Maureen Corrigan

In 'TransAtlantic,' The Flight Is Almost Too Smooth

Maureen Corrigan — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:42:00 +0000

Here we go into the wild blue yonder again with Colum McCann. In his 2009 novel, Let the Great World Spin, McCann swooped readers up into the air with the French aerialist Philippe Petit, who staged an illegal high-wire stunt walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Strictly speaking, Let the Great World Spin was not a Sept. 11 novel, and yet almost everyone rightly read it as one, since McCann's tale commemorated the towers at the literal zenith of their history.

'Beside Ourselves' Explores Human-Animal Connections

Maureen Corrigan — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:30:00 +0000

Note: The audio and text of this review describe a major plot point that is not revealed until partway into the book.

If you know Karen Joy Fowler's writing only from her clever, 2004 best-seller, The Jane Austen Book Club, you're in for a shock.

After WWII, A Letter Of Appreciation That Still Rings True

Maureen Corrigan — Mon, 27 May 2013 15:18:00 +0000

In the fall of 1945, my father was honorably discharged from the Navy. He was one of the lucky ones. He'd served on a destroyer escort during the war, first in convoys dodging U-boats in the Atlantic and then in the Pacific where his ship, the USS Schmitt, shot down two kamikaze planes. My dad always kept a framed picture of the Schmitt above his dresser, but, like most men of his generation, he didn't talk a lot about his war years.

One story he did tell me, because it haunted him, was about a shipmate who was lost on duty one night.

Coming To 'Americanah': Two Tales Of Immigrant Experience

Maureen Corrigan — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:08:00 +0000

First things first: Can we talk about hair? Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a big knockout of a novel about immigration, American dreams, the power of first love, and the shifting meanings of skin color; but, as Adichie has said in interviews, she also knows that black women's hair can speak volumes about racial politics.

Godwin's 'Flora': A Tale Of Remorse That Creeps Under Your Skin

Maureen Corrigan — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:56:00 +0000

Gail Godwin says one of the inspirations for her new novel, called Flora, is Henry James' ghost story The Turn of the Screw. Both stories take place in isolated old houses, and both revolve around mental contests between a governess character and her young charge.

'Equilaterial': Martians, Oil And A Hole In The Desert

Maureen Corrigan — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:14:00 +0000

Equilateral is a weird little novel, but any reader familiar with Ken Kalfus expects his writing to go off-road. Kalfus wrote one of the best and certainly the least sentimental novels about New York City post-9/11. I loved A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, but I stopped assigning it to students in my New York lit class because they were usually turned off by its black humor and lack of uplift. Equilateral doesn't run that same risk of being in bad taste as social commentary because, at first, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with current events.

Beauty Marks: Patricia Volk's Lessons In Womanhood

Maureen Corrigan — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:00:00 +0000

I've loved Patricia Volk's writing ever since I read her evocative 2002 memoir, Stuffed, which told the story of her grandfather — who introduced pastrami to America — as well as the rest of her family, who fed New Yorkers for more than 100 years in their various restaurants. Stuffed, like the best food memoirs, served up so much more on its plate than just a bagel and a schmear. So when I picked up Volk's new memoir, Shocked, my appetite was already whetted for the humor of her writing, its emotional complexity and smarts.

'Burgess Boys' Family Saga Explores The Authenticity Of Imperfection

Maureen Corrigan — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:16:00 +0000

In 1846, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a famous essay called "The Philosophy of Composition," in which he sounds like an interior decorator. I say that because in the essay, Poe insists that all good writing must strive for what he calls "unity of effect." For Poe, it was important that everything in his short stories — characters, setting, narration — add up to one big "color-me-terrified" impact.

I kept thinking of Poe's matchy-matchy theory of writing as I was reading Elizabeth Strout's new novel, The Burgess Boys.

The Apathy In 'A Thousand Pardons' Is Hard To Forgive

Maureen Corrigan — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:09:00 +0000

Jonathan Dee likes to write about rich, good-looking people falling apart — and who among the 99 percent of us can't enjoy that plot? In The Privileges, the dad of the family was a Wall Street trader, tempted by existential boredom into larceny; in A Thousand Pardons, the dad of the family is a partner in a New York law firm, tempted by existential boredom into a disastrous workplace affair. The women in Dee's recent fiction tend to be decorative stay-at-home moms; that is, until the spontaneous combustion of hubby's career expels them out of their silken domestic cocoons.

'Lean In': Not Much Of A Manifesto, But Still A Win For Women

Maureen Corrigan — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:19:00 +0000

Sheryl Sandberg tells an anecdote in her new book, Lean In, about sitting down with her boss, Mark Zuckerberg, for her first performance review as chief operating officer at Facebook.