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	June 2006 :: issue 32
	Books This Month 1. The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright 2. The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez 3. Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz 4. Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart   Short Stories Magazines Art Books Beach Reads Book News Credits/About Us Summer Reads For the sweltering months ahead, we bring you a breathless Boldtype issue with an array of our traditional in-depth reviews and a special section with snapshot looks at fresh magazines, eye-candy art books, short story collections, and beloved beach reads. Whether you're breezing out of town or just cranking up the AC at home, summer reading is all about assembling a teetering stack of possibilities. We give you plenty to work with, from Gary Shteyngart's Absurdistan (which looks to be the season's breakout novel with its crazed Rabelaisian Russian narrator) to Stephen Wright's Civil War polka to Sigrid Nunez's complex portrait of two women dealing with the burnout of '60s idealism. Here's to a strange piece of paradise...

HarperCollins Publishers continues to bring more and more of its titles to audio format, from the classics of world literature to the current New York Times bestsellers. Kick back to an audiobook this summer, or give one a try right now — listen to free samples at www.harperaudio.com.

Fiction The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright   Published: February 2006   Pages: 304   Publisher: Knopf   Links: Metacritic page reviews KCRW interview   Synopsis A critically acclaimed but criminally under-read novelist takes on the Civil War in this story about a family whose fate comes to mirror its country's. Review Of the three most prominent Civil War novels to appear in the last year, The Amalgamation Polka is surely the weirdest. With prose as gnarled as a cypress trunk and dialogue that Henry James might have speech-written for a revival preacher, it's not the most immediately accessible of yarns — Stephen Wright has clearly studied at the Thomas Pynchon school of historical fiction. Not surprisingly, the novel has seen neither hide nor hair of the bestseller list that has been so kind to its peers. But Wright is used to being overlooked; four books in 23 years — and 12 years since his 1994 masterpiece, Going Native — dictate that he has to be rediscovered with each new novel. The Amalgamation Polka centers on Liberty Fish, born in 1844 to a family of abolitionists in upstate New York. His mother is no Yankee by birth; an interlude early on takes us back to Roxana Maury's childhood in the South Carolina low country, where her conscience on matters of slavery was forged in the fire of plantation life. Unable to love the sinner and hate the sin, she fled her family, never to return. Young, virtuous Liberty, raised by his mother to be an atonement of sorts for the Maury family's deeds, must eventually be the one to return home in her stead — as a Union deserter by way of Sherman's march. Once there, the novel descends into an outright fantasia of madness, malice, and grotesquerie: Asa Maury's despair over the loss of his daughter has transformed him into a cross between Josef Mengele and Col. Kurtz, using his free supply of slaves to fashion himself into an amateur eugenicist as the South crumbles around him. Wright distances himself from much of the Civil War literature canon by refusing to traffic in nostalgia or to paint a sympathetic picture of the ante- and per bellum South, with its arranged marriage to the peculiar institution. As someone who's been touted as a candidate for writing the Great American Novel, Wright fittingly takes on the event that tore the country apart. - Chris Lamb back to top

Fiction The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez   Published: December 2005   Pages: 384   Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux   Links: Salon review Other novels by the author Nunez interviews Todd Solondz   Synopsis This beautifully brutal novel explores the dark side of the counter-culture idealism that swept through America in the 1960s. Review Sigrid Nunez's fifth novel bills itself as the story of a friendship between two women who come of age in the '60s. While this closeness lasts for barely longer than their first year of college, one girl's turbulent life continues to haunt her former roommate's thoughts and dreams. This complex friendship begins with our narrator, Georgette George, arriving bewildered in the hallowed halls of Barnard. She is escaping a lower-middle class, upstate childhood and an abusive mother. Her new roommate is Dooley Ann Drayton, a smart, privileged, and upper-class girl who wishes that she had been "assigned a black roommate." Ann is compassionate and idealistic, working tirelessly to create the just world that seems within reach in those years. She is so uncompromising in her beliefs that she is willing to go to jail for them, starve herself, and endure a lifetime of abuse in order to shed her privileged, white skin. And yet Ann is no saint. Nunez allows plenty of space for Ann's character and motivations to become complicated, even while Ann's actual life appears very little in the novel. Instead, we follow Georgette through the militant activism and the drugged-out idealism of the '60s, in a haze of self-obsession so thick, one wonders whether she has learned anything at all. Told in a pastiche of styles and jump-cuts from past to present, The Last of Her Kind serves as both an homage to — and an indictment of — an era. Nunez offers these women's stories in a brutally honest tone that is immensely refreshing. This vision of the '60s is not the familiar one from history books or the reminiscences of those who lived through them. There are drugs and free love, of course, but all is not simply marijuana, LSD, and groovy be-ins. Heroin, crystal meth, rape, and racism also make their appearances on these pages. Here, Woodstock is an event that people never quite get to. - Sage Van Wing back to top

