Review: How thrilling would it be to get a summer job at the Cloisters, New York City's medieval art museum, in which your responsibilities included divining the future using Tarot cards infused with dark magic? "There was something more, something prickling at the edges of my vision that felt like an older warning I couldn't quite pin down," Ann Stilwell, the narrator of Katy Hays's THE CLOISTERS, thinks...Read More
The cloisters
How thrilling would it be to get a summer job at the Cloisters, New York City's medieval art museum, in which your responsibilities included divining the future using Tarot cards infused with dark magic? "There was something more, something prickling at the edges of my vision that felt like an older warning I couldn't quite pin down," Ann Stilwell, the narrator of Katy Hays's THE CLOISTERS, thinks as she convenes with her colleagues for a creepy extracurricular ceremony in the middle of the night. Like Richard, the narrator of ?The Secret History,? to which this novel owes some of its claustrophobic feel, Ann is an outsider ? a polyester-wearing native of Walla Walla, Wash., who?s been thrust into a world of refined tastes and vicious academic competition. She can?t believe her luck when she is befriended by her rich, worldly colleague Rachel. Soon she is living in Rachel?s beautiful apartment and traveling via helicopter and floatplane to Rachel?s (deceased) parents? spectacular upstate retreat.nAn underhanded antiques dealer, a sexy Cloisters gardener with a side hustle in poisonous plants, a suspicious death or two, a mysterious centuries-old document written in an obscure language, the sense that no one, not even Ann, is telling us the whole truth ? all this adds up to a dense forest of a plot. Some pathways trail off without sufficient resolution, but mostly it?s a question of discerning which clues Hays has laid out are worth paying attention to.
Kevin McCarthy | 2023 | WW Norton & Co | 9781324020486
Subject: Fiction
Source: The New York Times
Review: In his darkly suspenseful new novel, THE WINTERING PLACE , Kevin McCarthy reconnects with the immigrant Irish brothers he left on the American frontier in "Wolves of Eden." On the run from the Army and from a long list of crimes (at least a few of which they swear they haven't committed), these two somehow survive a rough season in a cave in the snowbound wilderness, abetted by a woman they've res...Read More
The wintering place
In his darkly suspenseful new novel, THE WINTERING PLACE , Kevin McCarthy reconnects with the immigrant Irish brothers he left on the American frontier in "Wolves of Eden." On the run from the Army and from a long list of crimes (at least a few of which they swear they haven't committed), these two somehow survive a rough season in a cave in the snowbound wilderness, abetted by a woman they've rescued along the way. Will a change of seasons bring a rise in their fortunes, or will it continue their downward spiral?
Dorthe Nors | 2022 | Pushkin Press | 9781782277958
Subject: Leisure
Source: The New York Times
Review: Questions of home and identity also drift through Dorthe Nors's A LINE IN THE WORLD: A Year on the North Sea Coast, a chronicle of the author's travels along the western coast of Denmark. Seamlessly translated by Caroline Waight, these 14 essays render a personal, poetic meditation on this remote edge of windswept landscapes and wild waters. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for "Mirror, Shoulder, ...Read More
A line in the world: a year on the North Sea coast
Questions of home and identity also drift through Dorthe Nors's A LINE IN THE WORLD: A Year on the North Sea Coast, a chronicle of the author's travels along the western coast of Denmark. Seamlessly translated by Caroline Waight, these 14 essays render a personal, poetic meditation on this remote edge of windswept landscapes and wild waters. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for "Mirror, Shoulder, Signal" in 2017, Nors has published six other books of fiction, with this volume representing her first foray into nonfiction. "Now it has begun, the line," she writes in the opening essay. ?It charts a coast and continues, curving faintly outwards. Then come the cervical vertebrae. They settle one by one, stacked each on top of another, sandy islands. And the line persists, breaking borders, into Germany and on. The islands settle like smaller delicate vertebrae into Holland, now charting not a line but a living being.?
