Boldtype | November 2007

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November 2007:: issue 49

Books This Month
1.	Cion by Zakes Mda
2.	Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb by Mike Davis
3.	Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat
4.	Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
5.	The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler
6.	Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball
7.	Testimony by Gillian Laub
	Interview: Junot Díaz Book News Credits/About Us

Conflict
The conflicts we tackle this month range from the intangible to the all-too-real. Newcomer Jesse Ball delivers a metaphysical thriller about a doomsday plot that may or may not exist. Ann Fessler collects interviews with mothers who gave up their children for adoption in the pre-Roe era. Mike Davis traces a compact history of the car bomb, while photographer Gillian Laub dispatches intimate portraits from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. South African novelist Zakes Mda gives an outsider's perspective on a turbulent America, while Haitian-born Edwidge Danticat charts the toll of immigration in a family memoir. Two writers who made their names on exquisite short stories deliver with highly anticipated novels: In Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson delves into the CIA's shady operations in Vietnam. We also interview Junot Díaz about the tortuous writing process that led to his debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

- Toby Warner, Managing Editor

FICTION

Cion by Zakes Mda


Published:	August 2007
Pages:	320
Publisher:	Picador
Links: Author bio Bookforum review LitNet review Cion excerpt

“Like Karl Rossmann, the discombobulated protagonist of Kafka's aborted first novel, Amerika, Toloki offers an outsider's perspective on American society.”

Review
Novelist Zakes Mda is considered among the pre-eminent chroniclers of South Africa's postapartheid era, though his historically rooted fiction strays into fantastic realms, quite unlike the unflinching realism of his peers Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee. In his sixth novel, Cion, Toloki — the South African professional mourner and hero of Mda's first novel, Ways of Dying — arrives in Athens, Ohio (not coincidentally where Mda teaches at the University of Ohio), on Halloween night, 2004. The novel spans the ensuing year, as Toloki takes up residence in the neighboring hamlet of Kilvert with the idiosyncratic Quigley family and begins probing into the family and the town's history.

Moving against the backdrop of John Kerry's presidential defeat, evangelist Pat Robertson's call for Hugo Chavez's assassination, and Hurricane Katrina, the inquiring Toloki becomes fascinated with the community's quilt-making traditions, which reveal to him the stories of the family's ancestors: two escaped slaves, Nicodemus and Abednego, their mother the Abyssinian Queen, and the elder Quigley, an Irish scoundrel who winds up enslaved at the same Virginia slave farm. The residents of this impoverished, former coal-mining region — located just north of the Ohio River, which once marked the boundary between free and slave states — are of mixed Native American, African American, and European ancestry. Unfamiliar with the practice of professional mourning, Kilvert residents treat Toloki as a curiosity until he mesmerizes them with a performance at a village funeral. Toloki's relationships with the evangelical matriarch Ruth, the wayward son Obed, the reclusive sister Orpah, and the silent Mr. Quigley deepen as he serves as a mediator between members of this closely knit but emotionally fraught family.

Mda's jovial prose and richly eccentric characters can't obscure the fact that Cion is a political novel. Like Karl Rossmann, the discombobulated protagonist of Kafka's aborted first novel, Amerika, Toloki offers an outsider's perspective on American society, forming connections between South Africa's apartheid-era suspension of habeas corpus and detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, while illuminating the apparent contradiction of destitute Ruth's staunch faith in President George W. Bush.
- H.G. Masters

NONFICTION

Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb by Mike Davis


Published:	April 2007
Pages:	228
Publisher:	Verso
Links: Bookforum review LA Weekly profile Socialist Worker review

“Wars of proxy have been started with an auspiciously timed and carefully placed car bomb, and sometimes, as in '80s Beirut, seem to have been fought entirely with them.”

Review
The car bomb has been exploding across headlines of late. In his latest book, Buda's Wagon, Marxist historian Mike Davis explains why: it is cheap, dramatic, deadly, easy, and difficult to trace. With a rise in conflicts pitting states against amorphous militias, rather than well-financed enemies, car bombs are increasingly the weapon du jour because they inflict the most damage with the least capital. But while the streets of Baghdad, Kabul, Jerusalem, and Kirkuk are pockmarked with bomb craters and their morgues are filled with victims, the car-bomb pandemic didn't start in the Middle East, Algeria, or even Sicily. According to Davis, it began in New York City.

