Samuel R. Delany, The Beats, Coach House Books, and more...

INTERVIEWS

A Silent Interview with Samuel R. Delany
Interviewed by Rudi Dornemann and Eric Lorberer
Expanded from the version in our current print issue, the uncut interview with writer Samuel R. Delany.

FEATURES

Beat Bios
Reviewed by Mark Terrill
Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Paul Bowles, and Richard Brautigan--four new books celebrate these literary figures whose disparate visions have left indelible signatures on the post-WWII literary landscape.

Coach House Books: A Profile
Essay by Tom Orange
The resurrected Canadian publisher continues to provide experimental cross-genre works; featured here are writings by Dan Farrell, Damian Lopes, and Steve Venright.

REVIEWS: FICTION

Fake House
Linh Dinh
In 1999 Linh Dinh returned to Vietnam after twenty-four years of living as a refugee in America. Dinh plumbs his experience in both countries in these gripping short stories. Reviewed by Thuy Dinh

What Are You Like?
Anne Enright
The gruelingly beautiful first novel to be published in America by BBC Radio journalist Anne Enright explores the internal, twisted worlds of self-identity. Reviewed by Amy Halloran

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
Edited by Sheree R. Thomas
This anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories culls fictions from such diverse writers as Octavia E. Butler, Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Amiri Baraka and Ishmael Reed. Reviewed by Rudi Dornemann

Sun Inventions and Perfumes of Carthage: Two Novellas
Teresa Porzecanski
Uruguayan writer Teresa Porzecanski embodies a lesser-known facet of the Latin American experience: the Jewish immigrant living amidst the continent¹s staunch Catholicism and Indo-African cultures. Reviewed by Jay Miskowiec

REVIEWS: POETRY

Breakers: Selected Poems
Paul Violi
Selecting from three decades of work, Violi's Breakers combines satire and erudite observances, as mundane forms become retorts in which language and the cunning unconscious are released rather than imprisoned. Reviewed by Fred Muratori

The Anatolikon
John Ash
Ash's travels in Anatolia—now called Turkey—provide the impetus for these graceful poems, speaking the place of that ancient world. Reviewed by Robert Kelly

Hard Country
Sharon Doubiago
Originally printed in 1982, Doubiago's Hard Country represents a courageous response to the conundrum of the metanarrative: the need to speak our time in order to understand it and to change it. Reviewed by Michael McIrvin

Another Part of the Island
Michael Heffernan
This slim volume moves effortlessly between the landscape and people of Ireland and dream-states and memories, bridging the gap between the literary poet and the poet of the people. Reviewed by Will Clemens

Secret Asian Man
Nick Carbo
The "bare-chested muscled Filipino" Ang Tunay na Lalaki is a seventies/eighties TV-commercial character transplanted to nineties New York City in this engaging second book of poems by Nick Carbo. Reviewed by Thomas Fink

Tell Me
Kim Addonizzio
Addonizzio's third collection of poems continues the dialectic of urban despair—the dialogue between bar room and beauty, between sorrow songs and simple prayers. Reviewed by Sean Thomas Dougherty

REVIEWS: NONFICTION

The Measure of Life: Virginia Woolf's Last Years
Herbert Marder
Marder explores the subversive side of Woolf's later works, saying "I felt that the enlightened Virginia of the 1930s, who displayed great sanity and courage under fire (her decision to choose the time and manner of her death did not diminish that), required a biography of her own." Reviewed by Carolyn Kuebler

Science is Fiction: The Films of Jean Painlevé
edited by Masaki Bellows and Marina McDougall with Brigitte Berg
Friend to the surrealists and proponent of the science film, Painlevé will be the most fascinating filmmaker you've never heard of. Reviewed by Kelly Everding

The Slate Diaries
edited by Jodi Kantor, Cyrus Krohn and Judith Shulevitz with an introduction by Michael Kinsley
A collection of day-to-day journals from famous and not-so-famous writers that manages to reach a satori threshold where the most commonplace and the most extraordinary experiences converge. Reviewed by Melissa Maerz

Bellow
James Atlas
The paradox of ego and self-consciousness elucidates the life of the award-winning author Saul Bellow in this cogent new biography by James Atlas. Reviewed by Eric J. Iannelli

The Sokal Hoax
edited by the editors of Lingua Franca
This collection of newspaper reports, essays, and exchanges in response to Alan Sokal's ill-conceived article on "Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" proves the art of the hoax is alive and well. Reviewed by Doug Nufer

The House on Dream Street
Dana Sachs
A cross between travel writing and personal memoir, The House on Dream Street captures Dana Sachs's life in Vietnam in the 1990s, exploring issues of gender, nationality, and cross-cultural relationships. Reviewed by Brian Foye

La Grande Thérèse
Hilary Spurling
Spurling's true story of an elaborate con artist in turn-of-the-century Paris will have you rooting for the treachery to be discovered while admiring the inventiveness and charisma of the cad. Reviewed by Nathan Leslie

Myself When I Am Real: The Life and Music of Charles Mingus
Gene Santoro
Santoro examines Mingus in all his kaleidoscopic difficulty and charm, in his pathos and vitality, and looks without sensation at his years of drug abuse and mental instability. Reviewed by Jon Rodine

REVIEWS: GRAPHIC NOVELS

Cerebus: An Introductory Survey
Dave Sim
Sim satirizes the human experience in these collected tales of Cerebus, which follow the evolution of a strange little aardvark from barbarian to Pope. Reviewed by Thomas P. Kalb

The Last Night,
Last Day in Vietnam,
& Minor Miracles
Will Eisner
Three new releases by the legendary Will Eisner provide the occasion for this retrospective review of the ground-breaking graphic novelist. Reviewed by Eric Lorberer