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BOOKS THIS MONTH
1. Dancer: A Novel by McCann
2. Positively Fifth Street by McManus
3. Elizabeth Costello by Coetzee
4. The Devil in the White City by Larson
5. A Storybook Life by diCorcia
6. Cosmopolitan by Cecchini
More Recommendations
Book News
Credits/About Us
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2003 YEAR-END ISSUE
This month we take a look back at 2003, offering up a mix of 14 hand-picked reads
published this year, including novels, memoirs, and poetry, as well as nonfiction achievements in the areas of photography, history, art,
politics, biography, and human cadavers.
In the first six alone are opportunities to dance, to gamble, to introspect, to imagine, to narrate, and to stir up a few alternate realities. Although every book listed here may not hold up to the standards of Bloom, we think they're all worth reading — the best recommendation we can give. Wishes of peace and prosperity this season, and in 2004.
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Synopsis
A dazzling novel that follows the life of a richly imagined character, based on celebrated dancer Rudolf Nureyev, as he moves through the 20th century.
Review
As the title promises, Colum McCann's novel is about a ballet dancer. But don't let that scare you — this is a masterpiece that's alive and ambitious enough to take you completely by surprise and twist your expectations. Not that you'll end up caring about ballet, but you'll be able to imagine caring about ballet in a way that makes you suspect that really, maybe you do.
The book's not actually — or at least isn't only — about dancing. The dancer in question is Rudolf Nureyev, but this book's not really about Nureyev, either. Instead, it's about Rudi, a character based on Nureyev, who dances with preternatural grace and is always emphatically living, breathing: human. He moves through the 20th century on the most astonishing arc of a life, the beauty of his work and the generosity of his spirit changing forever the lives of all those who meet him. His journey begins in the cold poverty of WWII Russia and makes it all the way to NYC's coke-fueled, sex-filled, money-burning, go-go '80s. This ambitiously giant span of time and place allows McCann to write about much more than one remarkable person — he opens the book with some of the most visceral writing about war that's ever been put on paper, and by the end is writing tender love stories about cobblers and French maids, with a feverish intensity that makes it feel new and illuminating.
Rudi, in fact, never narrates the book. The story is told by his family, his lovers, his rivals, and his friends, and that's the magic of Dancer: it pulls so much in, but keeps it all whipping around one mysteriously alluring focus — a structure that's close to spinning out of control, intentionally pushing the limits. And yet McCann pulls it all off, with a good bit of roguish Irish charm — not to mention austere Russian beauty — to spare. (OZ)
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Synopsis
Novelist and poet James McManus chronicles his astonishing adventure at a high-stakes poker tournament.
Review
Sometimes you have to forget the risk and bet it all. For author James
McManus, that time came, and he turned up all aces. The story starts
with a Harper's assignment to report on the ascendance of female
players at the 2000 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, where, after a
few days in the casino the author decides to pursue a notably different
angle. With his $4,000 advance, he sits down and tries to gamble his way
into a $10,000 seat at the tournament tables. Not only does he win the
seat, but he keeps winning. One of 512 competitors, he eventually makes
a run to the final rounds, trading chips with the heavyweights in heady
games of no-limits poker.
Having entered the realm of participatory journalism, McManus feels a
particular affinity with Hunter S. Thompson. So he embraces the role of
pudgy, middle-aged gonzo family man — gamely following his
subjects to strip clubs, downing shots of Patrón with his nightly
sleeping aid and anti-depressant, and grappling with the idea of betting
more on one hand than he earns in five years. He slips often and,
more often than not, pleasantly into well-researched digressions (the
history of card games, the literature surrounding them, the bios of
their most colorful players), but, demonstrating good instincts, he
knows to back off when he gets out of his depth (i.e., Game Theory).
The author has another stroke of luck, of sorts. The trial for the
murder of the tournament founder's hard-partying son occurs at the same
time, providing a second, interlocked thread of suspense. Though the
trial opens the story up into the Vegas outside the casinos, and is
oozing with sordid sensationalism (drugs, stripper girlfriend, betrayal,
millions and millions of dollars), nothing can match the excitement of
following lucky Jim rise, briefly, to the top ranks of the poker world.
