The
pleasure of visiting old friends is at the heart of Somebody’s Fool by
Richard Russo, the latest novel in the North Bath Trilogy.
Russo excels
at creating characters who mean well but usually find ways to mess things
up. Sully, the main character in Nobody’s Fool, is now
deceased, but his memory lingers in the lives of his friends and family, most
prominently his son Peter and his ex-lover Ruth.
It’s been 30 years
since I first met these people, and one of the joys of Somebody’s Fool is
bringing a mature perspective to Russo’s world. North Bath has changed,
and so have I, but what remains strong is my affection for a novel with flawed
but likeable characters stumbling their way through the pitfalls of life.
'A wise and witty drama of small-town life . . . delivering the generous humour, keen ear for dialogue, and deep appreciation for humanity's foibles that have endeared the author to his readers for decades' Publishers Weekly
Ten years after the death of the magnetic Donald 'Sully' Sullivan, the town of North Bath is going through a major transition as it is taken over by its much wealthier neighbour, Schuyler Springs. Peter, Sully's son, is still grappling with his father's tremendous legacy as well as his relationship to his own son, Thomas, wondering if he has been all that different…
Gil, the protagonist of Dinosaurs, has two good friends and a live-in partner, but one feels his
essential aloneness, and when his girlfriend suddenly abandons him, he leaves
home in New York and walks to Arizona. After his arrival, a family moves
into the glass-walled house next door and Gil soon becomes enmeshed in their
lives.
This might seem far-fetched, but Millet captures the reader
through close observation and empathy for her characters. The friendship
between Gil and Tom, his adolescent neighbor, is the most surprising fictional friendship
I’ve read in years.
The need for community and connection in a precarious
world is the underlying theme, and I left Dinosaurs feeling
more hopeful than I had before.
Over twelve novels and two collections Lydia Millet has emerged as a major American novelist, writing vividly about the ties between people and other animals and the crisis of extinction. Her exquisite new novel, the first since A Children's Bible (ISBN 978 0 393 86738 1) ("a blistering little classic"-Ron Charles, Washington Post), tells the story of an Arizona man's relationship with the family next door, whose house has one wall made entirely out of glass.
The story delivers attraction and love, friendship and grief. But Millet also evokes the uncanny. Through close observation of human and animal life in…
I miss
the video store, but the next best thing is Cinema Speculation by
Quentin Tarantino, a delightful blend of memoir and film criticism, with
the Pulp Fiction auteur riffing on his favorite films from the
Sixties and Seventies.
Tarantino’s tastes run toward violent,
action-oriented films like The Getaway and Rolling
Thunder. Many of the films he writes about I don’t even like, but his
passion is infectious, and I’m ready to watch them again. The book shines
brightest during the stories of his growing up with his single mother and the
string of boyfriends trying to earn her affection by taking young Quentin to
the movies.
Cinema Speculation is a love letter to the
films of Tarantino’s youth that makes the reader want to fall in love,
too.
A unique cocktail of personal memoir, cultural criticism and Hollywood history by the one and only Quentin Tarantino.
The long-awaited first work of nonfiction from the author of the number one New York Times bestselling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a deliriously entertaining, wickedly intelligent cinema book as unique and creative as anything by Quentin Tarantino.
In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films.
On
a beautiful summer morning, 4-year-old Sarah Carpenter wanders toward the ocean
and never returns.
The police think she
drowned, but her babysitter Amy claims Sarah was abducted. The only other
witness, 17-year-old Donnie Marcino, didn’t see a thing. A narcoleptic since birth, he was fast
asleep.
Twenty years later, Sarah’s disappearance
still haunts him. When Amy calls from
the hospital after a failed suicide attempt, Donnie returns to his hometown,
but how can he help her and himself without changing the past?
