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As we've previously noted, Donald Westlake's (1933-2008) early Parker novels—the hard-boiled noir thrillers he wrote under the name Richard Stark—have been making a comeback since we began reissuing them in '08.

But we can't take all the credit for the resurgence of the ruthless Parker. In the summer of '09 Eisner Award-winning comic book artist Darwyn Cooke released his graphic adaptation of one of the first books of the series—The Hunter—at the 2009 Comic-Con International in San Diego where it made a big splash amongst the comic book world's elite tastemakers. And now it seems that the federally sanctioned tastemakers in Washington have taken notice too. According to Almost Darwyn Cooke's Blog Darwyn is scheduled to discuss his graphic adaptation of The Hunter at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Saturday January 30, 2010 starting at 4 PM. Mr. Westlake, I'm sure would be pleased to see such an enthusiastic reception of his classic character of crime fiction from all corners.

For more about the event see Calum Johnston's Almost Darwyn Cooke's Blog or check the event listing on the Smithsonian website.

For more about Darwyn's graphic adaptation of The Hunter check out his publisher's website at www.idwpublishing.com.

And finally, check the Press's website to find out more about the Parker novels and read this interview with the author.

Archived in Books for the News | Fiction
Posted by TXM at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good news from the world of publishing isn't easy to come by, so a new outlet for Midwestern writers of literary fiction is a welcome development. Thus we tip our collective hats to our good friends at Northern Illinois University Press and their new imprint Switchgrass Books, which debuts with Season of Water and Ice by Michigan writer Donald Lystra and Beautiful Piece by Joseph G. Peterson, who we are pleased to count a colleague here at the Press.

Set somewhere in Chicago during the 1995 Chicago heat wave, Peterson's noirish novel is the gritty, hallucinatory story of a risky relationship and its inevitable, chilling climax. Meanwhile, Lystra's book tracks the life of young Danny DeWitt and his father as they struggle with issues of love and family in rural northern Michigan in the 1950's. Set side by side Switchgrass's inaugural releases represent the rich diversity of the Midwestern literary landscape and the hidden talent lurking there.

To find out more about Switchgrass books navigate to their website or listen to this recent interview with NIU press director Alex Schwartz talking about the new imprint and it's first two releases on Chicago Public Radio's Eight Forty-Eight.

Our warm congratulations.

Archived in Chicago | Commentary | Fiction | Literature
Posted by TXM at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the New York Times, Donald Westlake was “one of the most successful and versatile mystery writers in the United States,” with over 100 books to his name. The University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of his Parker series, written under the pseudonym Richard Stark, to print for a new generation of readers to discover—and become addicted to. These reprints will feature volumes 1-16 of the incredible series, through Butcher’s Moon.

Stark’s ruthless antihero is one of the most unforgettable characters in hardboiled noir. Lauded by critics for his taut realism, unapologetic amorality, and razor-sharp prose-style—and adored by fans who turn each intoxicating page with increasing urgency—Richard Stark is a master of crime writing, his books as influential as any in the genre.

Read the press release, and read this interview with the author.

Also see our complete list of books currently available in the series.

Archived in Fiction | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A cold blooded, merciless, professional killer that would make even Superman soil his tights invaded this year's Comic-Con. As we've previously noted, the ruthless antihero of Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark's series of mystery novels, known only as Parker, is making his graphic novel debut in an adaptation of Stark's 1962 novel The Hunter, produced by illustrator Darwyn Cooke and San Diego book editor Scott Dunbier. As the Chicago Tribune's Geoff Boucher reports in his review of the novel for last Wednesday's paper:

[The] adaptation is already being hailed as a masterpiece by key tastemakers in the comics world, and last week it met the public as Cooke and Dunbier took it to Comic-Con International in San Diego, the massive pop-culture expo that is a sort of Cannes for capes or a Sundance for sci-fi.

