Jacket Copy

The story behind the upcoming Homicide Report

Pinky — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:17:00 -0700

photo of a memorial for shooting victim Dovon Harris at 114th Street near Central Avenue in Watts by Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times

Book insiders who subscribe to Publisher's Lunch caught the announcement this week that we can expect a new book from LA Times reporter Jill Leovy, which will be based on "reporting all 845 LA County murders last year - weavig [sic] together a kaleidoscopic narrative about a murder-wracked community in South Los Angeles with a new theory about race and America's homicide epidemic." Since Leovy also blogs here at the Times -- at the Homicide Report, which is as fascinating as it is troubling -- we wanted to know more about the project, the ideas behind it, and what crime books she reads.

Jacket Copy: Does your book chronicle all 845 murders in Los Angeles last year?
Jill Leovy: No. The book is not related to the Homicide Report blog, nor to my efforts to cover all homicides in Los Angeles County last year. (In reality, there were more then 900.) The book will be about the syndrome of high homicide rates among blacks in America, their causes and consequences.

Jacket Copy: Will you focus on a specific area or region?
JL: The book will be mostly reported out of Los Angeles, but it seeks to explain a national phenomenon. High homicide rates among blacks are everywhere -- not just in Los Angeles but in Detroit, Washington D.C., New Orleans, and many rural areas and smaller cities as well. The examples in the book will be drawn largely from Watts and South-Central Los Angeles where I have long worked, but the argument is for the whole country.

JC: Without giving too much away, what can you tell us about your "new theory about race and America's homicide epidemic"? The answer... after the jump.

JC: Without giving too much away, what can you tell us about your "new theory about race and America's homicide epidemic"?
JL: I won't go into much here, but I'll argue that the conventional explanations for the black-on-black homicide syndrome, such as drugs, gangs, poverty, single-parent homes, etc. do not tell the whole story. We need to ask different questions and look more deeply into the conditions that produce high homicide rates--conditions I will argue are universal to high-homicide populations the world over.

And of course, the book also asserts America needs to recognize the problem of homicide among black men as an urgent national priority. High incidence of "ghetto murder" should not be the status quo. At the very least, we should view our homicide rate as a national embarrassment.

JC: What are some of your favorite books on crime, true or otherwise?
JL: I have some problems with the true-crime tradition on a number of fronts, and my book will argue we need to move away from such traditions and start talking about homicide in a different way.

For one thing, some literary and media portrayals of homicide tend to deepen our already considerable complacency and indifference toward this problem. Americans have grown used to thinking that murder is just what goes on in the so-called inner city-- that it's just an endless cycle, an inevitable product of urban poverty, part of the wallpaper of big city life. Another day, another drug dealer shot dead in South Central. Another drive-by. Understandably, we shrug and turn away, telling ourselves: "Forget it. It's Chinatown."

Or worse, we fetish-size street violence and gang life, not pausing to consider the immense suffering which high homicide rates inflict on the people forced to endure them.

Having said that, there are obviously some great journalistic efforts to depict the reality of homicide, such as Miles Corwin's "The Killing Season." But the truth is I actually don't have a favorite book on crime. If I read or watch anything about murder, I have to force myself, and I do it only because it's my job. I've had more than my fill of homicide. If only one never had to write or read about it again.

Carolyn Kellogg

'The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher': I told you it was good

Nick Owchar — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:11:00 -0700

The Victorian era is a rich, seemingly bottomless mine for writers: in science fiction, the authors known collectively as the Steampunks have tapped it for their fantasies; and many authors--such as Anne Perry, Will Thomas, G.H. Dahlquist and so many more--continually revisit that period for novels of mayhem and mystery.

Kate Summerscale's (left) "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher" was published earlier this year. It presented the true account of a child's murder on a family's estate and the efforts of investigators to find the perpetrator among the members of the household. In unfolding the story, the author gave readers the context of 19th century crime detection and the public's fascination with that singular figure, the detective. Many papers reviewed it. My column The Siren's Call featured a review for The Times. The book was honored this week with the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction.

As part of the prize, Summerscale, a former literary editor of the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph, will receive more than $60,000. The 10-year-old prize was organized by the BBC. Summerscale's book succeeded over finalists including Orlando Figes' "The Whisperers'' about Soviet Russia, Patrick French's authorized biography of V.S. Naipaul, "The World Is What It Is" and New Yorker music critic Alex Ross' survey of music from the last century, "The Rest Is Noise.'' The Guardian has a particularly good overview of this year's prize and why it won.

