Portland Mercury: Books

In Brief

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

From herpes to X-Men, four quick reviews of new comics. by Alison Hallett Monsters by Ken Dahl (Secret Acres) INDIE COMICS are so relentless in their navel-gazing that it's hard to imagine an aspect of hipster life that hasn't already been done to cutesy, shaky-lined death. But Ken Dahl's got one, in his graphic novel Monsters: herpes! Dahl's autobiographical comic describes his life in the several years after he's been diagnosed with herpes. You'd think he had leprosy, for all the melodrama and despair with which he approaches his condition—he's glum, downtrodden, convinced…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Memoir Queen

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

Mary Karr digests and regurgitates her life and career in Lit. by Alison Hallett ON NEW YORK magazine's article about Mary Karr's new memoir Lit, a commenter on the website writes, "Unfortunately, now that she's 'found God,' I no longer have any interest in what she has to write. Really. There is nothing more BORING than the late-life convert." It's a sentiment that ordinarily I'd agree with. (Even the witty, irascible Anne Lamott grew complacent and dull after one too many books about God.) In fact, I'd take it one further—by rights, I shouldn't…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Prodigal Son

news@portlandmercury.com (Jane Carlen) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

Vera Katz's kid writes a memoir. About baseball. by Jane Carlen WHEN JESSE KATZ reads from his memoir, The Opposite Field, on November 24 at Broadway Books, it will be his third Portland reading of the month. Why so much face time for the author of a 337-page memoir about running a Little League team in LA? Easy: Katz is the son of Vera Katz, former mayor of Portland. As a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who used to cover the gang beat for the LA Times, Katz could easily have published…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Generation B

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

Douglas Coupland defines another generation. by Alison Hallett DOUGLAS COUPLAND is still in the business of defining generations, still promising to help young Americans understand what they see in the mirror, and he formally embraces his own self-reflexivity in his new novel Generation A, an 18-years-later response to his now-classic Generation X. Style invariably triumphs over substance in Coupland's novels, and in Generation A more than ever—so it's too bad Coupland places such a high value on substance. Generation A is set in the near future, and one…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

There and Back Again

news@portlandmercury.com (Erik Henriksen) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

Dressing up with real-life freaks and geeks in Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks. by Erik Henriksen AS A KID, Ethan Gilsdorf quoted Monty Python, was a "charter member of the Star Wars Fan Club," and presided over his school's A/V club. So it's hardly a surprise he also got sucked into Dungeons & Dragons—a game he credits with helping him through a challenging, wearying adolescence. But in '83, Gilsdorf scored his first kiss and put aside his 20-sided die. Fast forward a few years, when Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies rekindled the nerdy flame…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Running with Christmas

news@portlandmercury.com (Jane Carlen) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

Augusten Burroughs takes on the holidays in You Better Not Cry. by Jane Carlen YOU BETTER NOT CRY, the latest collection of short stories from Augusten Burroughs, describes a whole life in seven Christmases—his tales of family dysfunction and personal careening are, at various times, snappy, powerful, and trivial. It's everything you would expect from a holiday release by the author of Running with Scissors, a fact that is both satisfying and disappointing, like waking up on Christmas morning and realizing that you have nothing to yearn for. The snippets of memoir hop around…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Attack of the Spores

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

Jeff VanderMeer's Finch offers a squelchingly original fantasy world. by Alison Hallett WHEN REMOVED FROM its context, the subject matter of fantasy novels often sounds patently ridiculous. This can be a hurdle when reading reviews of the genre, but I'm hoping that once you've read the sentence I'm about to write about Jeff VanderMeer's new novel Finch, we can all just move past it together. So: Finch is a detective story about time-traveling sentient mushrooms who take over a city. Okay? Okay. VanderMeer's premise is a viscerally unsettling one: The beautiful, ruined…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Extremely Cruel and Incredibly Gross

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Jonathan Safran Foer gives voice to the sensitive animal lover in all of us. by Alison Hallett THOSE WHO ARE RESENTFUL of the "literary wunderkind" status bestowed on Jonathan Safran Foer frequently grumble that his novels, Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, are "too precious." His new nonfiction book Eating Animals should silence critics on that count—not even Foer can make factory farming sound adorable. Eating Animals articulates the hesitations and hypocrisies of a generation privileged enough to have a complicated relationship to food. Everyone "used to be vegetarian," myself included—"I was a vegetarian…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Shamble On

news@portlandmercury.com (Courtney Ferguson) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

A matter of gray in the found manuscript Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection. by Courtney Ferguson ANYONE TIRED OF ZOMBIES YET? With the influx of zombie culture continuing to come in hordes, I'm feeling surprisingly insatiable. Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection combines genre aspects of graphic novel, field guide, and diary into a good-looking account of the zombie plague of 2012 (go Mayans!), which decimates 90 percent of the earth's population and forces the uninfected to fight to survive. Written from the perspective of avid birder and biologist Dr. Robert Twombly, Zombies chronicles…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Recessionary Drug Dealing