Review: Author Nivedita Sengupta's book 'Above and Beyond: A Journey With My Daughter' chronicles her motherhood, her life with her daughter Medha, and how she did not let autism and the social stigmas around autism deter the ambitions she had for her daughter.n"Initially, while fighting the daily battles, I did not feel like discussing with everyone about my daughter or her challenges. I knew if I compla...Read More
Above and beyond: a journey with my daughter
Author Nivedita Sengupta's book 'Above and Beyond: A Journey With My Daughter' chronicles her motherhood, her life with her daughter Medha, and how she did not let autism and the social stigmas around autism deter the ambitions she had for her daughter.n"Initially, while fighting the daily battles, I did not feel like discussing with everyone about my daughter or her challenges. I knew if I complained and cribbed, people would not enjoy my company," writes Sengupta and her journey has been encouraging and motivational ever since.n"Sooner we accept, smoother is the path," believes the author and sends out a message to all those parents who have a special child. Her book is a beam of light for all such parents who think their last hope has been exhausted.nFrom discovering that her daughter has autism to learning about her work getting acknowledged at the library, Sengupta's journey as a mother is very touching. She shares the moments where she had complete meltdowns and also those times when she gathered herself together for her daughter.
Lauren Belfer | 2022 | Ballantine Books Inc. | 9780593359495
Subject: Fiction
Source: The New York Times
Review: The death that needs explaining in Lauren Belfer's ASHTON HALL lies hundreds of years in the past. An American scholar and her 9-year-old son are the summer guests of an elderly friend whose apartment occupies one wing of a Cambridgeshire manor that's been turned into a museum. But when the boy goes exploring, he finds more than he bargained for - the skeleton of a woman who seems to have been wal...Read More
Ashton hall
The death that needs explaining in Lauren Belfer's ASHTON HALL lies hundreds of years in the past. An American scholar and her 9-year-old son are the summer guests of an elderly friend whose apartment occupies one wing of a Cambridgeshire manor that's been turned into a museum. But when the boy goes exploring, he finds more than he bargained for - the skeleton of a woman who seems to have been walled into a tiny room way back in the Elizabethan era. As they try to learn more about her, the Americans will, of course, also discover more about themselves.
Aimee Ng | 2022 | Rizzoli International Publications | 9780847872466
Subject: Arts and Culture
Source: The New York Times
Review: In recent years, two New York City museum exhibitions captivated me not only for the powerful paintings they included, but also for the intimate and knowing depictions of drinking life captured by those paintings. The first was "Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist" at the Whitney in 2015-16, and the second was "Max Beckmann in New York" at the Met a year later. The Harlem Renaissance painter Motl...Read More
Cocktails with a curator: the Frick collection
In recent years, two New York City museum exhibitions captivated me not only for the powerful paintings they included, but also for the intimate and knowing depictions of drinking life captured by those paintings. The first was "Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist" at the Whitney in 2015-16, and the second was "Max Beckmann in New York" at the Met a year later. The Harlem Renaissance painter Motley's interest in nightlife scenes generated complex, dynamic tableaus of African Americans at leisure, and work, in jazz clubs. When the German artist Beckmann lived in New York, the King Cole bar at the St. Regis and the Palm Court at the Plaza were among his haunts. (Even when he was strapped for cash, he had top-shelf taste.)nYou may be less likely to associate another great New York museum ? the Frick Collection ? with cocktails, considering that most of its holdings, heavy on old masters, predate the word ?cocktail.? But COCKTAILS WITH A CURATOR , by Xavier F. Salomon with Aimee Ng and Giulio Dalvit, should change that. During the pandemic, the Frick curators Salomon and Ng graced locked-down lovers of art and drink with videos on the museum?s YouTube channel, each clip a compelling 20-ish-minute consideration of a Frick artwork, accompanied by a recipe for a cocktail connected with it. (Often tenuously, but who cares?) This marriage of beauty and booze rightly resonated with viewers unable to visit museums, or to meet up with friends at bars ? and its unusual and illuminating balm now exists in book form, too.
