Writers Voice » novel

Alan Furst: Fiction, Suspense and the Moral Imperative

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:40:39 +0000

Alan Furst

Alan Furst talks about writing and about his historical thrillers, SPIES OF THE BALKANS (2010) and THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (2006).

Master of suspense Alan Furst sets his novels in Europe just prior to and during WWII. Most of them take place in the Balkans, with sorties to his favorite city in the world, Paris. They deal with the fight between freedom and fascism and the choice between saving yourself or risking your life for the common good.

His latest, SPIES OF THE BALKANS follows on the heels of his 2008 SPIES OF WARSAW. It takes place in the ancient port of Salonika, Greece, a rough and tumble town of wharves and warehouses, gangsters and spies. It’s 1940. Mussolini’s Italy threatens from the North — and behind Italy, the shadow of Hitler’s war machine menaces. Furst’s new hero, Senior Police Official Costa Zannis, is drawn into the effort to save his homeland — and Europe’s Jews from the evil that is hunting them.

Francesca sat down with Alan Furst in his tiny writing studio in Sag Harbor, New York. He’s a disciplined writer, putting in four hours every morning, during which time he’s sustained just by coffee and the occasional cigarette. It’s a pace that’s produced 11 published works, among them Night Soldiers, The World at Night, Dark Voyage, and The Foreign Correspondent.

Read an excerpt from SPIES OF THE BALKANS

Writers Voice interviewed Furst in 2006 about THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT. It takes place mainly in Paris. This time, his hero is a journalist, Carlo Weisz, an expatriate Italian fighting the Mussolini regime by writing for the opposition newspaper, the Liberazione. The year is 1938, the storm clouds of war are gathering on the horizon, and Weisz is struggling to keep both his paper and himself alive. The book is a compelling portrait of Europe as it struggles with the opposing forces of fascism and freedom — forces that find their echoes today as the world grapples with terror and war.

Read an excerpt from THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

James Lee Burke: Murder and Redemption on the Bayou

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:01:38 +0000

James Lee Burke

Mystery writer James Lee Burke talks about his latest novel in the Dave Robicheaux series, THE GLASS RAINBOW. And poet Doug Anderson reads two poems.

James Lee Burke’s real life and fictional life have a way of intersecting. Like the protagonist of his best-selling detective series, Dave Robichaux, Burke is a native of the Louisiana Gulf Coast (his 2007 novel THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN was set in a Gulf Coast devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita) and he divides his time between that beleaguered region and Montana. Like Robicheaux, he has a daughter named Alafair who is a writer. And both Burke and his character have been around the block a bit, having already passed the 70 year mark.

Burke sees his fictional alter ego as the better man of the two — a hero who puts his life on the line defending the powerless and the abused. But Robicheaux is also haunted by his own psychic demons — his alcoholism, intimations of mortality, and moral ambivalence around the use of force against the forces of darkness.

Burke, who has written more than 20 books, won an Edgar Award for two of them, BLACK CHERRY BLUES and CIMARRON ROSE. His character Dave Robicheaux has been played by Tommy Lee Jones in the film The Electric Mist and by Alec Baldwin in Heaven’s Prisoners.

The setting for the latest novel in the Robicheaux series, The Glass Rainbow is the sugarcane and bayou country of Louisiana, where crime, corruption and the twisted strands of class and race are the ground for epic battles between good and evil. Robicheaux teams up with his best friend Clete Purcel to solve the mystery of the young woman’s murder. The trail heads at first into the seamier side of town, but then veers into a thorny thicket leading to the plantations of the most powerful people in the parish.

Tune into this wonderful conversation with James Lee Burke as he talks about his latest book, what’s happening to the Gulf Coast in the wake of the BP catastrophe, the history of the region, and his writing.

Read an article James Lee Burke wrote about writing

Also, Doug Anderson reads two poems, Petitionary Prayer on Nguyen Duy’s Roof, and a birthday poem, Sixty Seventh.
Read other poems by Anderson

Sneak Preview: Next week, Writers Voice talks with Harvey Sachs about his book, THE NINTH: Beethoven and the World in 1824

Isabel Allende’s ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:28:33 +0000

Dr. Devra Davis

Isabel Allende

Author Isabel Allende talks about her new novel, ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA. It tells the story of a remarkable woman, the slave Tété, during the Haitian revolution against French rule. And we talk with Dr. Derva Davis about her book THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER. It’s about environmental causes of cancer and industry and government cover-ups of the issue. A presidential panel has just come out with a new report about it.

