Marconi tries to tie it all together.

It’s All His Fault Thomas DiLorenzo, in Hamilton’s Curse, lays all the present-day woes of the United States at the feet of that most problematic of Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton. Did Aaron Burr do us all a favor? Thomas Daly weighs the prosecution’s case.

“… and you have got some friends of the wrong sort dear boy”
And you thought text-messaging was bad! In the 1920s, the gin-soaked youth movement of the Bright Young People swept through London, making headlines and raising eyebrows. Honoria St. Cyr takes a whirl through D. J. Taylor’s book on the subject and asks: “WTF?”

Sweet Bright Lady In the 6th Century, Boethius wrote a little tract that has been a guide and touchstone to writers, poets, politicians, and pundits ever since. David Slavitt has produced a new translation of The Consolation of Philosophy; Steve Donoghue explores the world of Boethius in this latest installment of “A Year with the Romans.”

The Sounds Are Not the Flowers
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 …

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Evan Thomas, under the aegis of Newsweek, with substantial researcher assistance, after the editing of … well, “A Long Time Coming”, the first post-election account of President Obama’s campaign, got written somehow. Greg Waldmann goes into it with high hopes – and then conducts the autopsy.

Going Off Course with Melville and Liebling Two seemingly dissimilar figures in the American literary landscape – Herman Melville and A. J. Liebling – shared at least one thing aside from a way with words: they weren’t afraid of a little digression now and then. John G. Rodwan Jr. follows along for the stories.

Cosa Mangia Oggi! The city that never sleeps also never stops eating, or writing about what it eats. The new food writing collection Gastropolis, edited by Annie Hauck-Lawson and Jonathan Deutsch, takes the reader on a culinary safari through the history and variety of New York’s food culture. Mary Jane Weedman tucks in and savors the fare.

Another World Than This
They were wealthy, influential, and for two centuries in England they wielded power to rival the king’s … but who were the Earls of Pembroke (and their equally formidable wives)? In Quarrel with the King, Adam Nicolson takes us beyond the pomp, and here Steve Donoghue looks at the politics of family.

Jeffrey Eaton is a fundraiser and amateur photographer. He lives within spitting distance of the US Capitol, though “West Unity Road,” was taken in Unity, New Hampshire. His photographs have been featured in the April 2007 and November 2007 issues of Open Letters. His essay, “Raging Bull,” appeared in November 2008.