Review: In her inventive memoir CYCLETTES, Tree Abraham cleverly contemplates all things bicycle. Structured as a list of sorts, the book enumerates almost every bike the author has ever owned and the many far-flung places she has ridden. Equal parts whimsical and philosophical, "Cyclettes" extends beyond conventional narrative with illustrations, collages, photographs and other design elements. Abraham o...Read More
Cyclettes
In her inventive memoir CYCLETTES, Tree Abraham cleverly contemplates all things bicycle. Structured as a list of sorts, the book enumerates almost every bike the author has ever owned and the many far-flung places she has ridden. Equal parts whimsical and philosophical, "Cyclettes" extends beyond conventional narrative with illustrations, collages, photographs and other design elements. Abraham opens the book with an epigraph from Anne Carson's "Plainwater" - a nod that makes sense, given the poet?s love for collage. But the Carson book I thought of most while reading Abraham's memoir was "Nox," with its exquisite, accordion-constructed elegy to Carson's brother. This quiet beauty and subtle unfolding, one vignette cycling into the next, can be found in "Cyclettes," too.
Karen Levy | 2022 | Princeton University Press | 9780691175300
Subject: Information Technology
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Review: Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance, Karen Levy makes a provocative case against this approach. Ms. Levy, a sociologist and lawyer who teaches information science at Cornell University, combines extensive interviews with a thorough understanding of the trucking industry to assert that ELDs haven't made the roads safer. Her concise and lively book will interest any...Read More
Data driven: truckers, technology, and the new workplace surveillance
Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance, Karen Levy makes a provocative case against this approach. Ms. Levy, a sociologist and lawyer who teaches information science at Cornell University, combines extensive interviews with a thorough understanding of the trucking industry to assert that ELDs haven't made the roads safer. Her concise and lively book will interest anyone concerned with the complicated business of regulation.
Barbara Kingsolver | 2022 | Harper | 9780571376476
Subject: Fiction
Source: The Times of India
Review: Set in modern-day southern Appalachia in America, 'Demon Copperhead' is a coming-of-age story. It follows the protagonist Damon Fields, nick named Demon Copperhead due to his copper-coloured hair. Damon is born to a drug-addict teenage single mother, while his father is dead. While his mother is in and out of rehab centres, Damon is raised in foster care. But with a fierce will to survive, Damon b...Read More
Demon copperhead
Set in modern-day southern Appalachia in America, 'Demon Copperhead' is a coming-of-age story. It follows the protagonist Damon Fields, nick named Demon Copperhead due to his copper-coloured hair. Damon is born to a drug-addict teenage single mother, while his father is dead. While his mother is in and out of rehab centres, Damon is raised in foster care. But with a fierce will to survive, Damon braves all the odds-- the down-side of foster care, poverty and child labour, poor schools, athletic success, drug abuse and addiction, love and loss. In the process, he not only survives but also grows-up as a person.nKingsolver?s realistic characters and storytelling will not only grab the reader's attention, but will also move them. While it isn't necessary to read Dickens? 'David Copperfield' prior to reading 'Demon Copperhead', those who have read both can surely notice the how the author has brought in her own reimagination of the story in modern times. The book was also picked by Oprah for her book club this year.
Review: "The only way that the Phillips Newlyn machine can represent economic failure, for example, is by the running-dry of the taxation pumps; there is no concept of political failure by failing to provide adequate public services. And the only success is a continued flow of money." In other words, the land of Phillips's model is a creative and admirable approximation of how real economies work, but it...Read More
Escape from model land: how mathematical models can lead us astray and what we can do about it
"The only way that the Phillips Newlyn machine can represent economic failure, for example, is by the running-dry of the taxation pumps; there is no concept of political failure by failing to provide adequate public services. And the only success is a continued flow of money." In other words, the land of Phillips's model is a creative and admirable approximation of how real economies work, but it has edges and limits to its scope that do not apply to the real world.
