NOVEL
CRITIC'S CHOICE
The corrosively funny British stylist returns with his first comic novel since 1995. Yellow Dog is about men, bad men, dazed by the pornographic thrill of violence and the violent thrill of pornography. It's actually a deeply feminist book—only women can cure these bad lads—disguised with lots of dirty jokes.
The King of England tries to keep nude photos of his teenage daughter out of the tabloids, represented by porno-craving hack Clint Smoker, a "high-IQ moron" who lives in a place called Foulness and really needs a date. Meanwhile, Xan Meo—dashing writer, doting husband, adoring dad—suffers a head injury that turns him into a sex-obsessed, foul-mouthed lout.
There are so many ribald situations--Amis's best lines can't be quoted here unless we see some ID--that readers may miss the point: This is a protest against "the obscenification of everyday life." The high style Amis brings to lowlifes is why he makes other comic novelists blind with envy, even if this time his convoluted plot whimpers, rather than roars, to a close.
By Stephen King
FANTASY
The master of the macabre gets even weirder in this, the fifth installment of the fantasy western series The Dark Tower. Not that that's necessarily bad. King takes an already-out-there premise—gun-slinging do-gooders time-travel through parallel universes (think A Fistful of Hobbits)—and injects trippy twists that will leave fans both delighted and befuddled. Here's a doozy: Pistol-packing knight-errant Roland of Gilead and his posse come across a strange name in an even stranger bookstore. That name is "Stephen King."
Yep, Wolves is a freaky one. And if you haven't read any of the increasingly complex Dark Tower books, don't start here. King even weaves in plot points from some of his previous novels, like Salem's Lot and The Stand. But he is still quite the entertainer, especially during the shoot-'em-up finale, a kind of sci-fi spaghetti western.
By Anthony Bozza
BIOGRAPHY
With his venomous raps about raping his mom and murdering his wife, Eminem's outrage is even more potent than the previous generation's angry white punk, Johnny Rotten. But this earnest, exhaustive and unauthorized bio reveals little about the tortured soul behind that anger.
New details about the rapper's crushing childhood poverty and volatile home life are precious few. Born in Kansas City, he was six months old when his father, Marshall Mathers II—described by Eminem's mother, Deborah, as an abusive drinker and drug user, charges the older Mathers has denied—left home for good. Despite some excellent reporting, including details of a backstage scene of Eminem tripping on Ecstasy, Bozza bogs down in endless parsings of the cultural impact of a rapper with three albums to his credit. There is one surprising revelation: Eminem, the self-described "Mr. Potty-Mouth King," allows his 7-year-old daughter to listen only to sanitized versions of his records. "Being a father, I limit the swear words." Roll over, Johnny Rotten.
By Sena Jeter Naslund
NOVEL
Four Spirits, a sweeping novel set in the South, is a fictionalized account of what it was like to live in Birmingham, Ala., in the segregated '60s. (The title refers to the four black girls who were murdered in 1963 when the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed by white supremacists.) Naslund, who lived in Birmingham during the period, intermingles imaginary and real characters (such as Martin Luther King Jr.) to show how faith and courage eventually prevailed over horror.
There are lapses into syrupy dialogue (a black minister advises, "Don't be afraid of jail. They can't jail a soul. Your spirit—it remain free"), and the plot, centered around two black women who join forces with two white women to protest injustice as the region erupts in rioting, is sometimes meandering. But Naslund gets in the heads of dozens of characters from every corner of southern life, and her empathy runs so deep that she can make you understand even the hateful, bigoted soul of a Ku Klux Klan member.
By David Baldacci
THRILLER
When Baldacci (Absolute Power) is on his game, the pages flutter with tension. Unfortunately in this, his ninth novel, though the action is explosive, the suspense is hampered by an improbable and unwieldy plot. Michelle "Mick" Max well, a rising star in the Secret Service, loses her protectee, a presidential candidate who is kidnapped. Eight years before, Sean King's career with the same agency ended when his candidate was assassinated on his watch. The two race through a labyrinth of leads to track a sinister figure known only as the Buick Man, who is orchestrating the violence. Readers will barely have time to catch their breath along the way, but the final resolutions are somewhat silly.
- Contributors:
- Kyle Smith,
- Sean Daly,
- Steve Dougherty,
- Annette Gallagher Weisman,
- Sherryl Connelly.
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!
