I have been a biographer going on five decades now -- from William Carlos Williams to Man Ray to Thomas Edison to Henry Ford to Martha Graham. I am above all else a student of the human condition as well as a devotee of narrative at its most burnished - the kind of narrative that imposes its voice upon me at the end of a long day of quotidian interaction when all I want to do is get into bed and “pick up where I left off”. Biography is, indeed, storytelling - but it is restrained, or perhaps I should say tamed, by factual fidelity, a point of pride with me as a conscientious practitioner of the craft.
The quintessential dada/surrealist figure of the 1920s arts worlds in NYC, Paris, and Hollywood, Man Ray (born in Brooklyn (yes, that’s right!), 1890; died in Paris,1976) appealed to me because his first invention was his own persona, the entree to his life’s work in photography, painting, film, sculpture, essays, assemblage, etc.
From outset to conclusion, his story is one odd, quirky, unexpected episode after another, strung together with anecdotal fibs, romanticised relationships, and obfuscating quotes with questionable provenance. I was willingly trapped by Man Ray and I want the reader to be as well.
I first read this book when I was in grad school ‘way back when - I was
so transfixed that as soon as I finished, I turned back to the first page and
reread it again - and then -- came back to it last year during the height of
COVID, seeking solace in a masterful tale of aching love and aspirational
romance. I agree with Matthew Arnold: “We are not to take Anna Karenina as a
work of art; we are to take it as a piece of life.” This sprawling tale is for
those who crave complexity that explains itself as it goes along - the fateful affair
between Count Vronsky, a dashing officer; and Anna, an exquisitely beautiful married woman - in nineteenth-century Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In 1872 the mistress of a neighbouring landowner threw herself under a train at a station near Tolstoy's home. This gave Tolstoy the starting point he needed for composing what many believe to be the greatest novel ever written.
In writing Anna Karenina he moved away from the vast historical sweep of War and Peace to tell, with extraordinary understanding, the story of an aristocratic woman who brings ruin on herself. Anna's tragedy is interwoven with not only the courtship and marriage of Kitty and Levin but also the lives of many other characters. Rich in incident, powerful in characterization,…
A powerful parent dies and each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways -- and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. This is an “everything” book. It took over my life. It overwhelmed my brain and mind. The utterly believable characters so generously intermingled and interwoven, familial and dynamic in their pushing and pulling, loving and hating - ignited by a precipitating event so abrupt yet simple, with consequences that spin out of control. Reading this tale, you feel as if you are drowning in a fever dream - Joyce Carol Oates once again as she has since Them (1969), offering innumerable reasons for wonderment.
The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society by one of our most enduringly popular and important writers
Night Sleep Death The Stars is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all.
Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates's latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual…
Even if you did not “live” through the Vietnam War and
its domino-effect cultural disasters, this book will penetrate your
consciousness as “tragic and uncannily familiar” (Michiko Kakutani). William
“Skip” Sands is ostensibly a CIA officer engaged in Psychological Operations
against the Vietcong. From the moment Skip lands “in country,” we are sucked
into a vortex of violence, sardonic humor, camaraderie that’s six degrees from
pathology, and paranoia -- all told through the lens of a singularly
hallucinogenic yet gorgeous and poetic prose style that forced me from time to
time to put the book down so I would avoid overdosing.
`Once upon a time there was a war, and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me.'
This is the story of Skip Sands, a CIA spy engaged in psychological operations against the Viet Cong, and the disasters that befall him. It is also the story of two brothers heading towards self-destruction, and a story…
This 700-page epic flies by as quickly as the twisting, turning train ride taken by our young protagonist, Hans Castorp, up into the Swiss Alps for his (assumed) brief visit to an exclusive sanatorium to recover his health, take the air and soak in the baths, stroll through well-laid gardens, breathe deeply, dine in leisurely fashion -- until, before he knows it, seven long years have ambled by, and his world-view, within and outside his mind, has blown up beyond all imagination. This is Thomas Mann, the profound paragon of narrative, at his most ironic, erudite, impassioned, insidious, and erotic.
With this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Thomas Mann rose to the front ranks of the great modern novelists, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. The Magic Mountain takes place in an exclusive tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps-a community devoted to sickness that serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe in the days before the First World War. To this hermetic and otherworldly realm comes Hans Castorp, an "ordinary young man" who arrives for a short visit and ends up staying for seven years, during which he succumbs both to the lure of eros and to the…
I fell in love with this book before I even read it; I came upon the author’s acceptance speech for the National Book Award: “There must be a fiction which, leaving sociology to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of a fairy tale.” On the surface, Ellison’s novel is about one Black man’s power struggle to achieve equilibrium -- albeit unrealistic -- in a world “owned” by others. This symbiotic relationship turns from ennobling to pernicious in the flip of a page. The undercurrent simmers with anger, bursting forth into redemptive acts of violence -- which feel chastening to the white reader as if the author were trying to teach me an overdue history lesson. Ralph Ellison is the virtuoso player upon his readers’ pressure-points; his intuitive prodding, into awareness, is sustained through an inexhaustible parade of metaphors along Harlem highways and byways.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this deeply compelling novel and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator tells his story from the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
He describes growing up in a Black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood," before retreating amid violence and confusion.
Originally published in 1952 as the first novel by a then unknown author, it remained on the bestseller list for…
I’m an avid reader of queer literary fiction not only because I write it but because I’m looking to see my life experience captured on the page. As a gay man, a father of two young boys, and one-half of an interracial married couple, I know the complexity of modern queer living firsthand. In recent years, I’ve been astounded by the breadth of great LGBTQ+ books that examine queerness fully and empathetically. I seek out these books, I read them feverishly, and I become a champion for the best ones. In an era of intense book banning, it’s so important to me to elevate these books and their authors.
The Birthright of Sons is a collection of stories centered around the experiences of marginalized people, namely Black and LGBTQ+ men. Although the stories borrow elements from various genres (horror, suspense, romance, magical realism, etc.), they are linked by an exploration of identity and the ways personhood is shaped through interactions with the people, places, and belief systems around us.
In each of these stories, the protagonists grapple with their understanding of who they are, who and how they love, and what is ultimately most important to them. In almost every case, however, the quest to know or protect oneself is challenged by an external force, resulting in violence, crisis, or confusion, among other outcomes.
The Birthright of Sons is a collection of stories centered around the experiences of marginalized people, namely Black and LGBTQ+ men. Though the stories borrow elements from various genres (horror, suspense, romance, magical realism, etc.), they're linked by an exploration of identity and the ways personhood is shaped through interactions with the people, places, and belief systems around us.
Underpinning the project is a core belief - self-definition is fluid, but conflict arises because society often fails to keep pace with personal evolution. In each of these stories, the protagonists grapple with their understanding of who they are, who and…
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