March 24, 2007
Bandwagons
To those (unlucky) few who aren't on the Alice Munro bandwagon with the rest of us, our ceaseless praise must sound like a menacing rumble: Munromunromunromunro. Well, that's more than fitting, really: menacing and Munro often belong in the same sentence. If you want a delicious, dastardly shock, run don't walk to your nearest library and pick up a copy of the February Harper's, in which you'll find Munro's new story, "Child's Play." I shrieked -- an actual shriek, out loud -- when I read the last page.
Speaking of bandwagons . . . some bigwigs have hopped onto the Richard Yates Express. Yates's 1961 book Revolutionary Road is probably my favorite novel of all time (a first edition, found in a small used bookstore in rural Connecticut, is one of Scott's and my most prized possessions), and I have just learned that Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet will star in a screen version, to be directed by Sam Mendes. I sure hope they do it justice.
Posted by Michael Lowenthal at 10:24 AM
March 01, 2007
I [heart] Documentaries
I hope to get back to reading and recommending books sometime soon, but all my reading lately has been manuscripts by students and clients.
I have seen some fine movies, though, and I would especially like to bring people's attention to Southern Comfort. This unsettling, unforgettable film won the grand jury documentary prize at Sundance in 2001, but somehow I missed it till just recently. It's about a female-to-male transsexual living in the backwoods of Georgia, dying of ovarian cancer and unable to get good medical care, because the doctors whose help he seeks are too ignorant and hateful. He -- yes, think about how jarring it is for a "he" to be dying of ovarian cancer -- is also dating a male-to-female transsexual, and has somehow created a community of supportive folks even in this reddest of redneck states. The film isn't made with any kind of narrative trickery; its power derives from the bedrock dignity and love and humor shown by its subjects.
Posted by Michael Lowenthal at 12:57 PM