This isn't the only important prize announcement this week. Our colleague Carolyn Kellogg offers another right here at Jacket Copy.

Nick Owchar

To be young, talented, and (maybe) rich

Pinky — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:37:55 -0700

The Dylan Thomas Prize, all $119,938.38 (or £60,000) of it, is awarded annually to one skilled, not-yet-30-year-old writer. This weekend, the 14 authors on the prize's long list were announced. One finalist -- Dinaw Mengestu -- has already done well in the awards department, winning the Guardian's 2007 First Book Award and the Los Angeles Times' 2007 Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction.

Authors can hail from any country in the world, as long as they write in English. The long list is:

Priya Basil (U.K.) for the novel "Ishq and Mushq"
Susan Barker (U.K.) for the novel "The Orientalist and the Ghost"
Caroline Bird (U.K.) for the poetry collection "Trouble Came to the Turnip"
Zoë Brigley (U.K.) for the poetry collection "The Secret"
Ben Dolnick (U.S.) for the novel "Zoology"
Ceridwen Dovey (South Africa) for the novel "Blood Kin"
Joe Dunthorne (U.K.) for the novel "Submarine"
Susan Fletcher (U.K.) for the novel "Oystercatchers"
Adam Green (U.K.) for the novel "Satsuma Sun - Mover"
Edward Hogan (U.K.) for the novel "Blackmoor"
Porochista Khakpour (Iran) for the novel "Sons and Other Flammable Objects"
Nam Le (Vietnam) for the short story collection "The Boat"
Dinaw Mengestu (Ethiopia) for "Children of the Revolution" (published in the U.S. as "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears")
Kei Miller (Jamaica) for the poetry collection "There Is an Anger That Moves"
Ross Raisin (U.K.) for the novel "God's Own Country" (published in the U.S. as "Out Backward")
Karen Russell (U.S.) for the short story collection "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised By Wolves"

Just being nominated is an honor. But I bet it's hard to remember that winning isn't everything when the prize is nearly $120,000.

Carolyn Kellogg

photo of author Nam Le reading in Los Angeles by Carolyn Kellogg

Sampling books on the new iPhone

Pinky — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:34:56 -0700

The 7.5 hours I spent on a Pasadena sidewalk on Friday were worth it— let's just start with that. I love my new iPhone. But after admiring its sleek styling and watching the GPS trace my Gold Line ride in real time, I wanted to get down to business. I heard you can read books on these things.

There are hundreds of new apps — they work on the first generation of iPhones, too — and I began my search assuming that I'd need to get an e-book reader and then go find some e-books.

But first I stumbled across the Harper Collins offering, which seemed like a good place to start. After pointing my iPhone's Web browser to the Harper Collins mobile page and selecting the iPhone option, I got a list of titles:

"Beyond the Body Farm" by Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson
"The Case for the Real Jesus" by Lee Strobel
"Ike: An American Hero" by Michael Korda
"A Killer's Kiss" by William Lashner
"Life on the Refrigerator Door" by Alice Kuipers
"Love is a Many Trousered Thing" by Louise Rennison
"The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions" by Marcus J. Borg and N Wright
"Now and Forever" by Ray Bradbury
"Obama: From Promise to Power" by David Mendell
"Soul Catcher" by Michael C. White
"Sweet Revenge" by Diane Mott Davidson
"When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box" by John Ortberg
"Winning" by Jack Welch and Suzy Welch

I was hoping for a little more literary fiction — like Annie Dillard's "The Maytrees," which can be previewed on the publisher's Browse Inside page — but I knew where I wanted to begin. The book, and the reading experience, after the jump.

Clicking on "Beyond the Body Farm" brought up a crisp full-color version of the book's cover. (Hey, just because I like literary fiction doesn't mean I can't appreciate the lessons of a field full of decaying bodies in Tennessee.) Ooh, exciting.

But then it took several clicks — or as the iPhoners say, taps — to get to the content. The e-book opens like a traditional book, with several pages between the cover and the content. I tapped past the inside jacket flap, the dedication, the copyright page, eventually reaching the table of contents, which were too tiny to read.

