At first glance, Kemper Donovan’s backyard bungalow appears perfectly normal for this Santa Monica neighborhood, but a few clues suggest otherwise.
A map of the English county of Devon. A copy of “The Poisoner’s Handbook.” A professional-looking microphone perched on a wooden desk. And then there’s the enormous portrait of Agatha Christie hanging next to the guest bed.
The first line of George Saunders’ acutely relevant collection of new stories: “It is third day of Interim.” Immediately, we ask: Interim? Why capitalized? Could Interim refer to our lives during COVID (maybe not over)? To the Trump years (maybe not over)? To our time on this planet (also not over, at least not yet)?
This is one of Saunders’ tricks, to write directly to the world of the story while writing to us out here in our chairs, our streets, our workplaces, and to our politics and public discourse. He provides a mirror, albeit a wonderfully distorted one.
The top line descriptor of the book is that it is a systems novel, the death of which has been much exaggerated of late, one that takes on the beastly word of academia. Erin Adamo is a Ph.D. candidate at one of those prestigious Manhattanite universities that lend themselves so well to novels, possessed of a fine literary mind, an imploding marriage, taxing parents, and an apartment for which she has no key. Through this stressed out graduate, Ives refracts a novel of multitudinous brilliance and luminosity, hammering away at convention and the well-trod path with the confidence and skill of an accomplished, fearless writer. It is a credit to both her vision and her publisher’s constitution that Life Is Everywhere, as wide-ranging and risk-taking a novel to be found this side of Infinite Jest, never once feels restrained or neutered.
Moore retired from comics a few years back, a huge loss to his admirers and the profession. Even his loopiest work — the last few volumes of “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” for example — had something searing to say about matters mundane and sacred, and his feverish creativity was worth every bizarre digression and self-indulgent turn.
Fortunately, Moore hasn’t retired from storytelling. He is now an estimable writer of fiction with three books, including his latest, the story collection “Illuminations,” and while none of these volumes have the gamma-ray punch of his comics, all of them burn with Moore’s soaring intelligence and riotous humanity.
Global warming is arguably the most important topic in the news right now. Unless we act quickly and decisively, the lives of future generations are sure to be very grim. For this reason, at the very least, Tiziana Andina’s new book, translated by Antonella Emmi, deserves attention. Her blessedly brief and relentlessly lucid account offers a philosophical perspective on our situation. A Philosophy for Future Generations has four parts: an explanation of why the future matters; a survey of the relevant philosophical literature; a constructive analysis of philosophical responses; and, finally, three applications of her analysis.
I am standing in this field
Holding my glove in the air
Should I whistle?
I can’t whistle