2,881 words
James Howard Kunstler, whose blog Clusterfuck Nation covers both political and cultural events, published Young Man Blues last year, a fast-paced and enthralling memoir about his troubled adolescence. When he was released from a mental institution he called The Laughing Academy, he judged “My childhood was over and the statute of limitations on my childhood grievances was over, too.” (more…)
2,878 words
Field of Dreams (1989)
Written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson
Starring Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, & Ray Liotta
W. P. Kinsella
Shoeless Joe
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982
The most magical movie of 1989 was the baseball film Field of Dreams, which is based on the 1982 book Shoeless Joe by William Patrick “W. P.” Kinsella (1935-2016). (more…)
2,831 words
Literature can shape the way we look at the world — even without our knowing it, or being beware of the specific literature in question. A Bible verse shared during a church service or a few lines of poetry offered in a classroom can have this effect. With novels, well-drawn characters can stick with us until we view life through their fictional eyes. I imagine Ernest Hemingway had this in mind when he claimed that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” There is a little of Huck Finn in all of us, in other words. (more…)
2,194 words
Joanna Rakoff is a writer, and My Salinger Year is Philippe Falardeau’s film of her memoir about 1995, when she is on a visit to New York from Berkeley, fresh from university. The visit becomes permanent, however, because Joanna is a writer; she’s determined to make it, especially to get published in The New Yorker. Joanna, played by Margaret Qualley, is determined, a bit shy, and has a slurred, squeaky voice that hints English major. God knows, I heard enough of them. (more…)