Finally, at Page 1 of the introduction, I figured out how to zoom in. It took a little practice to zoom so the text filled the screen without overfilling it, forcing a left-right scroll, but before I knew it, I was reading about Bass' career in forensic anthropology and giggling at his grim puns ("a bone's throw" away). I hardly noticed that I was reading on a little bitty phone. I was just reading.

The biggest issue I had was that when I was "turning" from one page to the next, the old page reloads at full size before the new page loads, which feels like a big waste of time. Less of a drag, but also strange, is the initial title-selection page, which looks pretty but doesn't include the authors' names — so I had to go online with my laptop to learn that "Now and Forever" was not a romance novel but a book by science fiction legend Ray Bradbury.

Sadly, this was only a sample taste, because Harper Collins offers only the initial pages for free. But to get to the, um, meat of the matter, you've got to buy the e-book.

Carolyn Kellogg

Photo of iPhone in action by Carolyn Kellogg

Memo from the past

Nick Owchar — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:13:00 -0700

Books are receptacles of human thought, and they are also, quite literally, receptacles — who has not found an old movie stub, photo or grocery list that had been acting as a bookmark?

Recently, a reader delivered to Book Review a tiny piece of its heritage, a note retrieved from a book and dated to 1978. The note was written by Robert Kirsch, one of Book Review’s earliest editors and critics, and also father of our regular contributor, author Jonathan Kirsch, and grandfather of poet and critic Adam Kirsch.

The note writer, a Mr. Katzin, apparently contacted Kirsch to find out more about the papers of James Boswell, edited in a series by Frederick A. Pottle. Such an exchange was much more common and routine in those pre-bibliofind days.

Brief but gracious, brief but engaged, Kirsch's reply serves as an example of a hospitality that seems harder to muster today. What, to respond to a reader’s question? In a handwritten note? With a friendly tone? You expect too much! "Indeed, Pottle did!" Kirsch writes at one point. "There are now eight or nine volumes." He then directs the reader to possible sources for the existing volumes. The note had been found inside a book donated to a local library: Thanks to Connie Unger for finding it and for realizing we might like it for our archives.

Of course I put the note in the mail to his son. But before I did, I held it in my hands and felt the distance between his time and ours.

Nick Owchar

The upside to the New Yorker's Obama controversy

Pinky — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:05:45 -0700

Everyone's up in arms about the image of a Muslim Barack and machine-gun toting Michelle Obama on the cover of the July 21 issue of the New Yorker.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a cartoon — not designed to deceive, like a doctored photo — and if our friends and neighbors laugh at "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," I'm certain they're sophisticated enough to understand a little illustrated satire. But maybe someone out there thinks this accurately represents how Barack Obama moves through the world.

This is for sure: This is bringing a lot of attention to the (often low-key) New Yorker, and the magazine will likely sell more copies than in an average week. Which means new readers.

So who benefits? Fictionwise, it's SoCal local Sarah Shun-lien Bynum — author of "Madeline Is Sleeping" — whose story "Yurt" is in this issue. There are brief reviews of the novels "City of Thieves" by David Benioff and Poppy Adams' "The Sister."

As always, there is plenty of excellent nonfiction to be found in the New Yorker, in articles on current affairs and essays and criticism. Of course you can read about Barack Obama inside, and catch up on restaurants and music and movies.

As for nonfiction books, in this issue attention is paid to wine, the poet Mayakovsky and a 167-year-old book on gardening (lawns, yes or no?).

There's even a little bit of satire in the mag, too: a piece called "14 Passive-Aggressive Appetizers" by Yoni Brenner. And all those cartoons. Isn't it clear that the New Yorker doesn't want to be taken too seriously?

Carolyn Kellogg

Godard: genius or gasbag?

Pinky — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:41:56 -0700

Maybe the problem is the length: Richard Brody's biography of Jean-Luc Godard, "Everything Is Cinema," thumps down at 702 pages. To spend that much time with a single subject requires something of the reader: enthusiasm, affection. Without a sufficient level of goodwill, the result can easily be enmity.

"Now we know how one of the greatest of all filmmakers — the man who so radically changed cinema in 1959 with his debut feature, 'Breathless' — became an intolerable gasbag. That probably wasn’t Brody’s aim in writing this exhaustive, and sometimes exhausting, critical biography."

