April 2008
Destruction Manual
Plotlessness, gimmickry, tin-eared dialogue, navel-gazing, heavy-handed symbolism: Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman lovingly abuse these and other writerly sins in How Not to Write a Novel, and Steve Donoghue joins in their Bronx cheer
What Went Wrong?
Many readers forgave Michael Scheuer the angry bloody-mindedness of Imperial Hubris because of the merciless critiques of the Bush administration, but Greg Waldmann reports that in Marching Toward Hell, illogical anger is about all Scheuer has left
Writing and Nothingness
In My Revolutions, Hari Kunzru attempts to show the moral emptiness of antigovernment violence. The problem is, Sam Sacks thinks, Kunzru sees emptiness in everything he writes about.
Parable
A poem by Kaethe Schwehn
Weirder Than Real
Lianne Habinek forges into the beguiling part-adult, part-childish, part-real, part-dreamlike films of Michel Gondry
Second Glance: A Compilation Too Far?
In his lifetime, E.B. White oversaw nearly a dozen collections of his essays; Karen Vanuska appraises a posthumous ingathering edited by Rebecca M. Dale and lets us know whether it adds to White’s legacy or merely overlaps it
Irredeemable
Jane Boleyn took the witness stand and falsely testified that her brother committed incest with her sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn. In this installment of his “Year with the Tudors,” Steve Donoghue tries to fathom the motives of such slander.
Political Phoenix
At the age of 64, ex-President John Quincy Adams did an unprecedented thing: he became a congressman. Thomas J. Daly looks back on the autumn of this remarkable man’s life in a review of Joseph Wheelan’s Mr. Adams’s Last Crusade.
Sisters in Arms
A.I. White reviews Sarah Hall’s thought-provoking third novel Daughters of the North, in which an anonymous female soldier of fortune living in a dystopian future chronicles the price of her anonymity
The Butler Did It
And the murderer of the great Roman General Germanicus was…. No, you’ll never guess. Ascanio Tedeschi shows how historian Stephen Dando-Collins exploits a scarcity of known facts to formulate the most ludicrous whodunit in recent memory.
The Confraternity of Times Lost Regained Will Now Come to Order
Tod Wodicka’s novel gamely blurs the distinction between real life and historical re-enactment; Sharon Fulton guides us through the medieval festival of All Shall Be Well; and All Shall be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well
Absent Friends: With a Little Help from Saint Martin
Steve Donoghue exhumes the sprawling, illuminating writing of Gregory of Tours, the wrongly forgotten 12th-century saint, historian, and natural-born raconteur
The OLM Quiz: Spring Showers!
The life-giving storms of April yield a carpet of bright flowers, so this month’s quiz celebrates every springy color of the rainbow
Our cover photo, “A Storm at the Airport,” was taken by Trey Ratcliff, whose photographs can be viewed at his website http://stuckincustoms.com/ as well as his flickr photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/
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