When an earthquake hit Haiti earlier this year, evangelist Pat Robertson laid the blame at the feet of the Haitian people, implying that, in overthrowing their French colonial slave masters in the 18th century, their forebears had made a pact with the devil — and the earthquake was God’s revenge. Robertson’s wacko commentary was a reminder of how deep and long lasting is the rage of the rulers against those who dare to free themselves from it. Haiti’s revolution still remains unique in world history as the only successful slave rebellion.

Now Isabel Allende has written a sweeping historical novel, ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA, that brings that time in Haiti’s history alive for the reader. It tells the story of the slave Tété, a woman born into slavery in the colony of Saint-Domingue. Rich in historical detail, ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA explores several themes: the toll slavery takes on both the oppressed and the oppressor, the melding of different cultures in the cauldron of colonialism and revolution, and the deep personal relationships that persist in spite of the rigid social barriers of slave society.

Isabel Allende is one of the best-known women writers in the Americas and the author of the 18 books, including THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS and INÉS OF MY SOUL.

On May 6, a scientific panel on cancer convened by President Obama released a report finding that Americans are facing “grievous harm” from chemicals in the air, food and water. Charging that the chemicals largely gone unregulated and ignored, it said the nation needs to do a better job in reducing the risk of cancer to the public. Typically, only 5% of cancers are linked to environmental exposure. But the report said this grossly underestimates the true rate — a claim that’s brought howls of protest from groups representing industry.

The panel says the risk to all Americans is understated because U.S. policy fails to take into account the cumulative effect of exposure to many different harmful chemicals in the environment and that infants, children and teens are especially vulnerable. Finally, it faulted US regulations for reacting to harm that already has been done rather than trying to prevent the entry of harmful chemicals into the environment in the first place.

I spoke about all these issues with my next guest, Dr. Devra Davis, back in 2008, when she came out with her book THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER. She says 95% of all cancers are caused by our environment – and that powerful special interests have colluded with government and watchdog organizations like the American Cancer Society (or ACS) to sow doubt on longstanding research proving that. The ACS disputes the Presidential cancer panel’s claim that environmental causes of cancer had been underestimated.

Dr. Davis is director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, where she also teaches epidemiology.

Other Useful Links Mentioned in the Show:

Toxics Use Reduction Institute

Collaborative on Health and Environment

Sadie Jones and Fernanda Eberstadt: Testing the Limits of Courage

Francesca Rheannon — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:43:29 +0000

Fernanda Eberstadt

Sadie Jones

Sadie Jones talks about her new novel, SMALL WARS. Set in war torn Cyprus in 1956, it tells the story of a young British solider, and the effects of that war on him, his wife and their family. And we hear from Fernanda Eberstadt about her acclaimed new novel RAT. It’s about a girl of extraordinary courage who travels from a hardscrabble region of France to London in search of her father.

When Hal Traherne, a main character in Sadie Jones’ novel SMALL WARS, is promoted to the rank of major in the British Army, the young soldier thinks he’s dedicating himself to a life in service of honor and courage. But then he’s sent to put down a rebellion by Cypriots who are seeking to overthrow the British and unite with Greece. Traumatized by the atrocities he sees his own troops committing — and unable to stop them — Hal finds his moral courage waning even as his courage in battle is proven. What happens to him takes a toll on his marriage, as trust and intimacy fall victim to his rage and self-loathing. The novel’s exploration of the impact of war on families is as relevant today as it is to the period in which the book takes place.

British author Sadie Jones’ acclaimed first novel, The Outcast, was a finalist for the Orange Prize. John Madden is directing a film version. SMALL WARS is her second novel.

Poet Jon Anderson reads his poem “Chimeras”. Writers Voice recorded the reading at a poetry event in South Hadley, Massachusetts in March.

And Jon Anderson reads a “Hand Dance”, an unpublished poem by Richard Wilbur (listen to the Web Extra).

Fernanda Eberstadt’s new novel RAT features one of the most appealing characters you’ll ever encounter in fiction. Fifteen-year-old Celia, whose nickname is Rat, lives in a hardscrabble region in the south of France where things are ready to explode at any moment, Eberstadt says. It’s a place where poverty abounds and racial tensions between poor whites, North African immigrants and gypsies are high. Rat is being raised by a single mother, who she loves and is more of a mother to, than the other way around. But it’s the father she’s never known that she’s thinking about mostly – and she intends to find him. In doing so, she tests the limits of her prodigious courage.

