Issue 5 | July 2008
THE SUMMER BEACH book is ubiquitous, and wouldn’t it be nice to use them to keep the clam-bake BBQ going till dawn? After lots of hours near the surf, sort of the best feeling is when you get off the sand and go sit in an air conditioned room. Now you can get some reading done!
THE HEAT IS ON this month with two novels by George Simenon that catch you up in the hard life of characters on the fringe. The Widow finds Jean working on Tati’s farm in their native French town. Jean is just out of prison, and the sting of life has not yet left him; Tati is fighting familial rivalries. The showdown is remarkable writing and vintage Simenon. In Tropic Moon, Joseph Timar seeks his fortune in Gabon, Africa, amid ruffians, misfits, con artists, and equatorial heat. He makes a few poor decisions.
IN THE NONFICTION category, Sven Birkerts opines on The Art of Time in Memoir, a subject he deftly explores in a series of meditations that both illuminate unique methods used by the likes of Nabokov and Woolf, Conroy and Beard.