In 1920, Mario Buda, an Italian anarchist, furious at the arrests of Sacco and Vanzetti, blew up his horse-drawn wagon on Wall and Broad streets; 40 people died and 200 were injured. Since then, car bombs have exploded in more than 35 countries, causing billions of dollars in damage and creating thousands of casualties. Ever the keen observer, Davis takes an almost epidemiological approach to the death and destruction that car bombs work: "Like an implacable virus, once vehicle bombs have entered the DNA of a host society and its contradictions, their use tends to reproduce indefinitely." Also like a virus, the bombs mutate and evolve.

From their beginnings in an anarchist's horse-drawn cart, car bombs have gone on to be the favored tool of many well-known and, in some cases, well-respected, organizations. Because of their anonymity, they have been used by the CIA, the SAS, the KGB, and the Mossad, among other intelligence organizations. Proxy wars have been started with an auspiciously timed and carefully placed car bomb, and sometimes, as in '80s Beirut, seem to have been fought entirely with them.

In Iraq and elsewhere, the world's battlefields continue to seep into cities, and armies blur into citizens. War is no longer fought between nation states, but between haves and have-nots. Car bombs, Davis notes, are the "poor man's air force" and, sadly, "the hot rod of the apocalypse."
- Joshua David Stein

MEMOIR

Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat


Published:	September 2007
Pages:	288
Publisher:	Knopf
Links: Author bio Guardian profile NY Times review

“While a young Danticat tries to reconcile her cultural past and present, she must reconcile herself with the strife in her Haitian homeland from a distance.”

Review
Edwidge Danticat, a multi-award-winning and Oprah-praised author, elevates the dictum "write what you know" to a higher plane. Born and raised until the age of 12 in Haiti, Danticat constantly incorporates that rich heritage into her renowned books of fiction. In her latest work, this time a nonfiction piece, she doesn't just use what she knows — she relives it.

Brother, I'm Dying begins at the end, as Danticat travels from Miami back to New York, where she spent her teenage and college years, in order to visit with her ailing father. Finding herself pregnant and, at the same time, learning the devastating extent of her father's illness, Danticat relates not only her story, but also that of her family.

Danticat's father and mother left her in the care of her Uncle Joseph in Haiti, in order to go to the US to establish a life. Danticat spends her childhood under the guidance of Joseph, a revered pastor. She grows incredibly fond of him, and her admiration shines through in her prose. His story is the heart and hurt in the book, as Danticat leaves him to join with her mother, father, and younger brothers in the US. While a young Danticat tries to reconcile her cultural past and present, she must reconcile herself with the strife in her Haitian homeland from a distance, as her uncle, in his very old age, attempts to reunite in the US with Danticat and the rest of her immediate family.

Danticat seamlessly blends historical facts into the patchwork of her family's alternately joyous and heartbreaking travails. She also deftly navigates competing pressure to be both politically and geographically informative with prose that's incredibly poetic and intimate. Brother, I'm Dying is not only a fitting companion piece to all her other works of fiction — it's also an extremely personal gift from Danticat to her readers, and a reminder that the human echoes of conflict and injustice still resonate today.
- Diana Metzger

FICTION

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson


Published:	September 2007
Pages:	624
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Links: NY Times review Esquire review SF Chronicle review SF Reader interview

“Regardless of how the National Book Awards turn out in November, this book, with its singular take on the familiar territory of the Vietnam War, is sure to bring the cult of Johnson — heretofore the province primarily of writing classes and lit-hipsters — to the mainstream.”

Review
There's something very American about the idea that a fiction writer should have to write a "big novel" to secure a place in the literary pantheon. Denis Johnson didn't need to write Tree of Smoke; he'd long since enshrined himself — with a story collection, no less. But DeLillo didn't need to write Underworld on that account, either, and we're glad he did, so God bless America. America is taking notice, too. Regardless of how the National Book Awards turn out in November, this book, with its singular take on the familiar territory of the Vietnam War, is sure to bring the cult of Johnson — heretofore the province primarily of writing classes and lit-hipsters — to the mainstream.