Nonfiction Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz   Published: May 2006   Pages: 560   Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux   Links: Official website Transcript of CNN interview Book excerpt (abcnews.com)   Synopsis A harrowing, true tale of how the author narrowly survived an attack by an axe-wielding maniac while camping in 1977. The traumatic event transformed her life and forced her to reflect on the rise of the serial killer that has marked the last quarter of the 20th century. Review If the story weren't so eerie, so American, and so well documented, anybody might assume that Terri Jentz's new book was a work of fiction. In 1977, Jentz and a female companion ventured out West hoping to "find themselves" as they biked across the country. Filled with nostalgic notions of America, the two Yalies pitched their tent in an Oregon campsite on day seven of what promised to be an epic journey. That night, a man drove over their tent before jumping out of his truck with an axe. He attacked the pair and severely gashed Jentz's arm while almost killing her companion. The story is horrific in its minute details and often leaves you numb. While the narrative is stunning, it is Jentz's language that makes the book soar. Jentz's languid flourishes echo her long journey, and her elegant candor reminds one of Truman Capote. For 15 years, the author tried to bury her trauma. But in 1992, Jentz embarked on a quest to find some answers. She revisited Oregon with a friend and interviewed everyone she could. The madman was never caught; with a three-year statute of limitations on attempted murder in Oregon, Jentz started her journey knowing that justice could never truly be served. A screenwriter, Jentz has a knack for capturing vivid moments that can jack up the literary tone into a feverish frenzy or downshift breathlessly tense scenes into a quiet, contemplative hum. This tone doesn't limit itself to simple reportage or memoir. Jentz is comfortable theorizing about America's own obsession with violence. She reminds us that the term "serial killer" didn't enter the language until the media-sensationalized bloodshed of the late 1970s made it necessary. The reader ends up wondering if our culture reviles or secretly cherishes the violence it creates. Strange Piece of Paradise doesn't make sweeping judgments, but it reminds us that violence is always a communal affair, with more victims than you might at first realize. - Hrag Vartanian back to top

Fiction Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart   Published: May 2006   Pages: 352   Publisher: Random House   Links: NY Times loves it NY Times hates it Interview Bio   Synopsis Misha Vainberg is rich, Russian, and deeply in love with a girl from the Bronx. His attempts to get to New York ultimately deposit him in Absurdistan, a country as chaotic and exhilarating as this satire. Review As far as narrators go, obese and obscenely wealthy Russian Jews with a malformed khui and a weakness for Puma tracksuits are a relatively rare find. While parts of Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated are told by a sloppy Slav who boasts an unlikely passion for tracksuits, he is impoverished and Ukrainian. Philip Roth's perennial narrator, Nathan Zuckerman, is overweight but barely wealthy. Gary Shteyngart's Misha Borishov Vainberg, on the other hand, is a garganutan, Russian, millionaire Jew — and the narrator of Shteyngart's satirical novel, Absurdistan. Like Shteyngart's debut novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook, the plot of Absurdistan is at once straightforward and madcap. Misha Vainberg of St. Petersburg, Russia, wants to get to America, to the Bronx in particular, where his Latina stripper/Hunter College-student girlfriend, Rouenna, awaits him. Sadly, as Misha is the son of Boris Vainberg, oligarch and murderer of an Oklahoman businessman, the U.S. Department of State refuses to issue him the necessary visas. In the end, Misha decides to travel to Absurdistan to buy a Belgian passport from a crooked ambassador. In short order, Rouenna leaves him, he falls in love with an NYU-educated Absurdi girl, and civil war breaks out. These facts are incidental, as the plot serves as a skeleton on which to drape kilos of jokes, puns, allusions, rap lyrics, pathos, and graphic scenes of fat sex. Shteyngart's humor clashes stereotypes together like cymbals, providing a sweeping indictment of everything from gluttony to Halliburton. Sturgeon juice runs in sheets down Misha's many chins, while greedy Texas oilmen concoct the demise of a small Eastern European republic. In Absurdistan, American Express has a private army, and US-style Irish pubs do brisk business while bombs fall. Meanwhile, Misha speaks in ebonics, discusses the hipsterification of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and pops improbable dosages of Ativan. Weighing over 300 pounds, Vainberg has no difficulty embodying many of the novel's central themes — the hereditary nature of sin, the cupidity of capitalism, and the absurdity of human endeavor. Such a hefty conceit gives Shteyngart all the ammunition he needs to mock a society where the motto seems to be "bigger, better, faster, fatter, more." - Joshua David Stein back to top