That was Stephanie Zacharek writing for the New York Times. Our own reviewer Richard Schickel fared little better, admitting, "I have rarely been so glad to come to the end of an admirable book." Both reviewers find Godard's personality difficult (also "annoying," "stubbornly confounding" and "perhaps the victim of attention-deficit disorder"). But all these qualities, which might make reading a long biography not much fun, don't make Godard any less of a filmmaker.

In 1959, Godard's film "Breathless" launched the French New Wave into American movie theaters and the dialogue of American filmmaking. Godard had also been a critic — for Cahiers du Cinéma — and he was, as Schickel notes, "a useful motormouth." But while many critics are dismissive of his later work, the Telegraph praises Godard's film legacy, explaining:

"This is an artist who has reinvented himself as often as Madonna, and to rather more invigorating effect. You can accuse him of pretentiousness and incomprehensibility, but you could never accuse him of (to use a 1960s term) selling out, and in this era of the two-minute attention-span we must treasure those few remaining artists whose work forces us to use our brains."

In its review, Time Out New York turns back to the movies and recommends watching Godard's early films. It also suggests reading a collection of Godard's essays and interviews: And "Godard on Godard" is only 300 pages.

Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in "Breathless."

Listening to Leonard Susskind

Pinky — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:23:36 -0700

In college, I had a roommate who came off an acid trip babbling endlessly about "the universal hologram." When she became obsessed with repeatedly washing down the walls of our room with bleach, I chalked it up to post-trip craziness. But maybe I should have paid closer attention: Theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind has proposed a holographic principle that might just be crazy enough to be true, according to Jesse Cohen, who reviews Susskind's latest book today.

In "The Black Hole War: My Battle With Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics," Susskind not only discusses the holographic principle and string theory, the book is also "a gregarious narrative of intellectual brinkmanship."

In this interview with rock musician and physicist Brian Cox, Susskind shows his amiability while discussing string theory over wine.

If you like Susskind's style, you can sit in on his continuing education class in quantum mechanics; Stanford has put the series of all nine lectures online.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

The week in books: from Bond to black power

Pinky — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:06:27 -0700

Florence is hot: "The Monster of Florence" by Douglas Preston is #13 in our nonfiction bestsellers list; "The Enchantress of Florence" by Salman Rushdie is #2 in fiction.

Rushdie won the Booker of Bookers this week for his 1981 winner book "Midnight's Children," prompting Jacket Copy to look at other trophies he's gathered (pretty ladies all).

"First Stop in the New World" looked into the inner life of Mexico City, while we got the straight talk from Gustavo Arellano, the writer behind the O.C. Weekly column and book called "¡Ask a Mexican!"

James Bond got kicked around and Janet Carlson kicked up her heels.

We looked at black power, in the upper crust of Stephen L. Carter's novel "Palace Council" and the historic political role of African-American entertainers, from Paul Robeson to Spike Lee, in Richard Iton's "In Search of the Black Fantastic."

Speaking of powerful African Americans: Barack Obama has two nonfiction books on the L.A. Times paperback bestsellers list, "The Audacity of Hope" at #3 and "Dreams From My Father" at #8. (John McCain's "Why Courage Matters" does not appear in the Top 10).

Carolyn Kellogg

The Rehabilitation Squad

Nick Owchar — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 07:29:00 -0700

"Knoxville: Summer, 1915" is one of those passages that has turned my turgid rail commute into something bearable. Since first reading this in school, the disputed opening pages of James Agee’s "A Death in the Family," I have returned to it often. When I first read it, I looked for more of this kind of anguished lyricism, but was disappointed when I could not find it (Agee's stories were hard to find in collections, and even the rest of the novel seemed in shadow beside this luminosity).

There was a collection of Agee’s poems, edited by the epic translator Robert Fitzgerald, but those were the pre-pre-Amazon days, and I resigned myself to the fact that I might never find them. Old wishes were realized this week with the arrival of a galley of the forthcoming "James Agee: Selected Poems," which the Library of America will publish in the fall.

Here is yet another effort to keep a writer’s name and work within our reach. The L of A has already published much of Agee’s work; there are also the efforts of editor Michael A. Lofaro to keep Agee's name before our eyes (although his "restoration" of "A Death in the Family" has not received apprecation from all quarters, especially not in the pages of our Book Review).