And in a laudatory article on the new adaptation in today's New York Times contributor George Gene Gustines writes:

Mr. Cooke depicts his characters with such emotion and conveys so much with gesture and composition that, except for the specifics of the hijacking, you could almost follow the story by the images alone. And when the words and graphics are in harmony, the effect is deliciously brutal.

But according to Boucher's piece for the Tribune, Cooke's adaptation of Stark's novel is only part of a larger resurgence in "noir-minded projects" that includes a new imprint from DC comics called Vertigo Crime and has been drawing the attention of many in the movie industry as well. Many of Stark's novels have already been adapted for the big screen in the form of films like Point Blank and Payback but as Boucher writes, "Cooke's pen-and-ink Parker may well lead to a new round of Westlake curiosity in Hollywood."

We'll be waiting with bells on for news of a new Parker film while flipping through the illustrated pages of IDW Press's graphic adaptation of The Hunter, but for all those whose thirst for booty, blood, and vengeance isn't satiated with such a paltry offering from the many novels in Stark's classic Parker series, check out the press's paperback reissues, with three more scheduled for publication each season until the series is complete.

Also check out the blog of our publicity manager and in-house expert on all things Stark for a full week's worth of postings on the author's prolific oeuvre.

Archived in Fiction | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the New York Times, Donald Westlake was “one of the most successful and versatile mystery writers in the United States,” with over 100 books to his name. The University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of his Parker series, written under the pseudonym Richard Stark, to print for a new generation of readers to discover—and become addicted to. Stark’s ruthless antihero is one of the most unforgettable characters in hardboiled noir. Lauded by critics for his taut realism, unapologetic amorality, and razor-sharp prose-style—and adored by fans who turn each intoxicating page with increasing urgency—Richard Stark is a master of crime writing, his books as influential as any in the genre.

“Whatever Stark writes, I read. He’s a stylist, a pro, and I thoroughly enjoy his attitude.” —Elmore Leonard

Parker … lumbers through the pages of Richard Stark’s noir novels scattering dead bodies like peanut shells.… In a complex world [he] makes things simple.” —William Grimes, New York Times

Read the press release or read an interview with the author.

Archived in Fiction | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since yesterday, when the National Endowment for the Arts announced the results of its latest study of national reading habits, scores of articles have appeared to report on its findings that "for the first time in more than 25 years, American adults are reading more literature"—a great leap forward from the portrait of our habits painted by the NEA's last study, in 2002, which found that reading was "in crisis."

Amid the flood of ink spilled over this apparently dramatic shift, David Ulin's column in today's Los Angeles Times stands out as particularly nuanced. "I'm not so sure reading really was in crisis—any more than it ever has been," he writes, arguing that while he's "glad that reading also seems to be on the upswing," the NEA's report might not paint the fullest picture possible of Americans' literary lives.

Ulin points out, for example, that though the NEA for the first time included online reading habits in its survey, "nonfiction was left out of the loop.… That puts the works of David McCullough, Joseph Mitchell, Patricia Hampl and a lot of other authors into the 'not literature' category and out of the picture."

Without wading into the debate over what counts and does not count as Literature, we might suggest that if you're one of the many Americans who's been reading more fiction lately, you might also enjoy sparkling literary nonfiction by the likes of Lawrence Weschler, Greg Bottoms, Adam Biro, Shirley Hazzard, and Erin Hogan. (In addition, of course, to the fiction of Norman Maclean and Lee Siegel.)

If you're not sure where to start—or if you simply prefer to read online—allow us to point you toward excerpts of Hogan's Spiral Jetta, Biro's One Must Also Be Hungarian, and Siegel's newest novel, Love and the Incredibly Old Man.

Archived in Commentary | Fiction | Literature
Posted by MM at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Donald E. Westlake, prolific and award-winning mystery novelist, died New Year's Eve while on vacation in Mexico. He was 75. His career spanned 100 books and five screenplays. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1991 for his screenplay for The Grifters. The Mystery Writers of America honored him with three Edgar Awards and in 1993 its highest honor, the title of Grand Master.