Eberstadt lived in southwestern France for several years and wrote a nonfiction book about the Gypsies there called LITTLE MONEY STREET. Born into a literary tradition, she’s the daughter of a writer and the granddaughter of poet Ogden Nash. Eberstadt has written essays for the New Yorker among other magazines, nonfiction books and novels. RAT is her sixth book.

Web Extra: Robert Parker archive interview

Francesca Rheannon — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:09:14 +0000

Robert Parker

Mystery novelist Robert Parker died January 20, 2010 at his desk at home, writing. It was a fitting end for this most prolific of writers — more than sixty books emerged from his pen. Although he wrote in several genres, including westerns and young-adult novels, Parker was best known for his mystery novels, especially those featuring Spenser, the hardboiled detective with a sensitive heart.

Writers Voice guest host Jodi Schneider talked to Robert Parker in 2005 about his Spenser novel, , his life and his writing. She found out he wrote ten pages a day with no revisions, working for about six hours. He made it up as he went, with little or no planning in advance. And he never read any of his books after publication. Listen to this free-wheeling, funny interview.

Go to the Robert Parker Amazon.com page.

The Biggest Stories You Never Read in 2009

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:06:05 +0000

Dan Chaon

Peter Phillips

Peter Phillips of Project Censored talks about the Project’s latest yearbook of the top censored news stories of 2009, CENSORED 2010. And novelist Dan Chaon talks about his thriller, AWAIT YOUR REPLY. It examines the truth and lies about identity.

Dan Chaon

Dan Chaon’s novel opens with a shocker: a young man who is being rushed to the hospital with his severed hand next to him in a cooler. He’s with his father, or at least someone who claims to be his father. And his dad isn’t the only character whose identity is in doubt. The novel is all about identity — shifting identities, re-inventing oneself, finding out one’s own identity, and the identity theft. It follows three apparently separate stories, bringing them together only in the end. And if genre is the literary version of identity, Chaon’s book itself has multiple personalities: moving from philosophical speculation to thriller with shapeshifting ease.

Chaon is also the author of , and .

What Do We Learn About History From Novels?

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:27:52 +0000

Thad Carhart

We hear excerpts from a dramatic reading of Ernest J. Gaines’ novel, A LESSON BEFORE DYING by Enchanted Circle Theater actors. It’s about a young black man in Jim Crow Louisiana who is condemned to death. And we interview Thad Carhart about his new historical novel, ACROSS THE ENDLESS RIVER. It’s about Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea who was a guide on the Lewis and Clark expedition and who lived both in the United States and Europe.

A Dramatic Reading

One in seven people sentenced to die are later proven innocent, according to studies cited by the ACLU. This terrible injustice is one of the themes of Ernest J. Gaines powerful novel, . Another is the dignity of all human beings, no matter what their situation is. Gaines, who is probably best known as the author of DRIVING MISS DAISY, explores these themes through the story of Jefferson, a young black man who is sentenced to death for his role in a botched robbery, even though he is not the killer. The action takes place in rural Louisiana during the 1950’s, when Jim Crow was still alive and well.

Published in 1997–and an Oprah favorite–”A Lesson Before Dying” was chosen as this year’s selection for One Book Holyoke, a community project based on the idea of the Big Read, a program by the National Endowment for the Arts to encourage reading. When I interviewed the founder of the Big Read, Dana Gioia, back in 2005, he asked me why there were no Big Read programs in Massachusetts. There are some now, and One Book Holyoke has gotten support from the Big Read. The idea is simple, Holyoke residents read a selected book during a set period of time. They then get together for a variety of activities planned around the book.

[sniplet amazon bookstore widget]

One activity was a dramatic reading by the Holyoke based company, Enchanted Circle Theater. They compressed the action of the book into a dramatic script of about an hour and a half. Writers Voice went to a reading at Holyoke City Hall for an audience of local high school students.

You can listen to the entire reading on the Web Extra, but we air excerpts on the show.

The actors are Gilbert McCauley as Jefferson, James Lightfoot as Grant Wiggins, L’Kuicha Parks as Jefferson’s godmother Miss Emma, and James Emery in the roles of the book’s white characters, the defense lawyer and Mr. Henri Pichot.

