The Talented Miss Highsmith
by Joan Schenkar
(St. Martin’s, $40)
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Raymond Carver
by Carol Sklenicka
(Scribner, $35)
Raymond Carver’s life “reads like a Raymond Carver story,” said David Wiegand in the San Francisco Chronicle. “There’s no easy answer to the question of why Carver felt so haunted all his life,” or why he drank heavily until he was 40, but this “exhaustive and definitive” new biography paints the sawmill worker’s son as a classic outsider. Before his death, at 50, of lung cancer, Carver did find a measure of peace, but his is still a sad tale.
Literary Life
by Larry McMurtry
(Simon & Schuster, $24)
This second memoir from the novelist Larry McMurtry is “the kind of
slipshod book” that’s appealing because a reader has to hunt for
its best parts, said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. McMurtry has decided to write his life story as a trilogy, but “his heart isn’t in it; not even next door.” His appealingly “crotchety outsider Texas persona” buys him a lot of goodwill, though—enough that you’re pleased just to happen upon a lazy anecdote, say, about taking Susan Sontag to a stock car race.
Too Much Money
by Dominick Dunne
(Crown, $26)
Dominick Dunne’s “transparently autobiographical” posthumous novel proves a “fun romp” through the high-society world he knew so well, said Craig Wilson in USA Today. Though it’s no surprise to hear that rich New Yorkers are “mean, manipulative, and spoiled,” Dunne fans will be interested to see his fictional alter ego navigate feuds with a billionaire heiress and a disgraced former U.S. congressman.
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”