Sim city

The new Bookforum is partially online. My review of The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is only in the paper issue as of now. I like the coverline: "Why Jonathan Coe Deserves an American Audience."

(I've read most of/finished some good pieces already—Ruth Franklin on Joyce Carol Oates, Erik Davis on Robert Duncan's The H.D. Book, Rivka Galchen on Lydia Davis/Madame Bovary...there's something by Paul La Farge...)













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Coe notes:



Thank you to Gautam, who sent me a copy of The Rain Before It Falls several years ago—I talk about it a bit in the piece.






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My essay in the Times about the longest sentence was the original impetus behind rereading Coe's The Rotters' Club. What a book!

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I reviewed Coe's biography of B.S. Johnson, Like a Fiery Elephant, when it came out in 2005, but did not dwell much on the ending. I do so in this Bookforum piece, as it is clearly a source for a chunk of the new novel.