Westlake published novels under his own name and under several pseudonyms. Last year the Press began to reprint the early novels Westlake published as Richard Stark, which first appeared in the 1960s. The Stark novels feature the meticulous and ruthless professional thief, Parker. Last fall we released The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face, and The Outfit. This spring we will publish Mourner, Score, and Jugger. More will follow.

Last September, Levi Stahl (at whose urgings the Press began the Parker reprint project) conducted an interview with Donald Westlake.

Update: Levi posted a tribute on his blog; Sarah Weinman collects many more on Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.

Archived in Fiction
Posted by DB at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Set in the tumultuous Los Angeles of 1968, Romain Gary's novel White Dog is the French writer's fictional memoir of his ill-fated attempt to re-train a lost police K9 programmed to respond visciously to the sight of black men. Offering a unique and insightful critique of racism in America, the book was originally published in 1970 and reissued in 2004 by the Press.

The book was adapted for a 1982 feature film directed by Samuel Fuller. But due the controversial subject matter, it was initially withheld from release. Now the Criterion Collection has released a remastered DVD of the film it calls a "throat-grabbing exposé on American racism" and "a tragic portrait of the evil done by that most corruptible of animals: the human being." To find out more about the film navigate to the Criterion Collection's website, or experience Gary's groundbreaking work in its purest form by picking up a copy of the book.

Archived in Biography | Books for the News | Fiction
Posted by TXM at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With a single slim volume, published when he was in his seventies, Norman Maclean secured his place in American literary history. More than thirty years have passed since the publication of A River Runs through It and Other Stories, and the book is still passed from reader to reader, handed down from parents to children like an heirloom. Maclean’s second book, Young Men and Fire, struck a similar chord with its account of doomed young firefighters—but it was published posthumously, and his many fans have long wished for an addition to his oeuvre.

The Norman Maclean Reader answers that wish, offering longtime fans new insight into his life and career. The highlight of the volume is Maclean’s unfinished history of General Custer from the 1950s. Though he was never able to shape these never-before-published chapters on the Son of the Morning Star into a complete book, to read them now is revelatory—we see Maclean discovering and refining the techniques of personal and historical writing that would serve him so well decades later. Along with excerpts from his classic works, the book also offers Maclean’s witty personal essays; a fascinating selection of letters discussing history, biography, and the craft of writing; and portions of a wide-ranging interview in which Maclean discusses the very family stories that form the basis of his greatest works. Multifarious and moving, the works collected in The Norman Maclean Reader serve as both a summation and a celebration, honoring a beloved and distinctive American voice.

Read the press release.

Our website for Norman Maclean, while still in development, has several things by and about Maclean as well as several image galleries.

Archived in Fiction | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some authors and publishers see the New York Times bestseller list as the ultimate validation of popular acceptance. But that is just so quantitative. Contrast Entertainment Weekly's Must List. Here you'll find Rihanna, extreme pumpkin carver Tom Nardone, director Mike Leigh, Desperate Housewives, Roy Orbison, and the fourth season of Supernatural on the CW. Excellence and eclecticism.

Joining the pop cult pantheon this week: Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark's classic noir mystery novels The Hunter, The Man With the Getaway Face, and The Outfit.

Now you must read them. And read an interview with the author.

Archived in Commentary | Fiction
Posted by TXM at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since its publication in 1976, Norman Maclean's novella A River Runs Through It has become an American classic, earning him comparison to the likes of Thoreau and Hemingway. Maclean published only three short works of fiction during his lifetime, one of which was A River Runs Through It. None were published until after he retired, at the age of 71, from his career as a professor at the University of Chicago.

