14= THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY,SEPTEMBER26,2002
Fall full of new choices for readers
By C.J. Jackson cjackson@kansan.com Jayplay writer
Fall is the time of year when most wellknown authors release their new material. Unfortunately it's also the time of year when most students are getting back to work. Who has time for a pleasure read when you've got piles of class readings you're already behind on? Well, fall break is just around the corner, when you might have time to read, so here's some reviews of this fall's offerings from four of the literary world's best and brightest. Who knows, maybe you'll find one worth making the time for.
Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man Release date: Oct. 1
Much of Smith's considerable hype has stemmed from her literary debut White Teeth, an outstanding, laugh-out-loud funny novel! about multicultural families in North London. So great was Teeth, which the San Francisco Chronicle calls "the first great novel of the new century," that Smith will face a steep learning curve if she wants to avoid the sophomore slump with her second offering. The Autograph Man is a novel centered on the travails of Alex Li Tandem, an autograph dealer with all sorts of internal issues. If Smith's past writing is any indication, this novel should pack a fair amount of humor and wit. There are rumblings that this was a rushed offering — a foreboding sign for a second
novel that has not yet been printed.
Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions In stores now
Auster, a native New Yorker, has published 10 novels, all of which have received steady reviews. His latest novel, The Book of Illusions takes the reader to Vermont, where David Zimmer, a college professor, is struggling to regain his composure months after the loss of his wife and sons in a plane crash. Oddly enough, Zimmer finds comfort in the silent films of presumed-dead silent film director Hector Mann. Zimmer begins to work on a book
about Mann, whose previously-unseen silent films have begun surfacing at film studios throughout the United States after being anonymously sent. Auster, proud of his New York roots, took the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 particularly hard, and though this book is not a direct response to the attacks, its subject matter suggests that Sept. 11 played some part in the creative process for this novel.
Jonathan Franzen, How to Be Alone: Essays In stores now
Jonathan Franzen is as famous for his outstanding third novel, The Corrections, as he is for his high profile spat with talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who he criticized after The Corrections was chosen to
be in Oprah's book club. Franzen's latest offering, How to Be Alone, is a collection of essays, a specialty of Franzen who is both highly opinionated and highly experienced in the art. Franzen has been a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and Harper's, and rails on capitalism, technology and big corporations. While this novel may not stir up as much press as a publicly aired argument with Oprah, it should present some interesting thoughts from
one of America's best authors under 40.
Michael Chabon, Summerland In stores now
Pulitzer prizewinning author Michael Chabon is trying something different for his latest novel, Summerland. He is writing for kids. Chabon, best known for novels Wonder Boys and
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, says he wrote his latest novel so his kids can read something he writes. He's careful to put the "all ages" tag on Summerland lest sales be more laggard than necessary. Summerland is about an 11-year-old boy, Ethan Feld, who moves to rainy Washington state with his father after the death of his mother. Past that, the book becomes pure fantasy of the Harry Potter sort. Ethan lives off the western tip of an island with mysterious, forever-lush and sunny fields, and mysterious baseball scouts help the athletically inept Ethan improve his baseball skills. While Chabon is a well-regarded author among the "big kids," it remains to be seen how children (or adults for that matter), will react to Summerland.
—Edited by Lauren Beatty
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