Sophie Blackall | 2022 | Little, Brown Books for Young Readers | 9780316528948
Subject: Fiction
Source: The New York Times
Review: In 2018, Blackall, a two-time Caldecott Medalist, purchased an old farm in upstate New York that came with an abandoned, falling-down house filled with remnants of a large family who made it their home nearly 50 years earlier. In this moving and transcendently beautiful book, she imagines the lives of the 12 children who were born and raised there. They set the table, pick apples, fork hay, darn s...Read More
Farmhouse
In 2018, Blackall, a two-time Caldecott Medalist, purchased an old farm in upstate New York that came with an abandoned, falling-down house filled with remnants of a large family who made it their home nearly 50 years earlier. In this moving and transcendently beautiful book, she imagines the lives of the 12 children who were born and raised there. They set the table, pick apples, fork hay, darn socks, milk cows in an idyllic vision of rural farm life. They also grow up and go off to school and jobs, some dreaming of "the faraway sea that they'd never seen," as the house begins to slide into disrepair. In a brilliant turn, Blackall reveals unexpected gifts bestowed by the farmhouse's decay and, finally, brings herself into the narrative as an agent of renewal: The 12 children will "live on, now, in this book that you hold, like your stories will, as long as they're told." Blackall created the exquisite dollhouse-like illustrations using ink, watercolor, gouache and colored pencil as well as scraps of wallpaper, old composition books, newspaper, handmade clothing and curtains that she salvaged from the structure. Her slant-rhymed verse, meanwhile, echoes the steady rhythm of time rolling on. The result is a tender, layered masterpiece that itself deserves to be passed along for generations.
Review: The book under review is a journalistic account rooted in experiential reality trying to solve a puzzle: "Why does India's most politically powerful state, Uttar Pradesh (UP), remain so underdeveloped?" (p xiv). This state is considered as India's most politically powerful state because it sends the highest number of members of Parliament (MPs) (80 in the Lok Sabha and 31 in the Rajya Sabha). It i...Read More
From Lucknow to Lutyens: the power and plight of Uttar Pradesh
The book under review is a journalistic account rooted in experiential reality trying to solve a puzzle: "Why does India's most politically powerful state, Uttar Pradesh (UP), remain so underdeveloped?" (p xiv). This state is considered as India's most politically powerful state because it sends the highest number of members of Parliament (MPs) (80 in the Lok Sabha and 31 in the Rajya Sabha). It is also the most populated state, which makes the voting value of its members of legislative assembly (MLAs) the highest in the presidential election. UP has also given the highest number of prime ministers to the country, including the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had chosen to represent the parliamentary constituency of Varanasi despite being from Gujarat. Previously, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had also chosen the Lucknow constituency despite hailing from Madhya Pradesh. This phenomenon pushes the author to ask another question: Does political leadership bring development for the state? Caste in Indian politics, particularly its entry in electoral politics, has been long debated. Political sociologists such as Rudolph and Rudolph (1967), Rajni Kothari (1970), and Christophe Jaffrelot (2003) have argued that caste-based associations/organisations have facilitated the entry of caste in Indian politics. However, the author seems to suggest that the demographic composition of regions has facilitated the entry of caste in the state politics. He uses the term bastion or ilakas to signify regions that have been strongholds of politicians belonging to a particular caste/community. The sense of bastions has prevented such leaders having a pan-state appeal.