Andrew Hudgins, editor of "Selected Poems," says it contains much of the Fitzgerald edition. There are familiar pieces here (like the stirring dedication to Walker Evans at the beginning of "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" that begins "Against time and the damages of the brain/sharpen and calibrate..."). But there are other things that come as a surprise, such as "John Carter," his failed attempt à la Byron’s "Don Juan" to chronicle the life of a modern young man. Or else there's this surprising little bit, about work habits:

Wake up Threeish,
Clean up the sink
Air out the bedroom
Pour out a drink
Drink to the daylight
Sit down and think
I’m Open All Night.

Can't you hear the mock humor? Can't you feel the defiance? This is the kind of voice that helps you through difficult times, through times of self-doubt. Though Agee never published more than one volume, "Permit Me Voyage," he kept writing poetry, Hudgins tells us. I’m glad that he did.

Nick Owchar

(Photo credit: Associated Press)

The Empty Mirror

David Ulin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:24:50 -0700

July is looking like the cruelest month.

On July 4, Thomas M. Disch, the under-recognized author of the visionary science fiction classics Camp Concentration and 334, committed suicide in his Manhattan apartment. He was 68. Book Review contributor Edward Champion -- or his alter ego Bat Segundo -- did the last in person interview with Disch. You can link to a podcast here. In this Sunday's Book Review, James Sallis, an old friend of Disch's, remembers both the writer and the human being.

Yet Disch wasn't the only writer to die on July 4: Janwillem Van de Wetering died at age 77 at his home in Maine. Van de Wetering is known primarily as a mystery novelist, but I remember him for two nonfiction books he wrote in the 1970s, The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery and A Glimpse of Nothingness: Experiences in an American Zen Community.

I read those books back-to-back the summer after my freshman year in college, along with a lot of other stuff -- Black Elk Speaks, The Teachings of Don Juan -- that, I hoped, would give me some kind of mystical insight. Mostly, it didn't -- or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I was looking for answers that no book can provide. But Van de Wetering's two memoirs opened up another kind of insight, making accessible the notion of Zen-like acceptance, an ideal to which I continue (in my better moments) to aspire.

I never read Van de Wetering's mysteries, never wanted to, never felt the need.

But I still carry around my copies of "The Empty Mirror" and "A Glimpse of Nothingness," to remind me of who I once was and who I may yet someday be.

David L. Ulin

Literature meets activism: Barbara Ehrenriech

Pinky — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:24:16 -0700

A car wash employee speaks with a labor representative/translator on his left; author Barbara Ehrenreich (in green) listens from the sidelines.

Barbara Ehrenriech was full of conversation at Skylight Books Thursday night. She read a few satiric passages from her new book "The Land is Their Land" but mostly talked liberal politics to a receptive audience. Heads nodded at what she called "the growing division in our society between the extremely rich and everybody else." There were several spontaneous bursts of applause.

It started to feel a little like an affluent dinner party of "The Nation" subscribers, everyone in quite comfortable circumstances agreeing on our leftist politics. But Ehrenriech, who worked low-wage jobs to research her 2001 book "Nickel and Dimed," did more than just preach to the converted. To read exactly what she said, see below ...

Before her question-and-answer session, Ehrenreich opened the mic to labor organizers who work with car wash employees. As the L.A. Times reported in March, car washes are rife with problems -- unhealthy work environments, wages below minimum, long hours without breaks and immigration violations. Labor unions are now working with carwash employees to improve conditions. The audience shifted restlessly as a young labor organizer explained efforts to boycott some of the offending operators, including Vermont Carwash, just down the street from the bookstore.

By the time one of the workers from the Vermont Avenue facility stepped up to explain his circumstances -- in Spanish, with translation -- the crowd had warmed to the idea of genuine activism. Everyone signed up for a circulating e-mail list. People also jotted down an event in support of the carwash campaign this afternoon with Ehrenreich at Mama's Hot Tamales (they serve awfully good tamales) next to MacArthur Park. Did this discussion of economic inequality actually prompt people to try to help the working poor? I, for one, vowed not to return to Vermont Carwash again.

And then Ehrenreich returned to Skylight's center stage to answer questions, reminding the audience what we'd come for: her book.

