Top 5 Books
“Chronic City,” Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday)
“War Dances,” Sherman Alexie (Grove Press)
“Generosity: An Enhancement,” Richard Powers (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)
“Ruins,” Achy Obejas (Akashic Books)
“Inherent Vice,” Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press)
—Tom Lynch

Top 5 Local Books
“Ruins,” Achy Obejas (Akashic Books)
“Her Fearful Symmetry,” Audrey Niffenegger (Scribner)
“How to Hold a Woman,” Billy Lombardo (OV Books)
“The Way Through Doors,” Jesse Ball (Vintage)
“The Adventures of Cancer Bitch,” S.L. Wisenberg (University of Iowa Press)
—Tom Lynch Read the rest of this entry »

By Tom Lynch

Since author Jonathan Lethem caught the world’s attention with his 1999 breakout novel “Motherless Brooklyn,” he’s taken unexpected writing turns, embracing changes of pace that seem to prevent the talent from growing terribly stale. His 2003 follow-up was the semi-autobiographical magical dramedy “The Fortress of Solitude,” about two teenage friends growing up in 1970s Brooklyn. Throw in a short-story collection, a stellar assembly of essays (“The Disappointment Artist”), a MacArthur Fellowship and another novel, a quickfire ode to rock music set in California called “You Don’t Love Me Yet,” and you have a popular writer who’s had various successes in different mediums of writing and who’s most likely not written his best work yet.

For “Chronic City,” his new novel, Lethem returns to New York, albeit a Manhattan based in unreality, to introduce Chase Insteadman, a former child TV star who’s developed socialite celebrity without doing very much. He longs for a girlfriend who’s trapped on the International Space Station, who sends him aching love letters that are published in the paper. The whole city knows the saga. Almost immediately in the book—in the first sentence, in fact—Chase meets Perkus Tooth, an eccentric pop critic whose collection of peculiar suits is only outnumbered by the mass of conspiracy theories of which he’s convinced. Chase is Lethem’s straight man, and Perkus one of the most colorful characters he’s conjured yet—“Chronic City,” which steers us through inventive countercultural sects as Perkus takes our narrator on the great paranoia ride, questions, well, everything, while the two men search for an elusive truth. The book is a buddy tale as much as a clever hipster sci-fi extravaganza, and about halfway through the novel a weight presses upon your chest as you realize that Lethem has only become more skilled at storytelling. Read the rest of this entry »

Granta, the literary magazine founded by Cambridge University students in 1889, has a long and storied history of publishing political material as well as the work of several writers. It was relaunched in 1979 as a platform for new writers, and reworked again in 2007 with new editor Jason Cowley. Alex Clark, the magazine’s first female editor, took over for Cowley after he left, and when Smith stepped down, the magazine’s American editor, John Freeman, a frequent Newcity contributor, took her position.

Granta’s fall issue, number 108, is Chicago-themed, and the marvelous collection features entries from Aleksandar Hemon, Alex Kotlowitz, Neil Steinberg, Richard Powers, Sandra Cisneros, Stuart Dybek and more. Don DeLillo offers a brief introductory essay to a Nelson Algren piece, and Chris Ware did the issue’s cover. A photo essay by Camilo Jose Vergara is included and provides an intermission to the text. This collection serves as a packaged insight into what Chicago means—how it feels to live here, be from here, exist within a city sometimes difficult to love yet impossible to resist. I chatted with Freeman over email to get some of his thoughts on the upcoming issue. Read the rest of this entry »