	Short Stories The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D'Ambrosio 2006   Like the fog of his native Seattle, Charles D'Ambrosio's stories are at once heavy and light. His characters tend to be loners, misfits, and unhappy, but Ambrosio depicts them with such precision and imagination that reading of their low-grade misery is truly a pleasure. The best story, "Screenwriter," is a sketch of a mentally ill ballerina performing breathtaking pirouettes. (JDS) The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake by Breece D'J Pancake 2002   Yes, that's his real name: these 12 stories are all the writing that remains of the 27-year-old who shot himself in 1979. The meticulous, visceral prose recounting slices of West Virginia life cuts straight to the bone; the collection's posthumous publication, in 1983, was one of the most auspicious, and therefore saddest, debuts in American literature. (CL) Big Lonesome by Jim Ruland 2005   Stake a claim to individuality amid DaVinci Code paperbacks by brandishing Jim Ruland's wickedly funny collection Big Lonesome. Among 13 stories that bristle with a bent, humane wisdom, you'll visit Dick Tracy in his retirement, hear the real story of Popeye the sailor, and learn just what makes pants lucky. (MS) Burning House by Ann Beattie 1982   Irreverent parents smoke joints and have affairs in their efforts to separate themselves from their suburban homes. Youthful vows of love and promise float away like candy wrappers. Ann Beattie shrewdly depicts the lives of the men and women regretfully reaching adulthood in the early 1980s, wondering if their generation really is so special, after all. (EMM) Rock Springs by Richard Ford 1988   In these ten stories, Richard Ford coasts on minimal prose that gets right to the heart of things. This is America, Rock Springs seems to say — right here, amidst a collection of honest criminals, deserting mothers, Canasta games, trailer parks, and empty Western skylines. Written with Southern grace and the empathy of a father, Rock Springs will hit you where it hurts. (EMM) back to top
	Magazines bene Issue 1 (Summer 2006)   Even if you can't make it to Italy this summer, bene magazine will get you a little closer. Available in 150 Italian restaurants nationwide and online, bene is a general-interest roundup of all things Italian: food, fashion, art, travel, and wine. In the inaugural summer issue, celebrity chef Mario Batali dishes out the recipe for his Bucatini All'Amatriciana, and MoMA curator Paola Antonelli handpicks the five best Italian designs. (JDS) Gastronomica Volume 6, Issue 2 (Summer 2006)   Food writing can often leave one hungry for more matter and less art. Enter Gastronomica. This quarterly journal of food and culture is gently stuffed with intellectually satisfying articles on, among other things, mortality and malleability in the kitchen, food fights and regime change, and the search for a perfect cream waffle. The design is tastefully minimal, and the articles, though sometimes academic, are a pleasure to digest. (JDS) Guilt & Pleasure Issue 3: Magic (Summer 2006)   Thanks to overbearing mothers and the Pentateuch, issues of guilt and pleasure are — for most Jews — inextricably bound. All issues of the literary magazine Guilt & Pleasure, however, are perfect-bound and purely pleasurable. Meant to "help Jews talk more," the quarterly assembles some of the brightest literary stars of David to kibbitz on a single, well-picked topic. The tone is firmly tongue-in-cheek, with a rakish slant toward irony. The summer issue's topic is magic, and it contains a photo portfolio by Rafael Goldchain, as well as Mel Gordon's chronicle of the rise and fall of Hitler's Jewish psychic. (JDS) Colors Issue 68: Amazon/Amazonia (Summer 2006)   Colors is to magazines what Esperanto is to languages — of it but above it. Created in a Utopian enclave near Veneto, Italy, Colors combines stunning, high-art photography, a politically engaged editorial voice, and inspired design. Like Esperanto, Colors is geared to a polyglot crowd and is published in bilingual editions in French, English, Italian, and Spanish (the perfect chance to practice for an upcoming trip). The latest issue explores the Amazon, which, like summer, is a dense, humid, and all too fleeting commodity. (JDS) Blind Spot Issue 32: Double Tribute   When Blind Spot's founder, Kim Zorn Caputo, recently died of cancer, a parade of photographers whose careers she had fostered assembled the collection of work that makes up this tribute issue. The contributors are a who's who not only of photography but of expression: John Baldessari, Joyce Carol Oates, and Dave Eggers, to name a few. Of course, shutterbugs still rule the roost: Doug and Mike Starn's lyrical portraits of snowflakes, Mitch Epstein's subtly ominous photographs of America, and Roni Horn's portrait of French comedienne Isabelle Huppert ensure that Blind Spot is not to be overlooked. (JDS) back to top