Carolyn Kellogg

Salman Rushdie among the women

Nick Owchar — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:10:00 -0700

Go ahead and smile, Salman.

(Nicholas Kamm, AFP/Getty)

You've been seen with many enchantresses of late. First, there is your novel "The Enchantress of Florence," a story brimming with the bewitchments of the female gender.

There's also that White House outing in April with actress Olivia Wilde on your arm:

(AFP/Getty Images)

And of course, there's your former marriage to Padma Lakshmi:

And yet, there was someone else long ago who made possible your receipt of the Best of the Booker Prize for "Midnight's Children," which was announced today. That novel won the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 1981 (when it was known just as the Booker), and "the best of" shortlist included other winners such as Peter Carey's "Oscar and Lucinda" and Nadine Gordimer's "The Conservationist." Hmmm.

The lady in question? It has to be Calliope, muse of poets and writers:

Didn't she get you where you are today? C'mon, Salman, buy the lady a drink.

Nick Owchar

The world of myth and 'Hellboy'

Nick Owchar — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:46:43 -0700

The new "Hellboy" movie is out, and our reviewer Kenneth Turan thinks that unlike "Iron Man" or "The Incredible Hulk," "The Golden Army" is an exhilarating story that translates well to the big screen.

I'll bet, though, that Stan Lee's Marvel Movies Machine didn't experience any of the obstacles that director Guillermo del Toro and "Hellboy" creator Mike Mignola faced in making "The Golden Army." If you have a chance to read "Hellboy II: The Art of the Movie" (Dark Horse Books: 224 pp., $24.95 paper), the introduction by Del Toro shows what an ordeal it was to make this movie — even though the fantasy genre seems to be one of those surefire profit centers that studios can’t seem to make enough of.

"The scale of the sequel was huge — in fact, almost impossibly big. Especially if one considered that the first movie had grossed a modest theatrical return and that most everyone was in favor of a scaled-down sequel," he writes. "Scaled down" is hardly what Del Toro says he had in mind. He describes their effort to shop the script around town.

If you’ve ever read the "Hellboy" series, you may have noticed that Mignola’s pantheon of deities is extremely ecumenical. Several years ago, when Mignola and I did a one-on-one at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, he explained why so many familiar figures like Baba Yaga, Hecate, Rasputin, Norse gods and others appear in his stories. They’re fascinating, they have universal appeal and, he joked (though he was also quite serious), they save him an enormous amount of time trying to come up with villains from scratch.

The same seems true for the movie. Del Toro writes that he and Mignola "argued back and forth about magic beans, golden clockwork soldiers, a seemingly jarring musical duet between Abe and Hellboy." They also made an effort, he said, to avoid "the Anglo-Saxon/Celtic magical universe that is common in mainstream films" — which may be why our reviewer says the movie's fresh approach to myth is part of what makes it so enjoyable.

By the way, "Hellboy II: The Art of the Movie" includes the final shooting script for "The Golden Army," so you can memorize all of Red's best one-liners. For instance: "Memory gets pretty sketchy when you burn to death," or, as he looks over at Liz, his love interest, "I would give my life for her, but she also wants me to do the dishes!!"

Nick Owchar

(Photo credit: Egon Endrenyi / Universal Pictures)

Paul Robeson sings

Pinky — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:56:49 -0700

Today in Books, Steve Ryfle reviews "In Search of the Black Fantastic" by Richard Iton. He writes:

The breadth of material Iton examines is both impressive and exhaustive; it seems no African American pop icon who helped shape black political consciousness and influence over the last century is left out.

The review begins with Paul Robeson, the singer, actor and All-American football player whose leftist activism "damaged his career and opened a debate about the role black entertainers should play in politics." To fully appreciate Robeson's role as a political catalyst, I think, you have to hear his incredible artistry. This clip of him in concert includes a voiceover by Harry Belafonte, explaining the evolution of the lyrics to "Old Man River."

Carolyn Kellogg

Txt me Ishmael

Pinky — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:10:00 -0700

Text messaging is not just for kids, David Crystal will tell you. He's written a piece for the Guardian that compares the constraints of texting — only 160 characters, in awkward cellphone configurations — to those of writing haikus or sonnets. Arbitrary limits of form can lead to some genuine creativity, he says (although he does have some critiques).