Hannelore Vandenbussche | 2022 | teNeues Media GmbH & Co. KG | 9783961713776
Subject: Media
Source: The New York Times
Review: "Play is something that unites us," writes the actor Idris Elba in a preacherly prelude to HUMAN PLAYGROUND: Why We Play, a visual extravaganza by the Belgian photographer Hannelore Vandenbussche of gamesmanship around the globe. Of course, games can also divide us, often inciting a beguiling and fiery partisanship. The richness of Vandenbussche?s vision (with accompanying text by Rose Casella) is...Read More
Human playground: why we play
"Play is something that unites us," writes the actor Idris Elba in a preacherly prelude to HUMAN PLAYGROUND: Why We Play, a visual extravaganza by the Belgian photographer Hannelore Vandenbussche of gamesmanship around the globe. Of course, games can also divide us, often inciting a beguiling and fiery partisanship. The richness of Vandenbussche?s vision (with accompanying text by Rose Casella) is that it incorporates the exhilaration of both union and rivalry. With its color, precision and consistent format, her photography feels like a sport itself, an embodiment of athletic joy. She plays with her lens the way Ethiopians play with their donga sticks.nSome of Vandenbussche's pictures seem to gaze from above at a variety of rural and urban environments where players engage in their sports: surfers trying to stay atop skyscraper waves off the coast of Portugal; skiers being dragged by reindeer in a race across a snowy countryside in Finland; jubilant boxers punching away on the rooftops of Havana. Her close-ups of athletes across the world are dignified, depicting pride, muscularity and mesmerizing uniforms.nIf there?s a single photograph that attests to the ever-evolving nature of sports, it?s the last one in the book, comic and already historical, in which Vandenbussche photographs the back ends of camels lined up for a race in the United Arab Emirates, their jockeys not humans but robots, wearing numbered shirts. It might as well be a Surrealist painting by Salvador Dal? or Leonora Carrington. Instead it?s a genuine depiction of wild reality, as are many of the photographs in this alluring and iconoclastic collection.
Patrick Bixby | 2022 | University of California Press | 9780520375857
Subject: Leisure
Source: The New York Times
Review: Patrick Bixby looks at the intersection of bureaucracy and travel, as well as the freedom of movement, in LICENSE TO TRAVEL: A Cultural History of the Passport, a comprehensive, insightful history of the "little book containing 30-odd pages of sturdy paper." Ranging from the early days of the passport (golden tablets issued to the Polo brothers by Genghis Khan's grandson) to the "health passports"...Read More
License to travel: a cultural history of the passport
Patrick Bixby looks at the intersection of bureaucracy and travel, as well as the freedom of movement, in LICENSE TO TRAVEL: A Cultural History of the Passport, a comprehensive, insightful history of the "little book containing 30-odd pages of sturdy paper." Ranging from the early days of the passport (golden tablets issued to the Polo brothers by Genghis Khan's grandson) to the "health passports" proposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, Bixby offers up a formidable survey of this everyday artifact and how it defines individuals and affords varying degrees of privilege and freedom, depending on one's place of birth. In the introduction, he writes: ?These precious books, held close to our vulnerable bodies as we cross borders, carry with them intimate stories about us that, nonetheless, testify to our place in much larger narratives.?nBixby, a cultural historian and an English professor at Arizona State University, also examines the role of the passport in the lives of many well-known writers, thinkers and musicians ? from Herman Melville and James Joyce to Sun Ra and Salman Rushdie ? and elucidates the fault lines of marginalization, discrimination and injustice that come with cross-border entry and exit. For example, Frederick Douglass was unable to obtain a U.S. passport until 1886, when he was almost 70 and traveling with his second wife on a honeymoon through Europe and North Africa.
