My Review of Origins of the Universe and What It All Means by Carole Firstman up at River Teeth!!!

I'm very pleased to have my first review ever published at the venerable River Teeth. I review the compelling debut memoir Origins of the Universe and What It All Means by Carole Firstman. Take a few minutes and give it a go!

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Review of Beatlebone by Kevin Barry up at Page & Spine!!!

Anyone who knows me knows I'm curious about the intersection of rock and roll with the novel form. To me, the rock life is inherently dramatic, and it hasn't yet been overdone in literature. How do we use the long fiction form--where words and not music have to do most if not all of the heavy lifting--in a way that complements what we already know about rock and doesn't take away from it?

With this in mind, I'm very pleased to have my latest review--on the novel Beatlebone by Kevin Barry--up at Page and Spine. Topics explored include John Lennon, scream therapy, and the advantages and disadvantages of making famous people into fictional characters.

Here's the link again.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My REM Piece up at BULL!!!

I think most musicians have an album that at some point broke them into a million pieces and reassembled them into something else entirely. For me, that album was Lifes Rich Pageant by R.E.M., which came out thirty years ago this past week, and I wrote about the experience for BULL: Fiction for Men. Let's take a Sunday morning trip down memory lane, shall we?

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young R.E.M. Fan

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Review of Vexation Lullaby by Justin Tussing up at Page & Spine

I'm thrilled to be the first one to get to tell you about Vexation Lullaby, the rock novel by Justin Tussing that I reviewed for Page & Spine this past week.

This one will find a place on my Top 20 Rock Novels of All Time list at the end of the year. Any Dylan fans out there? You'll want to check this out!

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Review of The Telling by Zoe Zolbrod up at Colorado Review!!!

It must be my birthday week, because not one but two of my reviews have popped up in Internetland since Sunday. The latest is my review of The Telling by Zoe Zolbrod, which is brought to you by Colorado Review.

Take a look.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Review of Landfall by Ellen Urbani up at Up the Staircase!!!

I'm very pleased my review of the novel Landfall by Ellen Urbani just popped up at Up the Staircase.

Come see.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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Happy Pub Day for M. Thomas Gammarino and King of the Worlds!!!

One of the best things about reviewing books is getting a chance to review a writer over a series of titles. That's the case with M. Thomas Gammarino. His first novel Big in Japan I reviewed last year for The Rumpus, and his latest King of the Worlds got the full treatment at Entropy today. What did I think? Find out!

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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