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Jess Walter's The Financial Lives of the Poets is perfectly of the moment. by Alison Hallett IF YOU'RE GOING to read Jess Walter's The Financial Lives of the Poets, do it quickly—while the financial crisis is still fresh in your mind; while there are still newspapers around to chronicle the death of newspapers; before Facebook is supplanted by the next social networking site (an irony-driven return to Friendster, perhaps?). Walter's of-the-moment new novel describes a former newspaper man, Matthew Prior, now jobless, whose house faces imminent foreclosure, and whose wife is probably having an affair with…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

In Medias Res

news@portlandmercury.com (Ned Lannamann) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River is a welcome return to form. by Ned Lannamann JOHN IRVING'S 12TH NOVEL begins in medias res. We're immediately thrust into the action: A 15-year-old working a logging drive in northern New Hampshire falls into the river and is sucked under the logs. But the boy is dead by the end of the first paragraph, so Irving backtracks with lengthy expository and the repetition of seemingly minor details. It's a trick Irving practices throughout Last Night in Twisted River; each of the book's six sections jars us forward chronologically,…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Paranoid New World

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Jonathan Lethem's new novel, Chronic City, lives up to the promise of his best work. by Alison Hallett FANS OF JONATHAN LETHEM are right to be wary of his newest, Chronic City. After two inarguably great novels, Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, Lethem turned in 2007's frankly embarrassing You Don't Love Me Yet, a midlife crisis in book form. In You Don't Love Me Yet, Lethem abandoned his home court, the New York City about which he writes so well, to satirize the contemporary art scene in Los Angeles. Coming from one of their own, writing about…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Held Back

news@portlandmercury.com (Jane Carlen) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Melissa Hart's queerspawn memoir spends too much time in high school. by Jane Carlen THERE'S A GROWING BODY of literature about growing up with gay parents, but it doesn't keep pace with or nearly match the visibility of the confederacy of dunces against "nontraditional" families. In 2008, Arkansas did everything short of seceding to prevent gay couples from raising children, when it passed a constitutional amendment prohibiting unmarried, cohabiting couples from adopting or serving as foster parents. "Queerspawn" literature combats these movements by showcasing the normalness of childhood with the gays, replete with as…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Fables' Pied Piper

news@portlandmercury.com (Courtney Ferguson) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Bill Willingham's novel, Peter and Max, is the newest resident in Fabletown. by Courtney Ferguson Bill Willingham's Fables fairy-tale comics cover as much ground as a pair of seven-league boots, and his new novel, Peter and Max, is a milestone in the excellent series: it works both as an infinitely readable standalone for Fables newbies and as a seamless addition for devoted followers. The "Fables"—like Snow White, Prince Charming, and the Big Bad Wolf—are immortals in our modern-day world, refugees from their war-torn magical homelands. Peter and Max chronicles the epic sibling rivalry between the…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Alicia Silverstone Made Me Do It

news@portlandmercury.com (Marjorie Skinner) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Alicia Silverstone makes the case for veganism, and wins. by Marjorie Skinner It was bound to happen anyway, but Alicia Silverstone made me vegan. Her new book, The Kind Diet, is a cookbook, yes, but the first half is dedicated to a surprisingly readable, occasionally affably ditzy, and heartfelt argument as to why one should consider the benefits of a "plant-based diet," which—unbelievably redundant as it may seem—is the politically correct way of saying "vegan." And she's... pretty correct. The girl we know best as teen queen Cher Horowitz of Clueless hits…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Amateur Hour

news@portlandmercury.com (Erik Henriksen) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs: An instruction manual for men. And women. And everyone, really. by Erik Henriksen THERE IS A COMFORT to Michael Chabon: The knowledge that your parents are as likely to have read and enjoyed The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay as you are, or a sense of satisfaction, shared among peers, in seeing his latest presiding over the bestseller shelves at Powell's. In an age with culture fragmenting as soon as it emerges—with each blog, torrent, and app narrowing its market, appealing to fewer and fewer—there's something communal and old-school reliable about Chabon. He's…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Responsible Perverts

news@portlandmercury.com (Paul Constant) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Ryan Boudinot's debut novel Misconception is more mature than his previous short stories. by Paul Constant RYAN BOUDINOT'S SHORT STORIES, especially those collected in 2006's The Littlest Hitler, are populated with quiet people who are booby-trapped with some sort of freakish hang-up. (The word "pervert" often comes to mind when reading his fiction.) His new book is a debut novel titled Misconception, which begins with what is possibly the best opening chapter of a novel in 2009—a quiet high-school student named Cedar brings a slide of his own semen to study in biology class—and grimly marches…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Genre Bustin'