In a recent article for the Wall Street Journal Joseph Rago asks: "how did this retired professor bring off such accomplished work on his first attempt? And how did he then manage, just as remarkably, to produce a haunting work of nonfiction, the posthumously published Young Men and Fire, Maclean's exploration of a deadly Montana forest fire in 1949?" Rago continues:

The Norman Maclean Reader points us toward an answer. Smartly edited by O. Alan Weltzien of the University of Montana, the book brings together manuscripts and letters found among Maclean's papers after his death in 1990, as well as hard-to-find essays, lectures and interviews. Maclean did not draw a distinction between his life and his fiction, and the material in the Reader, much of it available for the first time, burnishes his achievement.

Maclean was deeply influenced by Wordsworth's notion of "spots of time," or the moments that give life shape and meaning, "as if an artist had made them," in Maclean's words. But he never went in for sentimentality or pointless nostalgia—he was trying, rather, to lend such epiphanies the permanence of literature. …

Read the rest of the article on the Wall Street Journal website. Our website for Norman Maclean, while still in development, has several things by and about Maclean.

Archived in Fiction | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a plot straight out of one of Richard Stark’s Parker novels, an ingenious thief in Washington made his getaway in an inner tube, of all things, and had the help of a dozen hired lookalikes—who didn’t suspect a thing. But where does a thief go to find partners in crime these days? Craigslist, of course! How things have changed since Parker got his start. As TV station KING 5 in Seattle reports:

“I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour,” said Mike [Ruth], who saw a Craigslist ad last week looking for workers for a road maintenance project in Monroe.

He said he inquired and was e-mailed back with instructions to meet near the Bank of America in Monroe at 11 a.m. Tuesday. He also was told to wear certain work clothing.

“Yellow vest, safety goggles, a respirator mask … and, if possible, a blue shirt,” he said.

Mike showed up along with about a dozen other men dressed like him, but there was no contractor and no road work to be done. He thought they had been stood up until he heard about the bank robbery and the suspect who wore the same attire.

From there, the crook made his watery escape in a creek that dumps out into the Skykomish River. One witness said the robber swam away, but another said he used an inner tube to get away.

“We did get an inner tube that was about 200 yards from the place where he entered the water and took that for evidence,” said Debbie Willis, Monroe Police.

When asked to comment on the success of the heist, Donald Westlake (aka Richard Stark) had this to say: “That’s exactly how I told him to do it, except I wanted him to find a motorized rubber raft, you know, a Zodiac. And this isn’t really very good reporting; if we’re not told how much he got away with, how do I know how to figure my cut? Standards are slipping everywhere.”

Indeed they are, Mr. Westlake. It remains to be seen if Craigslist will make an appearance in future installments of the Parker series. The bandit, like Parker, is still at large.

Before plotting your next heist, check out more about the University of Chicago Press editions of the Parker novels and read an interview with their creator.

Archived in Commentary | Fiction
Posted by SXH at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's edition of Time Out Chicago features a great story on the press's re-publication of the Parker novels—a series of crime novels by Donald Westlake (aka Richard Stark) that follow the exploits of a master thief known only as Parker.

Jonathan Messinger talked to the press's publicity manager, Levi Stahl, and Maggie Hivnor, the press's reprints editor, about why they decided to get Stark's classics back in print:

Over the more than 40 years that Richard Stark has been writing his Parker noir novels, heavyweights have lined up to praise his work: Booker-winner John Banville called the books "among the most poised and polished fictions… of any time," and Guggenheim fellow Luc Sante called them "a brilliant invention." And yet, if you wanted to quantify how much these champions have done for their pet cause, neither of them would stack up to someone you've likely never heard of: Levi Stahl, publicity manager at the University of Chicago Press.

Stahl, a rabid mystery fan, had read praise of the Parker novels but only recently decided to check them out.… "Last fall, I tried one," he says. "They're like candy. I read one, and suddenly I'm reading a dozen. I read all of the ones I could get my hands on, but the early ones were out of print and surprisingly hard to find."