A long novel, briefly: It opens in 1963, before most of America knew how deeply involved its government, via the CIA, was in Vietnam. Lengthy chapters cover each year until 1970, with a coda in 1983, by which time most of the primary characters are dead or damaged beyond repair. Those characters include Skip Sands, a fervent anti-Communist and CIA field operative; his uncle, "the Colonel," a Kurtz figure who takes psyops warfare into his own hands; the Colonel's maniacal protégé Sgt. Storm; a Vietnamese double-agent named Trung and his old friend Hao, who may or may not have betrayed him in the end; a Canadian aid worker, Kathy, who never gets over Skip; and the sad, sad Houston brothers, James and Bill (the protagonist of Angels, Johnson's first novel).

Despite its length, Tree of Smoke can still feel like a Johnson short story as tension builds in a slow burn; there's an equanimous narrator for whom the horrific is mundane — although in this book, Johnson's prose tends to be a bit more expansive. Months go by between scenes, unaccounted for; as far as the reader is concerned, Johnson supplies information on a strictly need-to-know basis. That's a familiar modus operandi for the author, and for a book about the lunatic fringe of the CIA, it couldn't be more appropriate.
- Chris Parris-Lamb

NONFICTION

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler


Published:	July 2007
Pages:	362
Publisher:	Penguin
Links: Author bio NY Times review WBUR interview

“In a refreshing act of restraint, Fessler eschews the personal-memoir format. Instead, voices of silenced and forgotten mothers dominate these pages in the form of transcribed oral histories, punctuated by sociological insights and statistics.”

Review
At a time when women are making headlines for surpassing men in educational and financial realms, and career vs. family-building conflicts define many young lives in the popular imagination, it is hard to envision the dark ages of the pre-Roe v. Wade world. It's precisely this disconnect that makes Ann Fessler's debut book, The Girls Who Went Away, compelling and valuable.

When Fessler first began interviewing mothers who had given up their children for adoption from the '50s through to the early '70s, the author, an accomplished artist and a professor at Rhode Island School of Design, thought she was preparing an audio-art project — not writing a book. But after months of research, a book seemed the best way to preserve the stories for other generations. It's all the more intriguing when you learn that Fessler is a third-generation adoptee. In a refreshing act of restraint, Fessler eschews the personal-memoir format. Instead, voices of silenced and forgotten mothers dominate these pages in the form of transcribed oral histories, punctuated by sociological insights and statistics.

Is Fessler's desire to understand her own birth mother — before she ever meets her — the impetus behind her work? The 15 careful years Fessler herself devoted to the subject of adoption — during which she sought and found her own birth mother — belie the heap of emotion and complications inherent in the adoptive process. Now, as young women who want children bemoan their limited schedules, here is book of stories that argues poignantly for women's autonomy and empowerment, reminding us that current freedoms are taken for granted at a high price.
- Cortney Rock

FICTION

Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball


Published:	September 2007
Pages:	304
Publisher:	Vintage
Links: Author website New Yorker Briefly Noted Austinist review Paris Review poem

“By putting James at the mercy of those who already know the truth, Ball suggests that no truth worth knowing is gained by being merely smart and curious.”

Review
One of life's greatest challenges is reconciling individual perceptions and memories of the world with the world as it truly exists. James Sim (one wonders if the author had the word "simulacrum" in mind), the main narrator of Jesse Ball's mesmerizing first novel, Samedi the Deafness, and a mnemonist by profession, confronts this disparity head-on after unwillingly hearing a dying man's cryptic remarks concerning a cultish conspiracy with undefined ambitions. Unable to ignore what he's heard, James allows a series of odd incidents to become a trail of breadcrumbs and soon finds himself as a guest in the home of the man he suspects is masterminding the doomsday plot. James spends the rest of the book at this home communing with other "guests," who provide him with contradictory explanations for the unfamiliar surroundings and unique experiences. On top of this, James expends considerable time investigating his surroundings, snooping around like an amateur detective, albeit one with a perfect memory. Thus, the facts, as James sees and hears them, don't always add up to a coherent whole, and his impeccable memory only succeeds in exposing minor points of confusion in the glaring sunlight.

