Graham Greene, Roll Over Graham Greene, Roll Over
A few months ago, novelist Alan Furst, in one of those New York Times "Writers on Writing" pieces, told how, on a magazine assignment to the Soviet Union back in 1983, he sudde...
Oct 3, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Peter Schrag
Sense and Sexibility Sense and Sexibility
In 1967 the world-renowned if somewhat Dickensianly named sexologist John Money was offered a case he couldn't refuse.
Sep 25, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Keith Gessen
Buffoonery of the Mundane Buffoonery of the Mundane
"Felisberto Hernández is a writer like no other," Italo Calvino announced once, "like no European, nor any Latin American.
Sep 19, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ilan Stavans
Not So Pretty Horses, Too Not So Pretty Horses, Too
William Eastlake once gave William Kittredge a piece of advice about writing as a Westerner. Never allow a publisher to put a picture of a horse on the cover of your novel: "Th...
Sep 12, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Philip Connors
Robinson Crusoe, Move Over Robinson Crusoe, Move Over
If Canadian writer Yann Martel were a preacher, he'd be charismatic, funny and convert all the nonbelievers. He baits his readers with serious themes and trawls them through a sea...
Aug 1, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Charlotte Innes
Poisoned Ivy Poisoned Ivy
Much as I hate to, I'm going to start by talking about the damn money. I'm only doing it because almost everyone else is. It's not just the author profiles and publishing-trad...
Jul 3, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Gene Seymour
‘Trembling…Can Be Heard’ ‘Trembling…Can Be Heard’
A young man of 16, visiting his cousins in Calcutta in a house in a "middle-middle-class area," has just published his first poem. This not-yet-poet from Bombay is the narrator of...
May 30, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Amitava Kumar
Education of a Knife Education of a Knife
The third-year medical student held the intravenous catheter, poised to insert it into a patient's vein. Suddenly the patient asked, "Have you done this before?" As the student la...
Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Barron H. Lerner
The Undertaker’s Art, Exhumed The Undertaker’s Art, Exhumed
"It's a great mistake not to feel pleased when you have the chance," a rich, disfigured spinster advises a frail, well-mannered boy in The Shrimp and the Anemone, the first novel ...
Apr 11, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Caleb Crain
Populism: The Thriller Populism: The Thriller
A few years ago I concocted a theory about John Grisham I was too lazy to prove. Here was the hypothesis: This bestselling author was the most successful popularizer of populist n...
Mar 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / David Corn