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

The Umbrella Academy: Dallas is the second volume of Gerard Way's emo take on the superhero genre. by Alison Hallett INITIALLY, CONVERSATION AROUND Gerard Way's The Umbrella Academy centered on what business the frontman of My Chemical Romance had writing comic books in the first place—but the series' first six-issue run, Apocalypse Suite, quickly won praise even outside of Way's guylinered fanbase. Joining the ranks of Dark Horse properties now represented at Hot Topic, Way's series introduced the seven children collectively known as the Umbrella Academy, whose unique powers and conflicted relationships marked them as the next generation of superheroes.…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Puzzling with the Master

news@portlandmercury.com — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

New York Times Puzzlemaster Will Shortz talks table tennis, Yahtzee, and what his unusual day job looks like. FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, I have worked countless crosswords by New York Times "Puzzlemaster" Will Shortz, as well as finding him charming on NPR's Weekend Edition. Speaking to Shortz over the phone, he's much like he is on the air—friendly, witty, interested in other's lives. Expect Shortz to be all that and more this Saturday, as he delivers the keynote speech at Portland State University's alumni-sponsored PSU Weekend. The lecture, he says, will be less talk and more audience interaction. Shortz…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

24 Hour Comics Challenge

news@portlandmercury.com (Matt Stangel) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Local cartoonists rise to the challenge of 24 Hour Comics Day. by Matt Stangel "DON'T DRINK CAFFEINE for a week beforehand. Don't drink beer," advises local illustrator David Chelsea. "It's best to be open, not to bring too strong or defined of an idea... not to try to do too much." He's talking about 24 Hour Comics Day (24HCD), an annual, nationwide challenge to artists to create a 24-page comic book in 24 hours. And Chelsea should know—he's the 24HCD world record holder, having completed the challenge 11 times. While Chelsea's advice is simple,…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Radically Literate

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

A new progressive bookstore opens its doors in Southeast Portland. by Alison Hallett OVER THE LAST YEAR or so, the ActivSpace building on SE 9th and Main has quietly become a hub of the sort of activity best described as "very Portland." The Portland Radio Authority broadcasts from a street-level studio; vegan-friendly bakery Black Sheep has a bike-through window; local publisher Microcosm's shop is jammed to the ceilings with comics, zines, and the DIY guides that have been selling particularly well this year. The newest addition to this progressive little pod is Copyleft…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Cancer Boy

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

The author of Imogene's Antlers tells his own life story in Stitches. by Alison Hallett Graphic memoirs have become endemic recently—every writer with a life story seems to want to tell it in pictures. It's a trend just begging for a backlash, but before you dismiss the genre, make sure you read David Small's Stitches. Small is a children's book author perhaps best known for Imogene's Antlers, the only book I can think of to which the words "whimsical" and "Kafka-esque" equally apply. Stitches is his first book for adults, a near-unbelievable account of the…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

New York City—Greener than Portland?

news@portlandmercury.com (Alison Hallett) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

In Green Metropolis, David Owen argues that New York is the greenest city in the US. by Alison Hallett "By most significant measures," David Owen argues in his new book Green Metropolis, "New York [City] is the greenest community in the United States." (Dramatic pause.) "The most devastating damage that humans have done to the environment has arisen from the burning of fossil fuels, a category in which New Yorkers are practically prehistoric by comparison with other Americans, including people who live in rural areas or in such putatively eco-friendly cities as Portland, Oregon." Come again? "Putatively eco-friendly"? Maybe…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Vikings as They Should Be

news@portlandmercury.com (Erik Henriksen) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Writer Brian Wood talks about Northlanders, the best comic about vikings ever. by Erik Henriksen BRIAN WOOD'S BEEN on a tear lately. Well, longer than "lately." For the past decade, Wood's been cranking out some of the most noteworthy and varied comics out there, like the indie hits Demo and Local (illustrated by Becky Cloonan and Ryan Kelly, respectively); the sci-fi adventure Supermarket (illustrated by Kristian Donaldson); and the Manhattan-is-a-warzone thriller DMZ (which is illustrated by Riccardo Burchielli), which just saw its seventh trade paperback collection hit bookstores a few weeks ago. No, by "Brian…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Road to Somewhere

news@portlandmercury.com (Matt Davis) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0700

David Byrne's rambling bike odyssey starts a conversation he can't even finish, in a good way. by Matt Davis With Bicycle Diaries, former Talking Heads singer David Byrne has written a remarkable book about bicycling all over the world. New Yorker Byrne embraced the pastime in the early 1980s, before it became a cause célèbre for smart-growth advocates in cities everywhere—over the years he's taken a folding bicycle on tour to cities like Sydney, Manila, Istanbul, and Buenos Aires. The book's obvious charm for most Portlanders is in getting to geek out with an international celebrity who just happens…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]