Art Books Photography Magnum Soccer by Simon Kuper 2002   One of its most famous champions, Pelé, calls soccer "the beautiful game." As the World Cup riles up fans across the globe, we couldn't agree more. This handy portfolio of color and black-and-white images by Magnum's champion photographers — from Henri Cartier-Bresson and René Burri to Martin Paar and Bruno Barbey — portrays ordinary players and impassioned viewers with both wit and aesthetic grace. (PL) Art Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night by Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne 2006   More than just a catalogue for the Whitney Museum's regular roundup of contemporary art, this book packs a double whammy. While presenting insightful essays on the art in the exhibition, it offers the added bonus of individual artist pages that foldout as posters. In the end, we get an understanding of the artistic moment matched with a purposeful projection of the artist's psyche — a combination that's highly entertaining. (PL) Photography Maripolarama by Maripol 2005   Wielding a Polaroid SX-70 like a photoblogger shooting with a digital camera today, Maripol snapped her way through the chic underbelly of New York's downtown club scene of the late '70s and early '80s. This stylish collection of portraits captures the developing personas of Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Vincent Gallo, as well as other memorable characters making names for themselves in art, music, fashion, and film. (PL) Art Freight Train Graffiti by Roger Gastman 2006   From the history of the American railroad to interviews with the artists and writers tagging freight trains today, this compact anthology is chock-full of information (including backgrounds on graffiti culture and hobo monikers) ) and rich in visuals (1,000 color images). Smartly compiled by two East Coast graffiti players and Swindle magazine's Roger Gastman, this book captures a creative lifestyle that's on the edge. (PL) Art Janet Cardiff: The Walk Book by Janet Cardiff and Mirjam Schaub 2005   Janet Cardiff's art combines sound, video, radio drama, performance, installation, and sculpture. She is best known for her audio walks, which guide the viewer/listener through an environment with spoken words and binaural sounds, constructing an exquisite, multi-sensory experience. This fascinating guide recalls the walks through work notes, scripts, photographs, diagrams, and maps. Her audio tour of the book itself takes the process to captivating new heights. (PL) back to top