Stahl went to Maggie Hivnor, the press's paperback-reprints editor, and suggested they get the books back into print.… Now, a year later, University of Chicago Press has rereleased the first three Parker novels, The Hunter, The Man With the Getaway Face and The Outfit.…

Messinger continues:

What's most interesting, perhaps, is that the University of Chicago Press has resurrected these classics of the genre.… Westlake is one of crime writing's most revered practitioners, and yet his important—and popular—work had fallen out of print. We tried to talk to Hivnor about the role of a university press in serving the public good, acting on an archival instinct to keep the Parker novels on the shelves. But she was having none of it.

"To be honest, we're doing them because they're so fun," she says, and echoes Stahl. "Once you read one, you want to read a dozen."

Read the rest of the article on the Time Out website. Also, read an interview with Donald Westlake.

Archived in Fiction | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Los Angeles Times' Richard Rayner has written an excellent review of the Parker novels—a noir crime series written by Donald Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark, that follows the exploits of master thief Parker as he cheats, steals, and murders his way through page after intoxicating page to get what he wants. From the review:

Writing a couple of years ago in Bookforum, the Irish novelist and Man Booker Prize winner John Banville reckoned the Parker novels to be "among the most poised and polished fictions of their time and, in fact, of any time."

That's high praise from an impeccable source, and Banville is right to single out the technical excellence of these books. The Parkers read with the speed of pulp while unfolding with almost Nabokovian wit and flair. Stark loves to shift character points of view, not only to advance the story but to go back inside the action and examine it for further angles and riches. The result is noir that drives forward relentlessly while feeling kaleidoscopic and reflective.…

The first three novels—The Hunter (filmed as Point Blank with Lee Marvin and, later, less successfully, as Payback with Mel Gibson), The Man With the Getaway Face and The Outfit—constitute a trilogy in which Parker first regroups, gets himself a new face and then takes on the organization, the Mob, which had supported his enemy, Mal Resnick, the guy who betrayed him.…

Original editions of these books, and even later reprints, change hands for scores or hundreds of dollars on the Net, and it's excellent to have them readily available again—not so much masterpieces of genre, just masterpieces, period.

You can read Raynor's review in this Sunday's L.A. Times book review, or online now at their website.

Also read an interview with the author.

Archived in Fiction | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In his August 28 article for the New York Times, "What I did this Summer," William Grimes mentions his plans to "spend Labor Day with a sociopath." Grimes writes:

His name is Parker, and he lumbers through the pages of Richard Stark's noir novels scattering dead bodies like peanut shells.

Parker is a criminal. Cold-blooded and resolute, he experiences two or three emotions in the course of a novel and employs a vocabulary of about a hundred words. In a normal hard-boiled detective novel he would be the one left dead at the end. Instead he's always the last man standing.

And although Labor Day has come and gone don't let that stop you from engaging in some post-summer R&R with Richard Stark's Parker novels. Books currently available from the press include: The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face, and The Outfit with more on the way in future seasons.

Read the rest of the NYT article here, or read an interview with the author.

Archived in Books for the News | Fiction
Posted by TXM at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New in Paperback—The University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of Richard Stark’s Parker series to print for a new generation of readers to discover—and become addicted to. Stark’s ruthless antihero is one of the most unforgettable characters in hardboiled noir. Lauded by critics for his taut realism, unapologetic amorality, and razor-sharp prose-style—and adored by fans who turn each intoxicating page with increasing urgency—Richard Stark is a master of crime writing, his books as influential as any in the genre.

Novels in the Parker series include:

The Hunter
The Man with the Getaway Face
The Outfit

Read the press release.

Also read an interview with the author.

