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Fiction ChronicleMay 2004 Not to comment, but to illustrate by Max Watman A review of The Confessions of Max Tivoli, by Andrew Sean Greer; The Dew Breaker, by Edwidge Danticat; Bandbox: A Novel, by Thomas Mallon; Little Children: A Novel, by Tom Perrotta; I Dream of Microwaves, by Imad Rahman & I Sailed with Magellan, by Stuart Dybeck. I recently saw a man wearing a t-shirt that said “I bring nothing to the table.” These t-shirts should be handed out at the orientation session of every MFA program in the country. Not as a rebuke, but as celebration and encouragement. It is not always a new angle, or a new approach, or a new gimmick that your book needs. Don’t add something just for the sake of adding. That’s destructive. How about bringing nothing to the table? How about thinking inside the damn box every once in a while? Andrew Sean Greer, when considering and plotting out his book The Confessions of Max Tivoli, clearly thought the family itself—all that malarkey that occupied Austen, Tolstoy, etc.—not quite meaty enough.[1] The family, well there’s something to that, but what can one bring to the table? What if … w ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 22 May 2004, on page 58 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Not-to-comment--but-to-illustrate-1499
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by Max Watman Reviews of "The View from Castle Rock: Stories," by Alice Munro; "Talk Talk," by T.C. Boyle; and "Special Topics in Calamity Physics," by Marisha Pessl. by Stefan Beck On The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta, Zone One by Colson Whitehead, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco & Cain by José Saramago. by Stefan Beck On The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Slim by Jonathan Coe, Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell & The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. by Stefan Beck On Freedom, 03, A Visit from the Goon Squad & Dogfight, A Love Story.
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