About Book Marks
John M. Clum
Recent Reviews
David Santos Donaldson
Rave The New York Journal of Books ... eloquent, totally absorbing ... Donaldson’s easy style carries one along through Kip’s crises and Mohammed’s testing of Forster’s love for him. The parallels between the two stories are clear, but the novel is too rich to settle for easy equations. There are echoes of seminal works of Black and gay literature ... David Santos Donaldson has powerfully captured the isolating pain of a man who has spent his life being seen as \'the other.\' His central character realizes that, nonetheless, one can only find oneself and one’s creative voice, through one’s messy relations with other people. Greenland is another fine contribution to a growing canon of Black queer fiction.
Edafe Okporo
Rave New York Journal of Books Part memoir, part polemic, Edake Okporo’s Asylum is the harrowing story of one gay man’s treacherous youth in a violently homophobic country and his subsequent experience as an asylum seeker in the United States ... Asylum is an eloquent, powerful, sometimes harrowing chronicle of what it means to be a gay man in a violently homophobic country and what it means to be a Black asylum seeker in our \'land of the free.\' The book is also a stirring record of the suffering and healing of a courageous young man who is a born leader.
Selva Almada, Tr. Annie McDermott
Rave New York Journal of Books ... intense, eloquent ... not a conventional murder mystery—it is a picture of the destructive power of machismo on the indigenous men and women of this community ... a vivid group portrait ... Annie McDermott’s new, highly readable translation makes Almada’s superb 2013 novel available for the first time to Anglophone readers. It is bound to make the reader hungry for more of Almada’s award-winning work.
Elias Rodriques
Positive The New York Journal of Books ... poetic ... Rodriques sensitively depicts the complexities of desire and sexual identity ... Rodriques has captured in sharp detail this poor section of Florida and the dialect of Daniel’s social world ... a worthy addition to the group of fine recent novels about gay men of color looking for their own sense of racial and ethnic identity as well as meaningful connections with the people who love them. Rodriques’ novel also follows the work of many Southern writers in evoking a powerful sense of place and celebrating its language.
Michael Nava
Rave New York Journal of Books Michael Nava is a lively writer who can make dialogue and exposition exciting. He also knows how to build suspense. Nava paints a vivid picture of the homophobic and racist bullying of the Los Angeles Police in 1980s and before, using the real names of the police chiefs who maintained a tradition of prejudice and violence ... Lies with Man maintains the high standard Michael Nava set in the novels he wrote a generation ago. Nava is an impassioned writer who has once again created a fascinating picture of Los Angeles at an earlier, less enlightened time, centering on gay men trying to shed the shame they have been taught and becoming proud agents of social change.
David Thomson
Mixed The New York Journal of Books Like much of Thompson’s work, it is a chatty book, written in a breezy style, filled with opinions but short on argument and analysis ... In essence, Thompson has created a highly personal pantheon of \'Great Directors,\' just as earlier critics like Pauline Kael and arch-auteurist Andrew Sarris did half of a century ago. Such pantheons are always controversial ... entertaining but not particularly enlightening, heavy on gossip but light on serious argument. It has little value for anyone who is a serious devotee of film.
Mark Harris
Rave New York Journal of Books Mark Harris’s 600-plus page biography of comic-turned-director Mike Nichols will be an essential starting point for future work on this legendary show business luminary ... This is definitely a \'warts and all\' biography, chronicling in detail Nichols four marriages, his drug abuse, and his mental breakdowns. The dark sections are balanced by accounts of Nichols’ gift of friendship. More important, the book offers a detailed study of the ups and downs of a career that spanned over half a century ... Mark Harris’s biography is a must for every film and theatre buff. Every moment in Nichols’ life and career comes vividly alive. The book is also a meticulous piece of scholarship, thoroughly annotated and containing a generous selection of illustrations. Mike Nichols: A Life is an invaluable contribution to the history of American theatre and film since World War II as well as a colorful portrait of one of its most celebrated and at times denigrated practitioners.
Jo Nesbø, tr. Robert Ferguson
Positive The New York Journal of Books ... starts slowly, but one gets enthralled by Roy’s detailed narrative of his bloody family. His narrative jumps back and forth in time, but the selection and arrangement of events offers a vivid picture why Roy acts as he does. Nesbo is always a great storyteller. The world he depicts is bleak and potentially depressing, but he presents it with relentless power. There are moments when the narrative gets a bit far-fetched and it becomes clear that a stretch of guard rail on a hairpin curve would have radically changed the story. Still, the contrast between Roy’s calm narrative and the horrors that take place give this saga of intense love and betrayal enormous tension.