Thomas Beller | 2022 | Duke Univ Press | 9781478018834
Subject: Sports
Source: The New York Times
Review: The juggernaut business built around elite sports can sometimes overshadow a more humble but common experience of athletics: Many people interact with sports at some point in a personal way. Sometimes, it can be a quick realization that a game for whatever reason just doesn't quite fit. But often, individuals find that the right sport, no matter what the level, can become an important lens through...Read More
Lost in the game: a book about basketball
The juggernaut business built around elite sports can sometimes overshadow a more humble but common experience of athletics: Many people interact with sports at some point in a personal way. Sometimes, it can be a quick realization that a game for whatever reason just doesn't quite fit. But often, individuals find that the right sport, no matter what the level, can become an important lens through which they test themselves and relate to others.nThis theme has been echoed in some of the biggest sports moments of 2022, including the retirements (and unretirements) of star athletes, scandals in football, basketball, soccer and elsewhere, and the harsh spotlight and pressure of major events like the Beijing Olympics and the World Cup. It is also seen in many recent sports books, with offerings on the World Series, reflections about and sometimes by star personalities, and new looks at seemingly well-known moments and sports.nIn LOST IN THE GAME: A Book About Basketball, Thomas Beller conveys through a collection of essays the intense, often internalized dynamics of playground basketball, where he used impromptu games to test his strength and emotional mettle.
Review: Fans of Bill Watterson and Charles Schulz will immediately recognize a similar spirit of mischief, whimsy and philosophical inquiry in this internationally acclaimed comic strip that the Argentine cartoonist Liniers has been drawing since 2002. But unlike "Calvin and Hobbes" or "Peanuts," "Macanudo" features a revolving cast of characters who inhabit their own distinct worlds. Some strips star Lin...Read More
Macanudo: welcome to elsewhere
Fans of Bill Watterson and Charles Schulz will immediately recognize a similar spirit of mischief, whimsy and philosophical inquiry in this internationally acclaimed comic strip that the Argentine cartoonist Liniers has been drawing since 2002. But unlike "Calvin and Hobbes" or "Peanuts," "Macanudo" features a revolving cast of characters who inhabit their own distinct worlds. Some strips star Liniers's talking penguins, others his stocking-capped elves. There's also a bookworm-ish girl named Henrietta and her cat, Fellini; a "mysterious man in black" (who, like Snoopy as Joe Cool or the World War I Flying Ace, narrates his mundane activities in self-aggrandizing third person); and some scraggly deadpan witches. Among ?Macanudo??s admirers is the cartoonist Matt Groening, who provides the book?s foreword and describes Liniers?s delicate ink-and-watercolor illustrations as ?the Art of the Relaxed Virtuoso Friendly Line.? Although these strips aren?t intended for children per se, there?s nothing raunchy or inappropriate here. Daydreaming kids with an appreciation for quirk will find plenty to delight them and to ponder.
Satyarth Nayak | 2022 | HarperCollins India | 9789356294493
Subject: General
Source: The Times of India
Review: 100 of the greatest mythological tales from ancient texts have been handpicked and compiled into an epic illustrated edition," saya Satyarth about the book.nThe Hindu mythology is quite intriguing. The tales and stories are so encapsulating that we are often left in awe of them. They not only entertain us but also enlighten. Satyarth's book is an attempt to delve deep into the minds of gods, demon...Read More
Mahagatha: 100 tales from the Puranas
100 of the greatest mythological tales from ancient texts have been handpicked and compiled into an epic illustrated edition," saya Satyarth about the book.nThe Hindu mythology is quite intriguing. The tales and stories are so encapsulating that we are often left in awe of them. They not only entertain us but also enlighten. Satyarth's book is an attempt to delve deep into the minds of gods, demons and humans trying to seek a deeper understanding of their motivations.nAmong the various tales the author has picked, one of them is that of Brahma and Narada. Did you know they had a fight and this book tells you the reason behind that. There are several stories from the Puranas that we are not aware of. Did you know why Chandra committed adultery or why Brahma lusted over his own daughter? Satyarth's book has the answer for everything. Once you have finished reading this book, you will get to know so much more about Puranas than ever before. This book is an excellent read.nUsing Puranic markers, he constructs a narrative that travels through the four yugas, offering continuous and organic action.n"This is the very first time an attempt has been made to narrate the stories choronologically from Sat Yuga to Kal Yuga. It has been a joy to compile 100 stories from the sacred Puranas," he adds.
