At the unimagined crossroads of 1,001 Arabian Nights and Truly Tasteless Jokes stands The Book of Jokes, by Scottish songwriter Nick Currie, who goes by the pen-name “Momus.” The speaker of The Book of Jokes, “Sebastian Skeleton,” finds himself in prison, where he’s targeted by a Murderer and a Molester—those are their names—whose dreadful [...]
Author Archives: Adam Novy
Review: Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s Camera
January 1, 2009 – 8:48 pm
Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s Camera defies so many sacrosanct laws of fiction that the critic hardly knows where to start, but among its most disturbing propositions is the notion that narrative itself is a kind of overstatement, that turning points in life don’t actually exist, that life is nothing more than one bloody thing after another.
Toussaint is [...]
Review: Philip Roth’s Indignation
October 31, 2008 – 8:17 pm
At first, Philip Roth’s umpteenth novel Indignation seems a YouTube reel of familiar Rothian tropes: tradition-addled kids, annoying parents; Newark; prudes, shikses — yet it bears so many ancient grudges, so much destabilizing rage, that its fury makes it thrilling and unique.
Like almost every Roth protagonist, Marcus Messner is the son of a Newark shopkeeper [...]