Archived in Fiction | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Donald E. Westlake (aka Richard Stark) published The Hunter, the first book in his long-running series about the master thief Parker, in 1962. Since then The Hunter has been adapted for film twice and become a classic amongst fans of hard boiled noir. But until recently the book has been neglected by publishing houses, going in and out of print, while used copies fetched high prices. Now, the Press has brought the Parker novels back to life with the republication of the first three books in the series including, The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face, and The Outfit—and word is getting out. Recently the Independent Crime blog posted about the books' resurgence, hailing Westlake as "one of the best crime writers to ever put pen to paper, and… [maybe] one of the best writers of the last century period." The post continues:

It's a long way from the paperback racks in drugstores to the world of academic presses, and U of C Press' decision to pick up Westlake's series certainly goes a long way toward validating the opinion of many that Westlake, with his Parker novels, has earned a place in hard boiled fiction up there with Hammett or Chandler, both of whom have been considered worthy of academic attention for some time.

More recently drama and literary critic Terry Teachout also praised the press's re-issue of Westlake's novels on Commentary magazine's Contentions blog, writing:

I'm delighted to advise readers in need of tough-minded vacation fare that… the first three [Parker] volumes are now available.… The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face, and The Outfit are handsomely designed, tightly bound trade-paperback volumes that have been freshly set from new type rather than reprinted from older editions. All of this strongly suggests that the University of Chicago Press is in it for the long haul, which is a good thing, since the uniform Parker is a multi-year project whose subsequent installments are to be published at unspecified intervals. Be patient.

Read an interview with the author.

Archived in Fiction | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Set in the fictitious town of Manawaka, Manitoba, Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel offers a moving portrait of its protagonist, nonagenarian Hagar Shiply, as she struggles to come to terms with the troubles of her past in a dramatic story of a life drawing to a close. Alongside the other novels in her "Manawaka series"—A Jest of God, The Fire-Dwellers, A Bird in the House: Stories, and The Diviners—Laurence's The Stone Angel has been lauded as one of her most poignant narratives and the most famous work by one of Canada's most prominent feminist writers.

The book was also recently made into a feature film by Canadian filmmaker Kari Skogland with its world premiere showing at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. This Friday, July 11 the film will also see its U.S. debut in select theaters, including NYC's Landmark Century theaters, and hopefully will see a wider distribution (to Chicago maybe) in the following weeks. Check out a trailer for the film on the official The Stone Angel movie website, or find out more about the book here.

Archived in Books for the News | Fiction | Literature
Posted by TXM at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Chicago magazine has a nice piece in the December issue about the inspiration behind Francis Ford Coppola's new film—his first in ten years—Youth Without Youth. If you've been paying attention, of course, you already know some of the story. The literary inspiration for the film is the book of the same name by Mircea Eliade and the book was placed in Coppola's hands by Wendy Doniger, a professor of religion here at U of C and a longtime friend of Coppola.

The magazine article by Robert Loerzel tells more about the friendship:

Doniger says she and Coppola were members of a "little coven of misfits and existentialists" at Great Neck High School on Long Island in the mid-1950s. "We were anti–Doris Day," Doniger says. They wrote Hemingwayesque stories, listened to jazz in Greenwich Village, and smoked cigarettes. Doniger remembers Coppola as a "gawky" boy with a head full of ideas.

But don't read that "gawky boy" comment as too dismissive. Loerzel writes that "Coppola offers a little more detail: 'She was, in fact, the first girl I ever kissed.'"

We have an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Fiction | Film and Media
Posted by DB at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Book publishing is globalized; it has never been easier to obtain any book that has been published anywhere. As well, more and more English-language books are being translated in the non-English speaking world. The reverse is not so true, however. There is a trickle of foreign titles translated into the only language most of us in this country can read compared to the flood flowing in the opposite direction.

So it is noteworthy that last Sunday's Washington Post featured an article reviewing a sampling of some international voices currently hitting the U.S. mystery scene, including our translations of Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Pledge and The Inspector Barlach Mysteries. Richard Lipez writes for the Post:

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) was best known as the author of clever, morally inquisitive plays such as The Visit and The Physicists. In the early 1950s he also wrote three short, spellbinding mystery novels, which the University of Chicago Press has reissued in paperback with new translations from the German by Joel Agee: The Pledge and The Inspector Barlach Mysteries: The Judge and His Hangman & Suspicion. The latter includes a thoughtful foreword by Sven Birkerts, who praises Dürrenmatt's talent as a captivating entertainer who could also "play through complex moral issues with a speed-chess decisiveness and inexorability." Dürrenmatt was Swiss and sounds it. He is sober, formal, precise and, when it suits him, to the point.… These are slender tales. But they have the weight and texture of classics. Mystery readers should be grateful to the University of Chicago Press for bringing these gems back to life.

