A Real Doll

Fiction:

David Leavitt, Kawabata Yasunari, Mark Poirier

David Leavitt

HEAPED EARTH • 'From this Wardwell deduced that he either drank, gambled, or had an ex-wife pressing him for alimony.'

Kawabata Yasunari

HER HUSBAND DIDN'T • 'Junji had scarcely known known what he was doing when he had pinched that woman's earlobe--his first earlobe.'

Mark Poirier

SOMETHING GOOD • 'It never ceases to amaze me what people donate: one shoe from a pair, yellowed underpants, used-up votive candles, matted wigs.'

New Voices:

Victor D. LaValle, Helen Ruth Freeman

Victor D. LaValle

Fiction
CLASS TRIP • 'Four black kids on foot spelled little cash and lots of hassles.'

Helen Ruth Freeman

LAUREL TO THE SUN GOD, APOLLO
THE LEGACY

Poetry:

Les Murray, Henry Israeli, Daniel Hall, Quincy Troupe, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Luljeta Lleshanaku, Jill Bialosky

Les Murray

COOLONGOLOOK TIMBER MILL
AURORA PRONE

Henry Israeli

PEDALING
FLORIDUS ORMOLU

Daniel Hall

NEOCLASSICAL

Quincy Troupe

SONG

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

MEMORY

Luljeta Lleshanaku

NEUROSIS
BETRAYED

Jill Bialosky

PUMPKIN PICKING

Interviews:

Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer, Rachel Resnick and Rikki Ducornet, Agha Shahid Ali and Edward W. Said

Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer

The author of Slaughterhouse Five talks with the formerly homeless writer whose work he has compared to Jack London.

Rachel Resnick and Rikki Ducornet

A passionate discussion about sex, food and The Fanmaker's Inquisition, Ducornet's bold new novel inspired by the Marquis De Sade.

Agha Shahid Ali and Edward W. Said

On the eve of his memoir's publication (See page 131), the controversial Palestinian critic and intellectual muses on a lifetime of publicly thinking against the grain.

Pilgrimage:

Tom Spanbauer

ENTRE CHIEN ET LOUP • The author finds there's no place like home, even if it is homophobic rural Idaho.

Features:

Walter Kirn, Christopher Merrill, Hal Sirowitz, Edward W. Said, Seamus Heaney, Jim Lewis, Jane Kenyon

Walter Kirn

WOLFE BITE • The novelist and critic joins Tom Wolfe in shredding a navel-gazing new novel--Kirn's own Thumbsucker.'

Christopher Merrill

TO DIE FOR • The writer dodges snipers' bullets during the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Hal Sirowitz

IRIS AND JOHNNY APPLESEED

Edward W. Said

OUT OF PLACE • In an excerpt from his memoir, Said describes his family's flight from Egypt to Jerusalem as the Nazis raced through the Middle East.

Seamus Heaney

A NEW TRANSLATION OF BEOWULF.

Jim Lewis

THE GENIUS OF LONESOME • America's poets of isolation, from Hawthorne to Hank Williams.

Jane Kenyon

GABRIEL'S TRUTH • The late poet reflects on the maternal grace of Mary.

Lost & Found:

Jean Nathan, David Gates, Jonathan Dee, Jonathan Lethem, David Lehman

Jean Nathan

On the haunting children's classic, The Lonely Doll, and the stranger-than-fiction life of its creator Dare Wright.

David Gates

On In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods, Galen Rowell's account of the disastrous American K2 climb of 1975.

Jonathan Dee

On Max Frisch's self-lacerating memoir of adultery, Montauk.

Jonathan Lethem

On Daniel Fuch's epic 1930s Brooklyn saga, The Williamsburg Trilogy.

David Lehman

On Charles Willeford's meta-art-world murder mystery, The Burnt Orange Heresy.

A Readable Feast:

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor

I'M IN PARIS, FRANCE, Y'ALL • The South Carolinian food connoisseur revisits the happy marriage of American artists and soul food in the City of Light.

The Last Word:

Jim Collins

ROUND UP • The Algonquin, The Iroquois--wherever the round table, all the big names will be pulling up chairs and slipping into dry martinis.

Issue #2, Fall 1999