The creative truncation of language has a long history — IOU, for example, dates back to 1618. Ultimately, Crystal, whose book "txting: the gr8 db8" is coming to the United States in September, thinks that "txt msging" bodes well for the future:

"Some people dislike texting. Some are bemused by it. But it is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adapt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. There is no disaster pending. We will not see a new generation of adults growing up unable to write proper English. The language as a whole will not decline. In texting what we are seeing, in a small way, is language in evolution."

Japan had the jump on text message fiction — "Deep Love," stories that were self-published there in the mid-oughts, are often cited as an early popularization of long-form stories delivered in short text bursts. Since then, there have been many efforts to write prose in 160-character doses.

Today, writer Matt Richtel is among the authors using Twitter, which limits its post to 160 characters, just like text messages, and can be delivered to cellphones or viewed online. He's writing a thriller — cliffhanger after cliffhanger — in connection with his new book, "Hooked." The bookish TwitterLit provides just the first lines of books, such as "The year began with lunch." Interested parties who click through end up on the Amazon page for the book that follows — in this case, it's Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence." And DailyLit is using Twitter to send novels in tiny chunks to interested readers, then encouraging book group discussions.

I'm not sure how anyone has time for all this texty reading, but, like Crystal, I see promise in the evolution.

Carolyn Kellogg

Photo of a txt-heavy MIT graduation by dbdbrobot via Flickr.

We asked a Mexican: Gustavo Arellano

Pinky — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:43:49 -0700

It started out as a joke: OC Weekly reporter Gustavo Arellano's editor thought it might be funny if he wrote a one-time satiric advice column, and ¡Ask a Mexican! was born. Readers loved the way he played with stereotypes, and Arellano's been doing the column ever since (lately, also on video). Last year saw the publication of the "¡Ask a Mexican!" book, which is now out in paperback. Arellano's second book, a personal history titled "Orange County," is due in September. We e-mailed the man who has all the answers for a few more.

Jacket Copy: You've been doing the "¡Ask a Mexican!" column for more than three years. Do people ask you questions all the time, even when you're not working? And what's the most common question you get (other than "what's the most common question you get?")?

Gustavo Arellano: When people find out I write the column, most of the time they just shower accolades on me rather than ask questions. I'm just grateful 80% of the people I meet whom a friend introduces me to them as "He writes '¡Ask a Mexican!' " knows about the column. As for the most-asked question besides yours: "Why do Mexicans like to swim in the ocean with their clothes on?" Whether the reader is from Hermosa Beach or Michigan, I always get this question — so strange. ...

JC: What was the biggest challenge in putting together the "¡Ask a Mexican!" book? Would you do it again?

GA: Making it work for a national audience. Since I'm based in Orange County, many of the punch lines in my column make reference to Orange County — the anti-immigrant idiots at the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, corrupt politicians and the like. People in Nebraska don't give a damn about such jokes or zings. So I needed to rework some of the questions I previously answered (the book is 50% old, 50% new) to make it work. Of course I would do it again — any author who doesn't jump at the chance to do a nationally published book deserves their PR day job.

JC: You often use Spanish words, sometimes to describe parts of female anatomy. Can you use dirtier words if you use Spanish? Do your editors have any idea what you're saying? (See answer after the jump.)

GA: Not just female anatomy, chula — also a male's privy parts, racial slurs and general curse words. When I signed with Scribner, I told them that I didn't want anything changed in my writing solely for prudish reasons. The column and the book use vulgarities only to make specific, satirical points about a subject. I told my editor the meanings behind all the Spanish words, and he's richer for knowing nearly every Spanish cuss word ever uttered.

JC: Have any of the answers in the book or in your column gotten you into trouble?

GA: Since we're doing a Web interview, click away, readers!

JC: When you were in school, were you the kid who always had the right answer? Would any of your teachers have predicted that you'd become a cultural expert? (Or a satiric cultural expert?)

GA: I talk about this in my upcoming book, "Orange County: A Personal History," which is half history of Orange County, half tale of my family's four generations switching between Mexico and Anaheim. I was that kid, but I never got good grades — a classic underachiever. When I left my high school teachers, I was into films, so they probably thought I would be directing quinceañera videos or pornos.

JC: What resources do you use to help work out the answers to really tough questions?

