Simone Fattal, Jack Foley, Ben Katchor, and more...

INTERVIEWS

Counting the New Age: An interview with Simone Fattal of the Post-Apollo Press
Interviewed by Karl Roeseler

FEATURES

Jack Foley
Essay by John Olson
The robust eclecticism of Foley's essays are united by a sense of urgent questioning regarding human consciousness, alienation, spoken versus written media, and, most importantly, "the despised and neglected art of poetry."

Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: The Beauty Supply District
Essay by Todd Matthews
Ben Katchor's most recent offering is a book containing collected Knipl strips, and a new 24-page story entitled, "The Beauty Supply District."

REVIEWS: FICTION

Pamela: A Novel
Pamela Lu
Pamela Lu's experimental novel takes everything it encounters, including its own rules and machinery of operation, as material for thinking, and pushes each thought as far as it can go. Reviewed by Aaron Benjamin Kunin

Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The resurrected early version of the classic Fitzgerald novel, The Great Gatsby. Reviewed by Christopher Fischbach

The Night Listener
Armistead Maupin
Nearly a decade after he abandoned his legion of fans, Armistead Maupin returns to his readers offering a laurel leaf entitled The Night Listener. Reviewed by Brad Jacobson

The Telling
Ursula LeGuin
LeGuin's new novel exhibits the strengths that are nearly always associated with any of her work: the taut, lucid prose, the exploration of cogent archetypes, the assurance of tone and pace. Reviewed by Alan DeNiro

REVIEWS: POETRY

Alphabets
Paul Vangelisti
The 26 symbols of our modern English alphabet, which are so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness beginning with our recitation of the ABC's in childhood, serve as the backbone for the formal experiments of Paul Vangelisti's Alphabets. Reviewed by Kim Fortier

Jersey Rain
Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky's sixth poetry collection is not a disappointment to his readers. The book contains a number of apt, solid, and vivid poems, precisely what should be expected from a writer who up to this point has successfully welded tacit autobiography and restrained discursiveness. Reviewed by Piotr Gwiazda

By a Thread
Molly Tenenbaum
In this first collection of thirty-two poems, Molly Tenenbaum illustrates the mastery of poetic eye and delicate fingertip of imagination. Reviewed by Tim Scannell

oclock
Mary Rising Higgins
Mary Rising Higgins's first full-length collection, plays a straight-faced game with time and space and "her" place in them. Churning with the regal but violent machinations of a belltower, oclock is a meticulously controlled random-text, a jarring but rewarding read. Reviewed by Patrick F. Durgin

REVIEWS: NONFICTION

Luminous Debris: Reflecting on Vestige in Provence and Languedoc
Gustaf Sobin
In Luminous Debris, expatriate American poet and novelist Gustaf Sobin sifts the remnants of the past for the "mirroring images they might provide" to the present. Reviewed by Robert Baker

John Cage: Writer: Selected Texts
edited by Richard Kostelanetz
Selected writings by infamous composer John Cage on everything from the politics behind his music to James Joyce. Reviewed by Ramez Qureshi

Misgivings: My Mother, My Father, Myself
C. K. Williams
Moving memoir in which poet C.K. Williams struggles to come to terms with the death of his father. Reviewed by Elaine Margolin

Break Every Rule: Essays on Language, Longing, & Moments of Desire
Carole Maso
Smart, witty, filled with risk and velocity, Break Every Rule poses questions intended to loosen the straps that limit our writing and reading. Reviewed by Brian Evenson