Beach Reads Departure Lounge by Chad Taylor 2006   Chad Taylor's page-turning noir sensibilities and existential inclinations have made him one of New Zealand's more promising young writers. In Taylor's latest novel, the past weighs heavily on the present, as a burglar and an ex-cop reflect bitterly on the mysterious disappearance of a local girl. (BB) City of Tiny Lights by Patrick Neate 2006   Patrick Neate goes gloriously pulp with this hardboiled mystery. Tommy Akhtar, London's finest Ugandan-Indian British private eye, is a hard-drinking, louche guide to the city's underworld, where he's on the case of a missing prostitute and a murdered MP. Akhtar's Chandler-esque similes teeter on the edge of over the top, but always manage to reel themselves back from the brink, making for a taught and compulsively readable caper. (TW) The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman 1995   In the first book of Philip Pullman's adventure trilogy, our heroine Lyra Belacqua finds her world turned inside out when other children begin to disappear and grown-ups whisper of hope in the magical dust particles of the Northern Lights. Lyra sets off on a rescue mission to the north, where she fights worldwide conspiracies and befriends armored polar bears and ancient witches. Yes, really. Pullman conjures such an expansive and lovingly imagined world that any reader will feel like a kid again. (EMM) Bad Twin by Gary Troup 2006   Forget meta-fiction. This summer, enjoy a dose of meta-television with this absorbing mystery, which was "written" by Gary Troup, a passenger who "disappeared" on the transatlantic flight that is the basis of the TV show Lost. In a year when bestselling memoirs are exposed as being short on truth and cult authors turn out be fictions themselves, Hyperion's shamelessly cross-promotional venture comes across as refreshingly transparent. The book itself is gripping and altogether not bad — which is more than enough incentive for any Lost fan. (AD) The Naked Tourist by Lawrence Osborne 2006   A seasoned travel writer, weary of the homogenization of tourist attraction, sets out to find the last untouched spot, where he can get naked. Heading to Papua by way of the Middle East and Asia, Osborne takes his time in each locale — drinking too much, getting pampered on the cheap, and constantly fighting a paranoid "neocolonial dread." This book is devoted to the psyche of the traveler. It explores why we wander, what we learn, and how traveling to the ends of the earth can be less terrifying than arriving at the end of wonderment. (SG) back to top

BOOK NEWS A few notable bits of recent book news. How do we love thee (Slate) Slate examines what we love about our local indie bookstores — like debating Kerouac with the cashier and being part of a neighborhood. Castro to mail US Hemingway's letters (BBC) Cuba has agreed to mail the US 20,000 papers, including novels, letters, and Hemingway's opinions on World War II. Dearly Beloved (NY Times) In a fit of investigative pique, Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus sent an email to all the "literary sages" in his address book, asking them to identify the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years. Read the ensuing discussion here. Believing the hype (SF Chronicle) Blogger Glenn Greenwald's book hit number one on Amazon before it even came out — with no advertising except for blog hoopla. Writers' picks for how to stay smart while getting tan (Slate) What do George Saunders, Joyce Carol Oates, and Michael Chabon read when they lay out? Literature in translation (Emerging Writers) Six translators discuss what is lost and gained in the linguistic shuffle. Ichst German funny? (Guardian) The Brits accuse Germans of having no sense of humor. Maybe they should try wearing lederhosen. Guy Lit (Chronicle of Higher Education) American men attempt to follow the lead of the British "Lad Lit" tradition, or whatever. Gone APE (Bookslut) Bookslut offers scenes from the Alternative Press Expo, where small press publishers get to be the big dogs. back to top

	CREDITS Editors Toby Warner Mark Mangan Paul Laster Jocelyn K. Glei McKay McFadden Nick Merritt Chris Gage Editors-at-Large Larry Weissman Sean McDonald Contributors Bosko Blagojevic Andrew Dodge Sarah Gonzales Chris Lamb Mark Sarvas Joshua David Stein Hrag Vartanian Sage Van Wing Production & Design Anjuli Ayer Jessica Bauer-Greene Morgan Croney Sascha Lewis Cover Art Francesco Vezzoli Still from Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's "Caligula", 2005 35mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 5:35 min. Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino Photograph by Matthias Vriens   ABOUT US Boldtype is a monthly, email-based review of books published by Flavorpill Productions. Our mission is to cover five to seven books each month that are worth reading. No money is accepted from any publishers, writers, reviewers, or marketing or PR companies. MEDIA PARTNERSHIPS Every month, Boldtype presents one exclusive media partner. Click for more information about advertising opportunities on Boldtype and across all Flavorpill publications. FEEDBACK We welcome any and all feedback — comments, criticism, and even effusive praise. To reach the staff at Boldtype, please email us at editor. SUBMISSIONS If you have a book that you would like us to consider for review, please send an email to books or mail a copy here: Boldtype c/o Flavorpill Productions 594 Broadway, Suite 1212 New York, NY 10012 Our other email magazines: A twice-monthly email magazine highlighting the latest in electronic music — including news, reviews, and original features An email magazine covering a handpicked selection of music, art, and cultural events — delivered each Tuesday afternoon A twice-monthly fashion report providing an insider's view on trends emerging from Paris, London, New York, and around the world A twice-monthly email magazine covering art, design, and architecture with profiles, news, and reviews of international shows
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