(CNH)
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Synopsis
The latest work from the South African writer and winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in literature, best known for Disgrace (1999) and Waiting for the Barbarians (1980).
Review
Few authors take their vocation as seriously as J. M. Coetzee, whose masterful new novel, Elizabeth Costello, demonstrates how deeply inspired is his mission to define what it means to be human. Coetzee's literary doppelgänger is Elizabeth Costello, an aging Australian author of international repute who has, in later years, adopted a reclusive lifestyle (not unlike the author's own), disengaging herself from personal relationships.
From New England to Norway, the story follows our outspoken protagonist along the lecture circuit, using her candid monologues to explore the nature of the soul. But it's in the stories surrounding these engagements (strained moments with her missionary sister, petty quarrels with a former lover, tragically stilted interactions between mother and son) that we gain access to Costello's own ruminations on the role of the writer in relation to her reader, and her place in the canons of recorded history. The author uses these snapshots to consider the writer in various guises: as emotional nomad, as moral ethnographer, as detached historian, and ultimately as giver of life. In Coetzee's cosmology, there are moments when literature appears more vivid than reality, and the author more powerful than God.
While this novel sometimes takes on aspects of a treatise as both Costello and her progenitor search together for existential meaning, it would be a mistake to dismiss this book as merely a supplement to the author's less didactic (and arguably less personal) works. Elizabeth Costello stands on its own as a work of fiction — not merely an intellectual tour de force. The mastery of Coetzee's art is evidenced by the fact that a character meant to do his intellectual bidding ultimately demands and receives emotional attachment from the reader — ironically, the kind of response that our aloof and self-contained heroine would likely spurn. Just as Coetzee breathes life into Costello, so does this character in the end create her author, offering us a penetrating view into the mind of a novelist who is one of the most powerful and ambitious literary intellects alive. (ELM)
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Synopsis
Larson weaves a tale of invention and murder in this well-researched
historical work about characters in Chicago around the time of the 1893
World's Fair.
Review
Creation and destruction, mass murder and architecture, genius and evil
— these juxtapositions lie at the core of Devil in the White
City, one of the most fascinating reads of the year. Author Erik
Larson may be a historian by trade, but he writes with the verve of a
novelist, and with source material like the twin tales of two
19th-century Chicagoans — Daniel H. Burnham and Dr. H. H. Holmes
— he found an amazing story that simultaneously inspires and
disgusts.
Burnham was, of course, the architect who pioneered the skyscraper and
was responsible for some of America's most enduring buildings, but it
was his tenacity and focus in bringing the 1893 World's Fair to Chicago,
his super-human effort in bringing the massive "White City" to fruition,
that is his most under-appreciated legacy. In contrast was Holmes, a
demonic serial killer who built a hotel near the fairgrounds —
complete with a hidden gas chamber and crematorium in the basement
— and masqueraded as a doctor to lure young women into his trap.
Larson weaves the intertwining stories of these two men, who lived
strangely parallel lives, into a portrait of the hopes, dreams, and nightmares
of life in America at the dawn of the 20th century.
Larson clocked many hours at the Chicago Historical Society researching
the book, demonstrating that the devil really is in the details as he
creates vivid descriptions of overcrowding, pollution, and corruption in
a dirty, hard city that now seems otherworldly. With a cast of
supporting characters like Wild Bill Cody, Thomas Edison, and Timothy
Ferris (the engineer who invented the giant wheel that bears his name),
Devil in the White City offers a glimpse of what the future
looked like to another era's dreamers — dreamers who also had to
deal with the occasional psychopath. (DJP)
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Synopsis
This work offers a selection of 75 color photographs made over a 20-year span and organized into an open-ended narrative without text. One of the most influential photographers of his generation, Philip-Lorca diCorcia has been exhibited and published extensively, and has work in museum collections worldwide.
Review
The subject of a traveling exhibition and superbly designed monograph,
A Storybook Life creates a compelling saga from previously
existing, though mostly unpublished, photographs. Drawing from his
personal archive of images (often pictures of friends and family) Philip-Lorca diCorcia
arranged the color plates in an intuitive manner to investigate their
narrative potential. The jacket image of an askew suburban home sited in
rural surroundings sets the stage for the strange reality within.
The tale begins with an image of a sleeping man, sharing the bedroom with a
television — and the woman on the television screen. It ends with the same
man again lying down, but this time for his open viewing at a funeral parlor. Taken only a year
apart, the two photographs frame the story in a circular manner, as
though everything else is life flashing before the subject's eyes
— curiously revealing the commonplace through a blend of
artificial and natural light that makes these stylish compositions
resemble film stills. People, animals, and objects are photographed
through windows and doorways, caught in domestic settings and natural
environments, and depicted like a strikingly clear memory.
There's no direct engagement of the subjects or evidence of the
photographer having ever been there. He presents us with a scrapbook of
archetypal characters that uncannily reflect our own lives; the viewer becomes the narrator, discovering meaning
through his emotional response. "The truth arises from facts," diCorcia
said in a lacanian ink interview. "You may think the parts are
contingent, they are, still they lead you to the truth." (PL)
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Synopsis
Experience life as a bartender in New York's trendiest
places, from the '80s to right now. Cosmopolitan gives
us a rare view into the alcohol-fueled nightlife and
what it takes to keep it going. And how to mix the
perfect Manhattan.
Review
With celebrity chefs as ubiquitous today as supermodels
in the '90s, Toby Cecchini ushers in a new breed —
the celebrity bartender. But it's not all cook-offs
and runways. Part tell-all and part memoir, he removes
the glamour in his stark portrait of the glorified
profession and the drink industry as a whole.
The owner of Chelsea's Passerby (once attached to the Gavin Brown Gallery), he reluctantly claims to be the
inventor of the libation that now stands for banality:
the Cosmopolitan. Yet he recounts his experiences with
panache, exhibiting a command of the language that is
extensive in breadth but playful in its vocabulary and
esoteric literary references — the quintessential bartender/philosopher.
Cosmopolitan first started taking shape in serial
form for Slate, and still reads much like a diary.
Rather than giving us an eagle-eye view behind the
bar, Cecchini offers us something much more intimate. Cosmopolitan
acts as a caveat for everyone who saw Cocktail and wants to be the star
of the brasserie, by imparting to the reader everything that the job entails —
the sex and drugs, as well as long hours of back-breaking work. (JM)
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MORE RECOMMENDATIONS
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NONFICTION: MEMOIR
A Million Little Pieces
by James Frey
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Frey punches with both hands in his enthralling, personal account
of putting his horrific addictions behind him. What starts with the fascination of watching a train wreck becomes an unproselytizing lesson in the human spirit.
City Paper | The Onion | Neal Pollack Parody
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FICTION
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
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This first novel by Lahiri — whose Interpreter of Maladies earned her the O. Henry Award for Short Fiction
in 1999 and the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 — examines what a name can mean in that undefined place between the traditions of our parents and the world we grow up in.
San Francisco Chronicle | New York Times | Washington Times
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POETRY
Oracle Figures
by Eric Pankey
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Eric Pankey's sixth book, Oracle Figures, is a rare, quiet collection of poetry that is in danger of slipping by unnoticed in the great race of American publishing. It deserves to be read — more than once — for its graceful use of form, nearly religious sense of compassion and devotion, and bright, energetic phrasings that have set Pankey confidently into the tradition of Wallace Stevens and Anthony Hecht.
NewPages.com | Poems.com
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NONFICTION: ART
Tom Sachs: Nutsy's
by Tom Sachs, John G. Hanhardt,
and Maria-Christina Villaseñor
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A mix between an artist book, exhibition catalogue, and do-it-yourself
manual, Tom Sachs' Nutsy's documents a wild art installation in
New York (2002) and Berlin (2003), which blended the modernist
philosophy of Le Corbusier with the commercialism of McDonalds. The end
result is as lively in book form as it was in real life.
Tom Sachs | Exhibition
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NONFICTION
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
by Mary Roach
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Offering a humorous look at the million and one uses for a cadaver, science
writer Mary Roach combs through history, uncovering what happens to our bodies
after we die.
City Paper | The Onion | More Reviews
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FICTION
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
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Who killed Wellington? Haddon's hilarious debut is a murder mystery
about a dead poodle, and an insightful entrance into the mind of an
autistic teenager. Rounded out with a few line drawings, it's also good
for kids.
WNBC.com | Harvard Book Review | Washington Post
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NONFICTION: BIOGRAPHY
Isaac Newton
by James Gleick
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Forget the apple and get to know a man who invented and uncovered so
much of what we take for granted today. A loner, alchemist, and perhaps the
first to envision the existence of a unifying theory.
The Guardian | San Francisco Chronicle
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NONFICTION
Dude, Where's My Country?
by Michael Moore
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Love him or hate him, Moore has struck a nerve — times many million.
In this latest addition to his ongoing series of attacks against corruption, cronyism, and violence, he speaks out against the "War on Terror," the so-called Patriot Act, and Dubya himself. Although heavily annotated, expect the
same flair for hyperbole and sarcasm.
The Guardian
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BOOK NEWS
A few notable bits of information and reporting for 2003.
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| Prize Winners for 2003 |
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Nobel Prize - J. M. Coetzee
Man Booker Prize - Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
Pulitzer Prize (Fiction) - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Pulitzer Prize (Nonfiction) - A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of
Genocide by Samantha Power
Pulitzer Prize (Poetry) - Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon
National Book Award (Fiction) - The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
National Book Award (Nonfiction) - Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of
a Cuban Boy by Carlos M. N. Eire
National Book Award (Poetry) - The Singing: Poems by C. K. Williams
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| Stephen King receives National Book Award, stirring controversy (Newsobserver.com) |
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Picking up the Distinguished Contribution of American Letters Award, King puts himself in the company of Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, and Philip Roth, and in the line of fire from purists such as Harold Bloom.
Harold Bloom's harsh dissent (Boston.com)
King's acceptance speech (National Book Foundation) |
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| Indian writer wins dubious "bad sex" prize (CNN) |
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| Attempting to describe hot love in his novel, Aniruddha Bahal induces the wrong kind of groan, and goes on to accept the 11th annual prize.
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| Someone needs to have a word with Amis (Telegraph) |
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Since Fischer wrote this review early in 2003, the debates over Amis'
latest, Yellow Dog, seem to have taken a particularly personal bent.
Another scathing review (New York Times)
Can he recover? (New York)
A Reply to Tibor Fischer (Pop Matters) |
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| Repentant rogue wins Booker (Guardian) |
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Although he won the coveted Booker, Pierre doesn't seem to be
immune to the same bile being cast at Amis — on both sides of the
Atlantic.
Dumb and Dumber (Washington Post) |
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| Hatchet man Dale Peck (Guardian) |
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With Peck on the loose, no one is safe.
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| How not to respond to a bad review (Salon) |
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The thin skin of Chuck Palahniuk.
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| 2003 legal doc of the year (The Smoking Gun) |
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A dissertation on the all-important word we're not supposed to say.
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| A year in stats (Harper's) |
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The indispensible stats for 2003 from Harper's.
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CREDITS
Editors
Mark Mangan
Joe Mangan
Christopher N. Hampton
Jocelyn K. Glei
Editors-at-Large
Larry Weissman
Sean McDonald
Richard Milner
Contributors
Elizabeth L. McDonald
Paul Laster
David J. Prince
Orlando Zepeda
Ernie Hilbert
Marisa Lowenstein
Paul McLeary
Steve Nalepa
Production & Design
Anjuli Ayer
William "Keats" Pierce
Peter Stepek
Sascha Lewis
Header Photograph
"Hartford," 1978 (detail)
by Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Courtesy Twin Palms Publishers
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ABOUT US
Boldtype is a monthly, email-based review of books. Formerly a web-based literary magazine published by Random House, it is now produced entirely by Flavorpill Productions. The Boldtype mission is to cover five to six books each month that are worth reading. No money is accepted from any publishers, writers, reviewers, or marketing or PR companies.
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