The book vacillates between two versions of reality. In one, James has stumbled upon a dangerous plot that's motivated by what the conspirators consider dire socio-economic conditions (chronic lying and the injustice it wreaks on the lower classes); in the other, he's simply stumbled upon an eccentric retreat set up to help individuals with a particular mental illness (again, chronic lying). Relying to a fault on memories of his experiences in the house, James trusts others and makes quick deductions about the true nature of the house and the "plot" — all despite being told, at one point, "A man goes to live in the kingdom of foxes and he survives only by believing that which is not told him."

By putting James at the mercy of those who already know the truth, Ball suggests that no truth worth knowing is gained by being merely smart and curious — more often than not, it's gained only if someone else wants and needs you to know it. Pitting perceptions against reality, Ball seems to confirm the obvious fact we often, and perhaps wisely, ignore: competing versions of reality cannot merge into one, and yet will always coexist.
- Tom Roberge

ART

Testimony by Gillian Laub with essays by Ariella Azoulay and Raef Zreik


Published:	May 2007
Pages:	103
Publisher:	Aperture
Links: Artist website GOOD magazine review Guardian review

“Her rich color photographs capture teenagers and young parents in intimate settings, simultaneously exposing their vulnerability and honoring their strength.”

Review
In the introduction to Testimony, Gillian Laub describes a beach in Tel Aviv where the division between Jews and Arabs momentarily dissolves. Women with headscarves and heavy robes relax next to girls in skimpy bikinis, willfully oblivious of the conflicts raging nearby. The beach provides a sliver of hope for Laub, whose intimate portraits of Jews and Arabs living in Israel expose the devastation of religious warfare.

As a secular American Jew, Laub began photographing in Israel in 2002 to obtain a deeper understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moving away from public confrontations, she entered private homes to speak with and photograph young Jews and Arabs. Laub asked each individual to write about how violence affects his or her life and snapped a raw and riveting portrait. Her rich, color photographs capture teenagers and young parents in intimate settings, simultaneously exposing their vulnerability and honoring their strength. Similar in style to her portraits of celebrities and her family, the Testimony images seem to break open the individual for a revealing moment, and the pairing of these portraits with the personal statements conveys appalling tragedy.

Among the subjects of Testimony are young girls playing in their backyard, twin sisters on leave from the army, and a young man blinded in a terrorist attack. The youngest of them live in sanctuary from warfare, one girl even describing her life as a "fairytale," but age brings exposure to violence, either through required army service or the shock of a suicide bombing. The amputees and burn victims featured in Laub's book, both Jews and Arabs, were maimed during their commute to work or on a trip to the mall. One particularly devastating photograph features Kinneret, a young woman with burns on 70% of her body. Her statement, touching on the difficulties of rehabilitation, expresses a quiet sorrow and a steely determination to heal. Surprisingly, none of the victims of terrorism harbor hatred or vengefulness — they just hope for peace.

Besides the vividness of Laub's portraiture, Testimony reveals specific, private experiences of a much-publicized conflict. The personal pain and exhaustion evident in the images, and further discussed in essays by Ariella Azoulay and Raef Zreik, convince the reader, more than any political argument could, of the importance of peace in Israel.
- Bryony Roberts

INTERVIEW Junot Díaz		Junot Díaz was inundated with well-earned praise for his 1997 collection Drown. In the ten years since, the Dominican American writer slowly, but surely, finished his first novel. He tantalized fans with a New Yorker excerpt in 2000, but the complete The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao wasn't published until this September. It's a sprawling saga that chronicles one Dominican family's passions and pain, from the parents' lives under the brutal Trujillo regime to their son Oscar's struggles as a "ghetto nerd" in New Jersey. Before reading to a packed bookstore in Oakland, CA, Díaz spoke with Boldtype's Toby Warner about why writers are like dictators, what took him so long, and why he'd love to be caught stealing. Boldtype: Were you a voracious reader as a kid? Junot Díaz: For me, writing is an outgrowth of reading. I'm a reader way before I'm a writer. It started when I was a kid because when I read I didn't have an accent. No one could fucking fuck with me, you know? In your head, you sound great. I was convinced that if I read enough, I could erase all the awkwardness of being an immigrant. It took like ten years before I could realize what people were talking about. For the longest time I didn't know what people meant when they were talking about the Who. For real, bro, it's amazing. I used to think that if I read enough it would all become clear. But of course that wasn't true. BT: It's been nearly 11 years since Drown was published. Did you have to shift down a gear when you started working on a novel? Keep reading »

