I recently read two very different novels centered in the world of visual art. Tom Rachman’s The Italian Teacher begins in 1950s Rome, and at first focuses on a bigger-than-life artist, Bear Bavinsky. Bear personifies the worst of the egotistical…
Written by Jan Kline one year ago
White Tears, by Hari Kunzru
For a book that has the word “white” in the title, this one is darker than dark. It starts with Seth, a young narrator who glancingly mentions his former mental problems. A music geek, he obsessively (but unobtrusively) records ambient…
Written by Jan Kline one year ago
Mister Monkey, by Francine Prose
Francine Prose has written everything from a study of the impact of Anne Frank’s diary, to a guide to reading like a writer, to a wildly varied stack of novels. A former president of PEN, a finalist for the National…
Written by Jan Kline two years ago
The Wangs vs. the World
The breathing space between the relative-intensive holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas seems like an appropriate time to read a family road trip saga. The Wangs vs. the World is one of the most satisfying books in this genre that I’ve…
Written by Jan Kline two years ago
The Girls, by Emma Cline
This book was as good as a time machine. It captured not just the trappings and look of late 60s and early 70s California pop counterculture, but the emotions as well. No, I didn’t fall into a cult, do heavy…
Written by Jan Kline two years ago
Family Money: Two New Comic Novels
Money, while a part of modern life, has a way of complicating family relationships, especially when there are large amounts of it in play. I’ve recently read two novels that have the issue of family money running through them. The…
Written by Jan Kline two years ago
The Portable Veblen, by Elizabeth McKenzie
The main character in this book is one of the most specific and memorable I’ve encountered in a while. Veblen Amundsen-Hovda is an underachiever (despite her high intelligence, college degree, and fluency in Norwegian, she’s doing temporary clerical work at…
Written by Jan Kline two years ago
Summerlong, by Dean Bakopoulos
It’s probably the most inappropriate time of year possible to read a novel set in the middle of a heat wave in the steamy midwest, but right before Christmas was when I happened to discover this one. It starts with…
Written by Jan Kline three years ago
Two Excellent Debut Novels about Family
The holidays have a way of reminding us about family: the ones we are born into (and sometimes flee from), and the ones we choose. I’ve recently read two very different first novels that center around this theme. Aaron Englund,…
Written by Jan Kline three years ago
Purity, by Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen has a way of pissing some people off. Popular author Jennifer Weiner, for example, has been in a feud with him for years, and invented the term “Franzenfreude,” defined as “the frustration with literary critics’ apparent preference for…