Speak, Memory Speak, Memory
Not wanting to curse Charlie Kaufman with too much praise, I'm tempted to say that his nonexistent twin Donald is the best American screenwriter since Preston Sturges.
Mar 25, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Heart of Gold Heart of Gold
Courtney Love's new record is called America's Sweetheart. Take that. It's a name that has been used facetiously by the press to describe her.
Mar 25, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Priscilla Becker
In America In America
If the words "first novel" and "arrival of a major American talent" appear on the front flap of a dust jacket, you can almost be sure that the picture on the back flap will depic...
Mar 25, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Philip Connors
Water’s Edge Water’s Edge
Manhattan is a tight little island. Around thirteen miles long, it has a width that varies from two miles to a few hundred feet.
Mar 25, 2004 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
Letter From Algeria Letter From Algeria
Excavating the disappeared.
Mar 25, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Jack Brown
The New Critic The New Critic
The American foreign affairs establishment seems finally to have gotten worried about the antics of the Boy Emperor.
Mar 18, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Chalmers Johnson
Moses Goes Down Moses Goes Down
If upon reading the first sentence of Moses Isegawa's debut novel, Abyssinian Chronicles, in an Amsterdam bookstore a few years back, I quickly re-read it a few times and committ...
Mar 18, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Matt Steinglass
The Secret Sharer The Secret Sharer
Although the epigraph of Damon Galgut's novel is taken from Chekhov, it is the ghost of Graham Greene that hovers most palpably over The Good Doctor, and even in the cadence of i...
Mar 18, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Claire Messud
Accidental Friends Accidental Friends
"One does not jail Voltaire." So responded the president of France to calls that Jean-Paul Sartre be arrested for backing an independent Algeria.
Mar 18, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Russell Jacoby
Adaptation Adaptation
So Mel Gibson has been persecuted all the way to the bank.
Mar 11, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans