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Monthly Archives: August 2015
Bastard Out of Carolina: Literature as Hot Mess…
Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina is a compelling read, a powerful look at life among working class Southerners, and what is known in the vernacular as a “hot mess” – a beautiful work in spite of its flaws…. One … Continue reading
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Paul McCartney: Boy in a Band to Man on the Run…
Tom Doyle’s excellent book on Paul McCartney during the Wings years reveals a Paul most don’t know very well: a conflicted, sometimes lost, boy/man trying to carry on as a musician while also trying to be husband/father and rock star/cultural agitator at … Continue reading
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Shakespeare was a Doobie Brother…?
We now have not even close to definitive proof that William Shakespeare smoked marijuana and perhaps used cocaine. Good thing Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe wrote those plays, huh…? Busy with a lot of stuff for school and behind a … Continue reading
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Book Review: Murder and Bombs by Greg Stene
Murder and Bombs is the sort of thrill ride that any reader would be glad to add their collection of what we know fondly as “beach reads.” Greg Stene’s latest crime novel, Murder and Bombs covers lots of ground despite … Continue reading
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Book Review: Waving Backwards: A Savannah Novel by V. L. Brunskill
V. L. Brunskill’s Waving Backwards is a bildungsroman with a twist; the heroine must find her way forward by finding her way backwards…. I wrote last week about Lee Smith’s excellent bildungsroman Black Mountain Breakdown. In that essay I defended Smith’s … Continue reading
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Lee Smith’s Black Mountain Breakdown: High Level Lifestyle Lit…
Black Mountain Breakdown is a fine novel with depths that many readers, whether they are those who prefer what is dismissed as “lifestyle lit” or those who would dismiss Smith’s work too easily as such, may not see thanks to their biases….. … Continue reading
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Salinger and Hemingway Were Pals, Sort of – Who Knew…?
Salinger and Hemingway got be be friends in Hemingway’s favorite context for male bonding: war. What kinds of friends they were says something about each man…. Nicolaus Mills, a professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence College, is currently writing … Continue reading
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Go Set a Watchman: Historically Important – Literarily, Not So Much…
Go Set a Watchman, to use a tired description, is what it is: a sixty year old first novel that its author, with guidance from a thoughtful editor, revised into a beloved classic of American literature. I wrote about Harper … Continue reading
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