We have a website for our Dürrenmatt translations, where you can read more about The Pledge, The Inspector Barlach Mysteries as well as our three-volume set of Dürrenmatt's Selected Writings.

Archived in Fiction | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The December 22 & 29 issue of the TLS is packed with reviews of our new volumes of the writings of Friedrich Dürrennmatt (see below). Each of the reviews—not to mention the books themselves—merits a separate blog post. Michael Butler's review of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Selected Writings completes the TLS's coverage of our publications from this prodigious and engaging writer who is regrettably known only for several of his plays. Butler notes that since Dürrenmatt's death in 1990, his work has suffered a "long silence at least outside of the industrious groves of academe." Butler continues:

The University of Chicago's bold attempt with these meticulously presented volumes to "rediscover" Dürrenmatt for an English speaking readership is therefore welcome. The names of such distinguished scholars as Kenneth J. Northcott and Theodore Ziolkowski are a guarantee of high editorial standards, and each volume is equipped with a succinct and sensible introduction.… English readers have much to be grateful for. Above all, they have been provided with translations of impressive accuracy. Dürrenmatt is not an easy author to get into English, but Joel Agee has succeeded splendidly. He catches with admirable linguistic agility the shifts of tone and the unexpected shafts of humor amid the stygian gloom that constantly challenges Dürrenmatt's readers.

Take a look at the website we've created for Dürrenmatt's Selected Writings where you can peruse a fascinating collection of excerpts and essays, including those "succinct and sensible" introductions and an interview with Dürrenmatt.

Archived in Fiction | Literature | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the December 22 & 29 edition of the Times Literary Supplement Ian Brunskill's review of Dürrenmatt's The Inspector Barlach Mysteries: The Judge and His Hangman and Suspicion begins:

The more well-ordered a world (or narrative) appears to be, the greater the potential for devastation …. [And] that, to a large extent, is what drew Dürrenmatt in the 1950s to the traditionally disciplined realm of crime fiction, the conventions and formulas of which he proceeded, with some relish, to turn upside down. The resulting short novels have long been among his most popular works. Now wonderfully translated by Joel Agee, they are part of the University of Chicago Press's promotion of the author.

And indeed with these translations of The Inspector Barlach Mysteries the Press has done its best to reinvigorate interest in Dürrenmatt's atypical crime stories. Both of the mysteries in this book make a radical departure from convention as they follow Inspector Barlach through worlds in which the distinction between crime and justice seems to have vanished. In The Judge and His Hangman, Barlach forgoes the arrest of a murderer in order to manipulate him into killing another, more elusive criminal. And in Suspicion, Barlach pursues a former Nazi doctor by checking into his clinic with the hope of forcing him to reveal himself. The result is two thrillers that bring existential philosophy and the detective genre into an unusual convergence.

The Press has also recently released a collection of Dürrenmatt's Selected Writings. See our Dürrenmatt webage to find out more.

Archived in Fiction | Literature | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week Alberto Manguel—whose own work as a translator and editor makes him quite a qualified critic—wrote a review for the Spectator of Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Selected Writings. Translated by Joel Agee, the Selected Writings collects in three volumes the best of Dürrenmatt's plays, fictions, and essays—and as Manguel acknowledges—captures the essence of the author's work. Manguel writes:

I'd like to congratulate the University of Chicago Press for allowing us once again to read Friedrich Dürrenmatt in English, thereby restoring to the English-speaking public one of the most important writers of the 20th century … Dürrenmatt's best writing has been included, and almost any of these pieces is an astonishing example of a writer's power to portray and explain experience, and then subvert the whole procedure by opening up his arguments to unanswerable questions. Reading Dürrenmatt's work leaves us with the impression of having witnessed the creation and then the explosion of a small galaxy. The light continues to reach us long after closing his books.

