Fiction Archive |
Undone - UPDATE: This piece was published on Head Butler in May, 2015 --- a New York publisher has made the book available. The Times ran a story --- on April 10,
Ursula Le Guin: “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” - Ursula Le Guin got the Great Writer obituary in the New York Times. She deserved it --- calling her a science fiction writer misses the point and range of her
Use Me - Elissa Schappell is co-founder of the literary magazine Tin House and longtime author of Vanity Fair’s monthly “Hot Type” column on books. She has a new novel, Blueprints for Building
Veronica - I read this short novel --- just 227 pages --- several months before the New York Times named it one of the ten best books of 2005. I wanted
Waiting for Sunrise - Maybe if I could just type THE END to this novel I’ve been writing and writing and writing, I wouldn’t have such trouble reading the fiction of living novelists. Or
Waiting for the Barbarians - Weak, cowardly, stupid people require “barbarians” so they can look strong and feel superior. Trump lives that story now; the South African novelist J.M. Coetzee wrote it in 1980. “Waiting
War Horse - Older parents, an only child they take everywhere --- as soon as I heard about “War Horse” and saw the video promo, I bought three tickets. My thought was that this
We Need to Talk About Kevin - I can't remember the last time I threw a book across the room. Well, I did that several times on the long, painful day I read 'We Need to Talk About Kevin.' I
When the Emperor Was Divine - What happens to a first novel by an unknown writer? Unless it is a lurid tale of Manhattan --- featuring the nanny for the spoiled kids of a rich bitch, secretary to a
Where’d You Go, Bernadette - We may not like jerks in our real lives, but we sure love them in our entertainment. Remember “Entourage,” with Jeremy Piven as super-agent Ari Gold? Aggressive and obnoxious
Window of Exposure - A few years ago, I reviewed Roccie Hill's novel, Three Minutes on Love. It had rock music and rock photography and rock drugs, and it had them down cold. “You
Winesburg, Ohio - Guest Butler Thomas A. Stewart, executive director of the National Center for the Middle Market, has roots five generations deep in the black earth of Illinois, but grew up in
Wonder - The action movies based on comics are pretty much behind us. This is is the season when Hollywood starts releasing its better movies. Like "Wonder," which stars Julia Roberts, Owen
You Know When The Men Are Gone - Six American soldiers have died this year in Iraq, 30 in Afghanistan. They might as well have died on Saturn. We hear very little these days about these two unwinnable, ruinously costly
Young Man With a Horn - "What I'm going to do now is to write the story of Rick Martin's life, now that it's over, now that Rick is washed up and gone, as they say,