Review: It wouldn't be unreasonable, upon hearing about this "deluxe companion guide" to the best-selling Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series, to think, "That Ransom Riggs is really milking it." But cast aside your skepticism. Written in the sardonic voice of Miss Peregrine (headmistress of the eponymous school for paranormal children), the volume is positioned as a handbook for "new arrivals" to th...Read More
Miss peregrine's museum of wonders: an indispensable guide to the dangers and delights of the peculiar world for the instruction of new arrivals
It wouldn't be unreasonable, upon hearing about this "deluxe companion guide" to the best-selling Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series, to think, "That Ransom Riggs is really milking it." But cast aside your skepticism. Written in the sardonic voice of Miss Peregrine (headmistress of the eponymous school for paranormal children), the volume is positioned as a handbook for "new arrivals" to the society of peculiars. A taxonomy of their abilities (light-shaping, invisibility, telekinetics), annotated maps, instructions for locating hidden time loops and tips for blending in with ?normals? are all here, tightly art-directed in appropriately old-timey twee goth style and accompanied by the same types of creepy black-and-white photos as those in the novels. One of the best things about this compendium is the way Riggs entwines his fiction with obscure historical facts, for instance drawing the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (who indeed had a few peculiar ideas) into the peculiars? history as an ancestor of Miss Peregrine. This expansion of the world of the books is a testament to Riggs?s commitment to his created universe. A no-brainer for any Miss Peregrine fans on your list, as well as a gateway for the uninitiated.
Review: MOTH portrays the changing fortunes of a well-intentioned Brahmin family as India and Pakistan are carved from the British Raj, an experience of Partition that begins with gentle comedy, then gradually descends into distinctly ungentle tragedy, particularly for the family's teenage daughter.Read More
MOTH
MOTH portrays the changing fortunes of a well-intentioned Brahmin family as India and Pakistan are carved from the British Raj, an experience of Partition that begins with gentle comedy, then gradually descends into distinctly ungentle tragedy, particularly for the family's teenage daughter.
Sam Lipsyte | 2022 | Simon & Schuster | 9781501146121
Subject: Fiction
Source: The New York Times
Review: When a well-regarded author of so-called literary fiction puts out a novel with a pulpy plot - a missing friend, a greedy real estate developer, a ragtag team of unlikely sleuths - some might suspect the author of chasing a mass audience. I might suspect it myself; and so, I think, might Jonathan Liptak, a.k.a. Jack Shit, the punk rocker at the center of Sam Lipsyte's new novel, "No One Left to Co...Read More
No one left to come looking for you
When a well-regarded author of so-called literary fiction puts out a novel with a pulpy plot - a missing friend, a greedy real estate developer, a ragtag team of unlikely sleuths - some might suspect the author of chasing a mass audience. I might suspect it myself; and so, I think, might Jonathan Liptak, a.k.a. Jack Shit, the punk rocker at the center of Sam Lipsyte's new novel, "No One Left to Come Looking for You." Then again, maybe the Gen X lineage that Jack and I share has made us too suspicious. Because "No One Left to Come Looking for You" - while admittedly addictive and fun (?hooky,? as Jack might say) ? is no one?s idea of a formulaic book, unless the formula is to write one original and unpretentious and funny sentence after another.nThe book is set in 1993. Jack is the bassist in a band that?s ensconced in a boisterous if not quite thriving downtown scene. (In the course of the novel, Jack and his friends travel north of 14th Street exactly once ? it doesn?t go well.)nThe band is moderately successful: Sour Mash magazine has said they have a ?scabrous, intermittently witty, post-skronk propulsion not unlike early Anal Gnosis.? Still, when the book opens, they seem to have exactly one upcoming gig, for which they?ll be paid 13 percent of the door. Jack expects 25 people to show up, at $5 a head. That amounts to $16.25 ? to be split, one presumes, among the four members of the band.
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