The obsession with celebrity is arguably more intense today than it has ever been before. In the millennial years, the somewhat nebulous concept of fame has been democratized, intensified, and extended to those outside of the film and television industries of Hollywood. Yet despite the elevation of everyday people to the status of public figures, the hierarchical nature of celebrity continues to privilege movie stars above all else, using their fame and talent as the benchmark against which all others are judged. Exploring celebrity through this lens, Christine Sneed’s novel, Little Known Facts (Bloomsbury, 304 pages), tells the story of […]
Transcendence as Religious Experience: Q&A with Christopher Buckley
by Jerome Blanco
Christopher Buckley is a poet, creative nonfiction writer, and editor. Throughout his long career, he has been a Guggenheim Fellow in Poetry and the recipient of four Pushcart Prizes, two NEA grants in poetry, and a Fulbright Award in Creative Writing. His nineteenth book of poetry—Varieties of Religious Experience (Stephen F. Austin State University Press)—will be published next month. Varieties is a sincere exploration of meaning, in life and in all things. These poems ask questions about an individual’s place in the universe and about the existence of the universe itself. Written in language humble and wise, Varieties reflects on […]
Conveying the Brilliance and the Chaos of a True Genius: John Neumeier’s ‘Nijinsky’
by Larissa Archer
A few people straggled almost unnoticed onto the stage of the War Memorial Opera House before the house lights had dimmed, and they began to talk. Even before the dancing had begun, their presence was an announcement that one had better not expect to see a traditional narrative ballet that opening night. However, the ambition to create a piece that comes close to the innovative prowess of its subject—Vaslav Nijinsky—would require more than an opening gimmick. Nijinsky is still one of dance’s towering figures, and one of the very few who merit the term “genius” both as a performer and […]
A Girl’s Honesty Sees Her Through Adults’ Lunacy: Lenore Zion’s ‘Stupid Children’
by Paul Wilner
There’s a lot of good writing out there—an amazing amount, really, considering the ongoing moaning and groaning going on about the “death of literacy’’ and other current cultural shibboleths—but not that much that is truly original, free of clearly demarcated literary influences, antecedents and referents. A thousand Eggers, David Foster Wallaces, let alone Kerouac and Salinger imitators, bloom from every Brooklyn basement and suburban redoubt. All the more remarkable, then, when someone finds a way to make it new, speaking her own truths against the powers of the past. Which makes Los Angeles author Lenore Zion’s first novel, Stupid Children […]
The Noisiest Book Review in the World Also Pretty Entertaining: ‘The Best of RALPH’
by Christopher Connor
The Noisiest Book Review in the Known World: The Best of RALPH (Mho & Mho Works; 979 pages, two volumes, edited by Lolita Lark) is a collection of the more acclaimed book reviews, essays, excerpts, and letters published by RALPH: The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities. Originally known as The Fessenden Review, the literary magazine published reviews and excerpts of little known or self-published books while it also, as they proudly state on their website, “lambasted many of the dubious stars of the East Coast Publishing Establishment.” Following the demise of the printed magazine, RALPH, operating from […]
Giving Voice to the Stifled, the Neglected, the Heartbroken: Susan Steinberg’s ‘Spectacle’
by Miranda Morgan
Susan Steinberg’s Spectacle (152 pages; Graywolf Press) is a story collection of intertwining vignettes, a series of experimental narratives that speak to the vulnerability of being female and the roles women are expected to play in a male-dominant world. Steinberg does not cast a rosy hue over her portrayal of society. She writes her truth—her female narrators’ truth—and makes no attempt to censor it. The narrators’ voices blend together, as do the male characters: lovers, fathers, and brothers move in and out of one another until they become indistinguishable. The opening story, “Superstar,” tells of a woman who breaks into […]
Galvanized Yet Undone by a Tragedy: Dennis Mahoney’s ‘Fellow Mortals’
by Christopher Connor
On the first page of Dennis Mahoney’s first novel, Fellow Mortals (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 277 pages), a fire burns down two houses and damages two more on Arcadia Street. It’s pretty much all downhill from there for the characters. As their lives creep along in the aftermath of that tragedy, Mahoney’s characters show us how a single event can galvanize a group of people yet destroy them at the same time. Infelicitous mailman Henry Cooper starts the blaze on Arcadia Street while trying to light a cigar on his route. The fire demolishes the houses of Nan and Joan […]
Letting Go of Their Dreams for Whatever Might Come Next: Jim Gavin’s ‘Middle Men’
by Laura Cogan
From time to time we may ask ourselves, what is a short story? To be sure, length is a defining characteristic, but it is not enough. Can we trace certain recurring threads throughout the now expansive history of the form: a constant set of concerns, a type of character, a type of plot? The form is, to its credit, too nimble for such decrees; what Alice Munro does with a short story is dramatically distinct from what George Saunders does, and both use the form with exactness and brilliance. But perhaps we can observe, in general, that there are particular […]
Getting Out from the Daily Rut: Joshua Mohr’s ‘Fight Song’
by Christopher Connor
Suburban harmony is under attack in Joshua Mohr’s new novel, Fight Song (Soft Skull Press, 272 pages). The book is a humorous ride through one week in the life of a middle age man who is going off the rails. But it’s also a critical look at how suburbia has been taken over by gadgets and corporations, as well as the stasis that traps people inside their jobs and within their gated communities. Bob Coffen is one of those people. When we meet him, he’s just trying to bike from his job to his boring home. He’s been working at […]
Reckoning With the Millennials: ‘Our Practical Heaven’ at the Aurora Theatre
by Marianne Moore
Anthony Clarvoe’s Our Practical Heaven, a world premiere directed by Allen McKelvey at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, raises some interesting questions about how traditional media, such as plays and novels, can incorporate new media and new ways of communicating. Can you fictionalize Facebooking, tweeting, texting, and instant messaging without sounding phony and ridiculous? Fads, brand names, and recent technology can jar us out of a fiction, somehow betraying the text they’re embedded in. It’s hard to say why this should be, when there’s nothing weird about a character in a novel or play picking up the practically obsolete telephone. […]
Not for the Money, But for the Art: Jim Harrison’s ‘The River Swimmer’
by Christopher Connor
Two men looking at life from opposite directions are at the center of The River Swimmer, the new collection of two novellas by Jim Harrison (Grove Press, 198 pages). Each novella contains a rich, original story but read together they offer different perspectives on what is essentially the same issue. “The Land of Unlikeness” examines the nostalgia of a man who was once defined by art but has since given up his passion. Clive, a former painter turned art history professor, returns to his hometown of Ypsilanti, Michigan, following an embarrassing incident at a lecture. Placed in charge of caring […]
Reading Music
by Judith Hannan
Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique is one of the great examples of program music, which means notes, not words, are the storytellers. The story here is a lurid one of opium induced reveries and unrequited love that descends into murder, execution, and hell. I heard it for the first time in junior high school, back when music appreciation was considered a part of a public school’s core curriculum and stories of opium and sin didn’t trigger over-protective hysteria in the PTA. The work became the first piece of classical music I could recognize, despite the fact that music of all kinds […]