GA: Same resources I use in my day job as an investigative reporter — make calls, go to libraries, search the Web. Usually, I can find the answer in my personal library of over 1,000 books — I'm a nerd.

JC: What's your favorite bookstore, and why?

GA: Libreria Martinez in Santa Ana. Run by Rueben Martinez, a barber-turned-bookie who won the Macarthur Genius award a couple of years back because he's a secular saint. The majority of the holdings are in Spanish, which means this is one of the few places on Earth where you can read Shakespeare in Spanish and Cervantes in English — how is that not the best place on Earth???

Carolyn Kellogg

Authors talk, one finally

Pinky — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:33:37 -0700

Nam Le's "The Boat" was described this weekend by Antoine Wilson in our Book Review as "a refreshingly diverse and panoramic debut." The newspaper interviewed Le way back at the beginning of June. "I think that the reason I travel is similar to the reason I read and write fiction: to experience other places," Le said.

Also reviewed this weekend in The Times' Book Review: Joan Silber's "The Size of the World." The novel, Susan Salter Reynolds wrote, "is a wild ride. Following Silber's threads as they reach across time and space can feel somewhat precarious. But it's worth it." In a guest post on The Millions late last month, Silber offered her thoughts on reading about —and in — Southeast Asia.

And on a final note, science fiction author Thomas M. Disch died July 4. Edward Champion recently interviewed Disch for "The Bat Segundo" show; that podcast, Disch's last in-person interview, is available now. Champion also wrote a memorial about the author for New York magazine and posted a long list of other writers commenting on the loss, including William Gibson.

Carolyn Kellogg

Photo of Thomas M. Disch via Flickr's Houari B

Bond takes some hits

Pinky — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 05:30:00 -0700

Daniel Craig as James Bond with Gemma Arterton in the upcoming film "Quantum of Solace" (photo by Susie Allnutt / Columbia Pictures)

James Bond returned to print this spring in "Devil May Care," penned by the British author Sebastian Faulks. But other than in this newspaper, reviews have been slow to surface, perhaps because people were trying to find something nice to say.

The consensus is that "Devil May Care" is disappointing. On Sunday, the Philadelphia Inquirer maintained that Faulks was "a poor choice" and that the author "misses the mark." Last week the New York Times described the villains as "a B-movie writer's dream" and cried out in distress when Faulks' Bond (uncharacteristically) turned down an advance from the book's hottie, Scarlett Papava.

Perhaps the "Scarlett" is a secret casting wish. It seems that movies were top of mind; every review agrees with Tim Rutten, who wrote in the LA Times' that this latest novel is more informed by the Bond films than Fleming's Bond books. At the end of Rutten's piece, he puts some excerpts of the latest book beside Ian Fleming's writing, and it's clear that Fleming's got a brutal clarity that's gone missing from "Devil May Care."

Most of the reviews say "Devil May Care" will probably be fine fare for those who've seen the Bond films but haven't read the initial novels. Shouldn't we just have another film then? We've still got Ian Fleming's excellent prose to read, again and again.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

The other "Cardinal Mahony"

Nick Owchar — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:33:00 -0700

Science fiction is usually (usually) the genre which creates alternative histories of the world -- histories in which, for instance, Napoleon triumphed at Waterloo or Hitler in World War II or the computer emerged in Queen Victoria's reign, or....

Now there is a novel, "Cardinal Mahony," which imagines a different leader for the Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles. How different? According to the book, this Mahony gets kidnapped by liberation theologians and, in the end, "falls in love with his kidnappers and leads the American Catholic Church into a radical new way of being."

The author, Robert Blair Kaiser, is a longtime journalist who has written books about Robert Kennedy ("RFK must die!") as well as about the Catholic Church in the years since Vatican II ("A Church in Search of Itself"). He's a former Jesuit, an activist Catholic deeply concerned about the Church as many are.

American Catholicism has been tainted often in recent years, in particular by the priest sex abuse scandals (something the real Cardinal Mahony is still handling today), and many activists have written polemics about the Church's mistakes and what should be done next. Kaiser could easily have done the same, but instead he frames his views as fiction, explaining in a brief preface that he hopes to "help seventy-five million American Catholics see the possibilities--to help them understand how they can be Catholic--and aggressively American as well. And why they should."

Not just your average work of speculative fiction.

Nick Owchar