You can get the Oprah Book Club edition of the audio book on Audible.com

The son of Sacagawea

Thad Carhart’s first book was the memoir, , in which he chronicled finding a piano shop tucked away on a little street that helped him rediscover his love of playing the piano. An American citizen with an Irish passport who lives in Paris, Carhart is an expatriate like the protagonist of his new book, . It’s an historical novel about the fascinating life of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.

“you had this extraordinary story of survival and determination and…by anybody’s lights and in anybody’s culture that’s a remarkable life’s beginning.”

Charbonneau was the son of the Indian Sacagawea and a French Canadian voyageur. He was born while his parents were accompanying the explorers Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition of 1804 to 1806, was adopted by William Clark after his mother died, and lived for years in Europe as the assistant of Duke Friedrich Paul Wilhelm von Württemberg before returning to his native land.

Read an Excerpt from ACROSS THE ENDLESS RIVER

Are You Ready For Fire, Brimstone, Love And Writer’s Block?

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:41:28 +0000

Susan Stinson

Nicholson Baker

Nicholson Baker talks about his new novel, THE ANTHOLOGIST. His hero Paul Chowder is looking back over his whole life and wondering what it’s amounted to. He’s also facing the dreaded disease: writer’s block. And Susan Stinson is just finishing her new novel, SPIDER IN THE TREE. She tells us about her protagonist, the 18th century preacher Jonathan Edwards who preached fire and brimstone – and love.

Nicholson Baker

The protagonist of Nicholson Baker’s new novel bears an uncanny resemblance to the author himself – like the character, Paul Chowder, Baker has struggled with writing an introduction to a poetry anthology. They both write in the same barn loft, with the same view. They both write poems – good and serviceable, if not great. They’ve both even injured their fingers carrying heavy computers downstairs. And they’ve both struggled with disappointing loved ones and overcoming those disappointments.

By turns funny, poignant and expository, Baker’s new novel follows Chowder as he struggles to do the introduction and get it out to his increasingly anxious publisher. He also wants to get his girlfriend to come back – she’s left him in exasperation over his failure to put his nose to the grindstone and start, much less finish, the task. Along the way, Baker (through Chowder) leads the reader into a fascinating exploration of poetry in rhyme. He invites us to consider the uses of rhyme, how free verse usurped rhyme in modern poetry, and even some tips on how to write verse.

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As is typical in Baker’s fiction, not much happens, but much is observed, all in language that is filled with delightful turns of the phrase. Baker’s approach to fiction is influenced by John Updike, a friend and literary mentor. Among Baker’s other novels are and .

Baker writes non-fiction as well as novels. Last year, we spoke with him about HUMAN SMOKE: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization. It was a kind of anthology itself, composed as it was of clippings from historical documents, newspapers and other contemporary observations from those experiencing World War II. And Baker received a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2001 for another nonfiction book, .

Susan Stinson

“Many people consider [Jonathan Edwards] the most brilliant theologian the country has ever produced. His most famous sermon was ‘Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God’, but he also wrote quite lyrically and beautifully about beauty as religion and love.”

We last spoke with Susan Stinson when we interviewed Leonard Nimoy about his photography book THE FULL BODY PROJECT in 2006. Stinson was on a panel about cultural images of fat women, with Nimoy, Stinson and and author Leslea Newman. All three were guests on that episode of Writers Voice.

How the culture views fat women is a topic Susan Stinson has written about in her novels, such as FAT GIRL DANCES WITH ROCKS. But now, she’s turning her authorial talents to a very different kind of subject. She’s just finishing a novel, titled SPIDER IN A TREE, about the 18th century theologian and minister Jonathan Edwards, who preached in Northampton, Massachusetts.

His church, now named First Churches, is still in use. Hadley, MA, right across the Connecticut River from Northampton, is celebrating its 350th anniversary, and it’s where Jonathan Edwards’ sister fled after her brother was drummed out of the church by his congregation as a result of the so-called “Communion Controversy”. The novel also takes up the issue of Edwards’ ownership of slaves and explores what life was like during the Great Awakening.

Links

Read an excerpt from SPIDER IN A TREE.
Read Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God.