Corey Sobel
Positive The New York Journal of Books ... eloquent, poignant ... Sobel’s novel is so rich in detail that one doesn’t know whether to place it in the realm of college fiction a la F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe or closer to autofiction like the work of Edouard Louis ... Sobel, who won Duke’s major literary prizes, is a gifted writer with an eye for precise description. One can feel mired in too much detail at times. Moreover, the denouement doesn’t seem totally credible. Wouldn’t an institution like King College give an academic scholarship to a serious student with a 4.0 grade point average and a family with straitened financial circumstances? ... an absorbing portrait of the culture of college athletics as expressed at an institution determined to move from loser to winner at football.
Carlos Lozada
Positive The New York Journal of Books This reviewer is grateful to Lozada for doing the thoughtful reading and digesting of this large, constantly growing body of literature and offering such cogent analyses of this canon. If you haven’t read these 150 books, What Were We Thinking will give you a fascinating overview and analysis of the books that explain where we are now, how we got here, and where we might be headed.
Bryan Washington
Positive New York Journal of Books There are many histories interwoven in Memorial, Bryan Washington’s bittersweet novel of connections and disconnections ... Yes, Memorial is another novel about lost 20y-somethings, but Washington makes the reader care deeply about his characters who above all want to feel a sense of home. That word—home—resonates throughout the novel ... a deeply moving book by a young novelist with a unique voice and a strong sense of optimism.
James Kaplan
Positive The New York Journal of Books ... benefits from Kaplan’s research in the Irving Berlin Archives at the Library of Congress. Kaplan is interested in Berlin as composer-lyricist and as show business titan ... Kaplan’s book is well-documented and written in an enjoyable, conversational style. One senses on every page Kaplan’s enthusiasm for his subject as well as his deep knowledge. This is the best introduction to Berlin’s life and work.
Daniel Mendelsohn
Rave The New York Journal of Books Mendelsohn proclaims that meaningful critical judgment comes from a combination of a deep knowledge of and passion for one’s subject and taste. We see all these criteria at work in the essays in this volume ... Throughout the volume, Daniel Mendelsohn fulfills his own criteria for good criticism. His erudition is always impressive, but one never feels that he is showing off. Above all, his essays glow with his love of his subject matter. When he doesn’t like a work, he shows that he has read it carefully and crafted a solid argument for his disapproval. The writing is clear, elegant and free of what the author calls the rebarbative jargon of much academic criticism. Ecstasy and Terror is always a pleasure to read.
James Poniewozik
Positive The New York Journal of Books ... highly readable if disturbing ... a lively, fascinating book that makes a convincing argument; however, it’s not the whole story of Trump’s relationship with the media. Poniewozik does not discuss in depth the crucial importance of the new media to Trump’s success, particularly Trump’s constant use of Twitter (11,000 Tweets since he took office), which nourishes his supporters and feeds the outrage of his opponents. The tweets, more than television, have changed the way presidential power is exercised ... Nor does he emphasize the many extremist websites that provide the conspiracy theories that Trump retweets. Trump has indeed mastered television, but much of America depends for their information on other sources, and Trump clearly has his eyes on some of the darker websites. Nonetheless, Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America is a must read for those who want to understand the media phenomenon now in the White House.
William J. Mann
Positive The New York Journal of Books ... an exhaustive, sometimes exhausting study that is both a recounting of the available information about Brando’s life and career and an analysis of Brando the artist ... One may quibble with Mann’s frequent repetition of his theories about what made Brando tick as a man and an artist. Nonetheless, The Contender is an impressive book, a must for fans of Brando and of film acting. The book offers detailed descriptions of the making of Brando’s major films as well as a rich sense of the inner and outer life of this complex, often troubled man.
Richard Zoglin
Positive New York Journal of Books Richard Zoglin’s fascinating book, Elvis in Vegas, places Elvis’s Las Vegas years in the context of the history of entertainment in that city from the first nightclub in 1931 to the present ... Zoglin is as interested in the musicians and entertainers who turned the smaller lounges into popular spots, from the first great lounge act, Louis Prima and Keely Smith. He also discusses the different styles of comics that opened for the singing stars ... Elvis in Vegas is a must-read for fans of Elvis and for all who are interested in the history of popular entertainment in America. Zoglin has a lively style and his chronicle is generously documented.
Peter Rader
Positive The New York Journal of Books There is nothing new in Rader’s book that has not been covered by the many biographers of Bernhardt and Duse. His dual-biography structure allows him to highlight the ways their lives and careers both parallel and contrast. Rader has a breezy style that keeps the reader fascinated. Playing to the Gods is a useful entry into the careers and lives of these two extraordinary artists.
Wendy Lesser
Positive New York Journal of Books Lesser has provided enough facts about Robbins’s life to give us a sense of this difficult man and his creative process. Where she excels is in her detailed analysis of selected works that she thinks represent Robbins at his best ... Much of the book is taken up with Lesser’s detailed descriptions of the Robbins dances she most admires. It is these analyses that make her book unique ... Lesser’s Jerome Robbins is eloquently written.