We created a Friedrich Dürrenmatt website where you can peruse a fascinating collection of excerpts and essays, including an interview with Dürrenmatt .

Archived in Fiction | Literature | Reviews
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Norman Maclean was born December 23, 1902. He will forever be associated with the mountains and rivers of Montana, but he was born on the rolling plains of Iowa. His family moved to Missoula, Montana in 1909.

Maclean came to the University of Chicago in 1928 to pursue graduate studies in English. Three years later he was hired as an instructor and eventually became the William Rainey Harper Professor of English. He won the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching three times during his UC career and served as an inspiring mentor to generations of students.

Upon his retirement in 1973, Maclean turned to writing, drawing material from his youth in Montana and his fascination with the Mann Gulch Fire of 1949. In 1976 the University of Chicago Press had the good fortune to publish a collection of his work, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. The book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the title novella was made into a movie in 1992. That same year we published Young Men and Fire which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for best general non-fiction.

Maclean died on August 2, 1990 in Chicago, at the age of 87.

Read the opening pages of A River Runs Through It and an excerpt from Young Men and Fire.

Archived in Commentary | Fiction | Literature
Posted by DB at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Gazette (Montreal) recently published a review of Peter De Vries's novel The Blood of the Lamb: "De Vries was a master of puckish pedantry. His marvelously erudite sentences are often inverted and complex, but they always end up where he wants them.… [The Blood of the Lamb's] humour is a welcome gleam of wry rationality shining through the dark clouds. This is a deeply touching book whose sincerity and universality are likely to ensure its future."

The most poignant of all De Vries's novels, The Blood of the Lamb is also the most autobiographical. It follows the life of Don Wanderhop from his childhood in an immigrant Calvinist family living in Chicago in the 1950s through the loss of a brother, his faith, his wife, and finally his daughter—a tragedy drawn directly from De Vries's own life. Despite its foundation in misfortune, The Blood of the Lamb offers glimpses of the comic sensibility for which De Vries was famous.

Archived in Fiction | Reviews
Posted by at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A passage about the truth-telling power of fiction, from the closing paragraphs of Norman Maclean's novella A River Runs Through It, is being cited in commentary about James Frey and his apparently fictionalized memoir A Million Little Pieces. (For example, this piece by John MacDonald in the Arizona Republic.)

Near the end of the story, Norman's father speaks to him:

"You like to tell true stories, don't you?" he asked, and I answered, "Yes, I like to tell stories that are true."

Then he asked, "After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it?

"Only then will you understand what happened and why."

We have an excerpt from the opening pages of the novella.

Archived in Books for the News | Commentary | Fiction
Posted by DB at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today Zulkey.com features an interview with Stuart Dybek, author of Childhood and Other Neighborhoods. In the interview, Dybek talks about one of the stories from the book, titled "The Long Thoughts":

Have any of the characters in your stories had impact on your real life relationships? Meaning that, if somebody recognizes themselves in one of your stories, how has that impacted his relationship with you?

Despite the fact that I'm writing fiction and have taken the liberties that fiction allows for, people have at different times recognized themselves in some of the characters. Mostly the reaction has been favorable. I had one old friend who appeared in a story called "The Long Thoughts," who would give the book that story appeared in to people as gifts so that they could read about him. There was an instance however when a dear friend who saw himself in one of my stories—a version of a story that he told to me—was offended not by his portrayal but that I would use a story he'd told to me in private. I should add that the story he told to me was fantastical and I changed it further and made still more fantastical. Still, he treated it not as my stealing something but as a broken confidence.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Archived in Chicago | Fiction
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