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BOOK NEWS A few notable bits of recent book news.
Doris Lessing wins Nobel Prize (NY Times)
Best-known for her 1962 novel The Golden Notebooks, Doris Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. Some considered it a victory for science-fiction writers. Her response: "Oh Christ! I couldn't care less."
A race against the clock for Philip Roth (Australian)
With five books in six years, including the brand-new final chapter of the Nathan Zuckerman saga, Exit Ghost, Philip Roth is picking up the pace. In Roth's words, the Library of America "already owe[s] me another volume."
Best-selling Arabic comic-book artist has roots in the US (Boston Globe)
The 99 is the Middle East's top-selling comic book, and its author is Tufts-educated Kuwaiti writer Al-Mutawa. Based on the 99 positive attributes of Allah, the book's titular gang of superheroes hails from 99 countries. The monthly series hits the US on October 16.
Anne Enright beats out favorites to win Booker Prize (Guardian)
Despite British bookies' predictions that Ian McEwan or Lloyd Jones would take home the prize, the lesser-known Irish novelist Anne Enright won this year's Booker for her uncompromisingly bleak, family-centered novel The Gathering.
Oscar Wilde voted wittiest Brit (Guardian)
It's no surprise that Wilde — whose last words were "Either those curtains go or I do" — was voted the UK's top funny-man. But just below Margaret Thatcher and William Shakespeare was Oasis singer Liam Gallagher, who took the tenth spot for his brutal put-downs of fellow celebs.
J.K. Rowling outs Dumbledore (Reuters)
Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling confessed that she "always" thought of the beloved wizard and educator Dumbledore as gay. Much commentary ensued.
Translators face off over War and Peace (NPR)
Competing English translations of Tolstoy's mega-novel are based on different versions of the original manuscript. It's easy to decide which one is for you — just read 'em both!
Norman Mailer reveals what he knows about God (New York)
In a new book by the author, filmaker, and one-time candidate for mayor of New York, Norman Mailer expounds on his personal theology with an intimate portrait of the great Creator.
Fantasy writer Robert Jordan dies at age 58 (London Times)
Writing under the pseudonym Robert Jordan, author James Oliver Rigney Jr. penned the 11-part best-selling series Wheel of Time. The series' first book, starring the warrior-prophet Rand al'Thor, was released in 1990; the final installment of this good-versus-evil epic remains incomplete.
Manga obsession sweeps Britain (London Times)
The popular Japanese manga comic-book style has found a global audience, but in the UK, it's no longer just an import. English-language stories, the Bible, and Shakespeare are all getting the graphic treatment.
Even Clarence Thomas' colleagues on the Supreme Court aren't happy about his new book (NY Post)
After receiving a hefty advance for his memoir, Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court's most conservative justice, stirs controversy among his fellow justices for his "breach of decorum."
If I Did It is now a certified best-seller (LA Times)
O.J. Simpson's hypothetical memoir — which led to Judith Reagan's ouster from HarperCollins, a lawsuit by the Goldman family, and pledges and then retractions by a major bookseller not to stock it — has now hit the top of the best-seller list.
What turns Gawker off: James Lipton's new memoir (Gawker)
The ever-dismissive Gawker gets a sneak preview of the Inside the Actor's Studio host's new book. The site remains deeply (and hilariously) skeptical.


CREDITS Managing Editor Toby Warner Deputy Editor H.G. Masters Contributing Editors Mark Mangan Zolton Zavos Chris Parris-Lamb Paul Laster Anna Balkrishna Chris Gage Doug Levy Editors-at-Large Larry Weissman Sean McDonald Contributors Diana Metzger Tom Roberge Bryony Roberts Cortney Rock Joshua David Stein Production & Design Anjuli Ayer Jessica Bauer-Greene Morgan Croney Sascha Lewis Andrew Steinmetz Daphne Yang Cover Art Gillian Laub Tal and Moran, 2002 C-print From the book Testimony, published by Aperture, 2007 All Rights Reserved		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. In addition to this monthly review of books, Flavorpill also publishes ten other email magazines, covering ART, FASHION, NEWS, MUSIC, and cultural events in six cities — NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO, CHICAGO, MIAMI, and LONDON. 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

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