Books Mentioned This Show

check it out on Amazon.com
check it out on Amazon.com
check it out on Amazon.com
check it out on Amazon.com

Women Writing Powerfully About Women’s Lives

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:07:49 +0000

Chimamanda Adichie

Honor Moore

Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about her stunning collection of stories . And poet Honor Moore reads from and tells us about . Our guests use fiction (Adichie) and poetry (Moore) to evoke the lives of women with power, honesty and grace.

Chimamanda Adichie

Award winning author Chimamanda Adichie was born in Nigeria and lives in the United States. She’s written about the hardships and political turbulence of her own country in her novels, and . She’s also written about the dislocations and difficulties of Nigerian immigrants to England and the United States.

Her new short story collection, The Thing around Your Neck, traverses both these territories. The stories are powerful, both in their unflinching look at the some of the darkest recesses of the human heart, as well as the capacity for redemption. The Seattle Times said about the book, “Adichie shows a rare talent for finding the images and gestures that etch a narrative moment unforgettably in the reader’s memory.” And the Times Online called Adichie “one of Africa’s brightest new literary stars.”

Adichie’s favorite author is the great Chinua Achebe, also of Nigeria, who has inspired her own writing.

You can also buy the unabridged The Thing Around Your Neck as a great audio book.

Honor Moore

In her poem about the climber Elvira Shatayev, Adrienne Rich uses the image of a cable of blue fire as a metaphor for the solidarity of women facing the challenges of their lives. Before the women’s movement was born in the 1970’s, the idea of women’s solidarity was foreign to our culture. Women were supposed to compete for a man, not join together to explore and enrich their own lives.

Poet and writer Honor Moore was there at the beginning of that movement. She points out in her wonderful introduction to the new collection she edited, POEMS FROM THE WOMENS MOVEMENT, poetry was vital to the movement, giving eloquent voice to lives that had been until them unspoken. The collection is part of the American Poets Project from the library of America and spans works from 1965 to 1982.

Honor Moore has authored three collections of her own poetry, Red Shoes, Darling, and Memoir. She’s also written plays and a celebrated memoir The Bishop’s Daughter which was a National Book Award finalist.

Along with other poets and readers, Moore will be talking about POEMS FROM THE WOMENS MOVEMENT at a reading at Amherst College on September 16.

Phantasia for Elvira Shatayev

Now we are ready
and each of us knows it I have never loved
like this I have never seen
my own forces so taken up and shared
and given back
After the long training the early sieges
we are moving almost effortlessly in our love

We know now we have always been in danger
down in our separateness
and now up here together but till now
we had not touched our strength

What does love mean
what does it mean “to survive”
A cable of blue fire ropes our bodies
burning together in the snow We will not live
to settle for less We have dreamed of this
all of our lives

Adrienne Rich

LINKS

Online archival collection of documents from the Women’s Liberation Movement

Honor Moore’s poem, Polemic-1

New Fiction from Paul Auster and Jennifer Haigh; Michael Klare on Russia-Georgia War

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:18:27 +0000

Host Francesca Rheannon talks with acclaimed novelist Paul Auster about his new work of fiction, MAN IN THE DARK.
Also, Jennifer Haigh tells us about her new novel, THE CONDITION.
And we’ll also air an excerpt from an interview we did last year with Michael Klare about his book, RISING POWERS, SHRINKING PLANET, THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF ENERGY. He predicted at that time that the next resource war could be between Georgia as a US client state and Russia.

Paul Auster says that “writing is no longer a matter of free will for him–it’s a matter of survival”. His new novel MAN IN THE DARK deals with issues of survival in a post 9/11 America — the survival of hope, of connection with others, of choice in the face of evil And, finally, of the stories that knit families together. Auster is the author of numerous novels, screenplays, and works of non-fiction, including Travels in the Scriptorium, The Invention of Solitude, and The Brooklyn Follies. He’s also a poet, translator and film director.

Jennifer Haigh likes to write about families. In her new novel, THE CONDITION, she turns her attention to a family from the Boston area. The parents, Paulette and Frank, are divorced. Although their marriage had multiple strains, it came apart over the diagnosis of their daughter Gwen with a rare genetic condition called Turner’s Syndrome when she was 12 years old. Now their three children are grown and all five members of the family live in isolation from each other. But they are connected by the powerful undercurrents of the emotional bonds they carry. Haigh’s previous novels are Mrs. Kimble and Baker Towers.

