by Chuck Klosterman
Klosterman is rock and roll's Rain Man, a trivia-spewing wit who in his third nonfiction book roams the country investigating the sites of rock's famous deaths and discovering...well, not much. Of the Macon, Ga., intersection where both Duane Allman and bandmate Berry Oakley died in separate motorcycle accidents, for instance, Klosterman finds, "it's just a main road.... The power lines are slung low, kind of like the way Cliff Burton of Metallica used to wear his bass." What makes this tragical history tour such fun is the journey between Klosterman's ears: the women on his brain ("Nothing makes me love Diane as much as her constant rejection of my heartfelt advances"), his crazily compelling theories (he says the Radiohead album Kid A accidentally predicted 9/11), his intriguing asides (his take on Sid Vicious, who allegedly killed his lover Nancy Spungen at New York City's Chelsea Hotel before later OD'ing: "He met a terrible person and decided his love for her was so intense that she needed to die").
Not all of the book's tales are quite believable (85% of a True Story, as Killing is subtitled, seems a generous estimate), which is one reason why Klosterman is like the new Hunter S. Thompson. Only it's as if Hunter were obsessed with KISS instead of Nixon.
by Vicki Constantine Croke
Evocative and satisfying, The Lady and the Panda is the sort of adventure story that cries out for a film version starring Kate Hepburn. An account of the improbable career of Ruth Harkness—a Jazz-age bohemian who gained world recognition for bringing the first giant panda from China to America—Croke's book offers drama, pathos, even a doomed romance in a remote bamboo forest. Though there are plenty of scenes in which Harkness (who worked as a designer in New York City before marrying wealthy sportsman Bill Harkness) swans about "with a whisky soda...and a Chesterfield," Croke shows that her heroine was no dilettante. Restarting the panda-search expedition that her husband had planned before he died in 1936, she climbs mountains in hobnail boots and gets soaked in her tent in the Chaopo valley. It's a corking tale—even if Croke's telling can be a bit prosaic—and Harkness's own end is pure tug-on-the-heart-strings Hollywood.
NOVEL
by Terry McMillan
The Waiting to Exhale author's frank, funny sixth novel opens with 44-year-old Marilyn Grimes in the bathroom—appropriate for a potty-mouthed woman whose life is in the toilet. Marilyn's kids are grown, her Bible-quoting mother-in-law has moved in, her foster sister is a drug addict. Worst of all, she and her dull husband have sex in two places only: "His side or my side of the bed." Marilyn's believable, sarcastic voice makes her struggle with mostly familiar midlife woes feel fresh. Breathe easy, fans: It's been four years since her last book, but McMillan's still got her groove.
STORIES
by Owen King
CRITIC'S CHOICE
Dad issues dominate this exceptional debut, which includes a novella and four stories. Although King, who is Stephen's son, employs touches of the macabre reminiscent of his father's early work, his voice here is all his own. King's title novella is the star. The story is told by George Claiborne, a teen whose grandfather's obsession with Al Gore threatens to destroy his family. George's mother and her beau, Dr. Vic, are trouble as well. "Every time [Dr. Vic] spoke, his wide doughy face opening up in a way that reminded me of the singing clams in Disney's Alice in Wonderland, I felt a little part of myself die from shame," King writes. He explores similar problems of paternity in "Snake"; a Coney Island abortion in "Wonders"; even 19th-century dentistry in the tundra ("Frozen Animals"). Funny and poignant, these stories are textured gems.
NONFICTION
On the Secret Trail of Trash
by Elizabeth Royte
Looking for exercise one day, author Royte took a paddle along a Brooklyn waterway—where floating trash made her wonder where her own garbage went. She headed for landfills, treatment plants and recycling centers, dug up unsettling stats ("Every American [generates] 1.31 tons of garbage a year") and ended up worried. Royte's eye-opening book warns that even if we recycle, unless we tackle how much is made—and how much we want—"we'll never escape our own mess." In a throwaway culture, a must-read.
Riffing on Bruce Tramps like us, baby we were born to...write? Thirty years (!) after the release of Born to Run, here come three new books inspired by the Boss.
4TH OF JULY, ASBURY PARK by Daniel Wolff. Titled after Springsteen's 1973 classic, this tale by music journalist Wolff recounts the sometimes troubled history of the Jersey Shore paradise where the singer came of age.
MEETING ACROSS THE RIVER edited by Jessica Kaye and Richard J. Brewer. A collection of poignant stories named for and inspired by Springsteen's melancholy 1975 song about a downtrodden man's final desperate attempt at happiness.
RUNAWAY AMERICAN DREAM by Jimmy Guterman. Written by a music journalist who has been reporting about Springsteen since the '70s, this group of essays details the singer's enduring cultural impact.
- Contributors:
- Kyke Smith,
- Michelle Green,
- Natalie Danford,
- Jonathan Durbin,
- Moira Bailey.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