Last year, we spoke with energy security expert Michael Klare about his book RISING POWERS, SHRINKING PLANET, THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF ENERGY. When he told WV at that time that the next resource war could be between US-backed Georgia and Russia, it sent a chill down my spine. We hear and excerpt from that May 2007 interview.

Tune in to Writer’s Voice with Francesca Rheannon on Fridays at 5:00 PM on WMUA 91.1 FM
on NPR Talk Radio 640 AM WNNZ on Sundays at 3:00 PM
and on Valley Free Radio 103.3 FM Thursdays at 8:00 AM.
Can’t listen then? Subscribe to our podcast or listen online at our website.

New Fiction from Margot Livesy and Ellen Cooney

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:02:14 +0000

We talk with novelists Margot Livesey ( THE HOUSE ON FORTUNE STREET) and Ellen Cooney (Lambrusco).

Livesey’s stunning new novel is about love, loss and the ambiguities of existence. Told from the point of view of four narrators, it explores how they try to make sense of their world when their lives are upended by the unexpected–and how their human frailties lead them to make choices that they long regret. Along the way, the reader is challenged to examine his or her own sense of right and wrong — and the power of forgiveness.

And Ellen Cooney’s LAMBRUSCO is a picaresque, half-comic, half-tragic journey through the war-torn Italian landscape of 1943. Her protagonist, an aria-singing cafe owner named Lucia, goes looking in search of her son, a partisan with the Italian Resistance who has disappeared.
We talk to Cooney about Italy, the Resistance, and the courage of ordinary people in times of war.

THE HAKAWATI and SO WRONG FOR SO LONG

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:57:10 +0000

Rabih Alameddine

We talk with Lebanese writer Rabih Alameddine about his new novel, . Framed around the story of a family in modern-day Lebanon, the novel weaves fiction, fable and epic into a wonderful tapestry.

And journalist and editor Greg Mitchell tells us about how the press and the punditocracy failed the public on Iraq. His book is .

OLIVE KITTREDGE and THE END OF THE JEWS

Francesca Rheannon — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:00:06 +0000

Adam Mansbach

Elizabeth Strout

Francesca interviews novelist Elizabeth Strout about her Pulitzer Prize winning book, OLIVE KITTERIDGE, which uses a collection of short stories to create a novel about the inhabitants of a coastal town in Maine. And Adam Mansbach talks about his new novel, THE END OF JEWS.

Strout explores the complex humanity of her characters as they evolve over time, revealing checkered depths of light and dark.

Listen to Strout read from OLIVE KITTERIDGE here.

In his new novel, Adam Mansbach also explores ambiguity — of cultural boundaries, marginality and continuity–in his new novel, THE END OF THE JEWS. He examines the thin line between appreciation and appropriation, as his largely Jewish characters connect with African American culture — jazz and hip-hop — to create a more fluid sense of identity. Mansbach was the founding editor of the pioneering ’90s hip hop journal Elementary, and also worked for the legendary jazz drummer Elvin Jones for several years as a roadie.

Novelist Geraldine Brooks and Poet Laureate Al Young

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:31:33 +0000

Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks tells us about , a novel based on the history of the Sarajevo Haggadah. This remarkable novel takes us through time and across Europe to uncover the story of a fourteenth century Jewish book that survived the exile, wanderings and persecution of its owners. One of the most valuable manuscripts in existence today, the Sarajevo Haggadah was rescued twice by its Bosnian Muslim curators — from the Nazis in 1944 and from Serbian shelling of Sarajevo in the early 1990’s. It now rests in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

Al Young

Also, we talk with California Poet Laureate Al Young about his new book-and-cd set, . Young is a celebrated African-American poet, novelist, essayist and musician who connects his poetry with the vibrant music of the Blues. He writes: “Music – with which poetry remains eternally intimate – seems a dead ringer, as it were for life. And while each also seems invisible, I always catch myself asking: What is life but spirit; spirit-thought made hearable, seeable, smellable, touchable, and delectable?”.

Norman Solomon and Valerie Martin

Francesca Rheannon — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:58:25 +0000

Valerie Martin

Normon Solomon

We talk with veteran journalist and commentator Normon Solomon about his memoir, .

Read an excerpt of his book here.

Also, we talk with novelist Valerie Martin about her wonderful new novel, . Some of Martin’s other novels include (2009) and .

Writers Voice » novel

Alan Furst: Fiction, Suspense and the Moral Imperative

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