The Englishman E.M. Forster (1879-1970) wrote six novels and published five of these between 1905 and 1924. Best known and loved are A Room With a View, Howards End, and […]
Books & Poetry
COMING UP FOR AIR
Slowly, Outer Cape Libraries Begin to Reopen
The ‘lemonade of Covid’: more remote services and collaboration
The orders from town officials came down suddenly and in quick succession: on March 13, 2020 for Provincetown, on March 14 for Eastham, on March 16 for Wellfleet, and on […]
BOOK REVIEW
Re-evaluating the Guilt of Ethel Rosenberg
Anne Sebba’s biography of an infamous woman
The American press largely supported Judge Irving Kaufman’s decision at the height of the Red Scare to sentence Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death. In March 1951, a jury found […]
BOOK REVIEW
A Romance Set on the Outer Cape
Miranda Cowley Heller’s debut novel
Miranda Cowley Heller’s novel The Paper Palace tells the story of Elle, a woman whose life is both troubled and complicated. She must choose which man to share her life […]
LITERARY LIFE
New Owner Sought for Provincetown Bookshop
The shop was a haunt for a host of famous people during its long tenure
PROVINCETOWN — The well-loved bookstore where Norman Mailer and Robert Motherwell could frequently be found browsing will soon close unless some bibliophile steps forward to carry on the business. The […]
BOOK REVIEW
Opening Up With Anne Peretz
Reimagining family therapy for those most at risk
“I knew I had to write this book because I’m the only one who knows the story from beginning to end,” says Anne Peretz from her Truro home. The book […]
BOOK REVIEW
A Descending Spiral of Violence and Injustice
Marc Bookman writes of the barbarism of the death penalty
It’s uncomfortable to feel entertained at the expense of those sentenced to death. It is less uncomfortable when most of this entertainment is at the expense of police, prosecuting attorneys, […]
BOOK REVIEW
Sarah Schulman’s Mesmerizing, Messy History of ACT UP
How an alphabet soup of affinity groups fought an epidemic
How do you tell the story of a movement without simply chronicling the lives of a few supposed leaders of that movement? Sarah Schulman tackles this question head-on in Let […]
BOOK REVIEW
Looking Back With Empathy
A gay man connects with his late dad as a soldier
Much has been made of the Greatest Generation and World War II, mostly by Baby Boomers, looking back on the sacrifices of their parents. In the 1960s and ’70s, during […]
BOOK REVIEW
Alison Bechdel Finds Enlightenment in Exercise
The author of Fun Home gets beyond transcendence
One of the pleasures of reading a memoir is witnessing a character make the same mistakes over and over again. Novels rarely leave room for this. By the last page, […]
BOOK REVIEW
Marga Vicedo Dismantles the Myth of the ‘Refrigerator Mother’
Her biography of Clara Park is also a history of autism
Teaching English to G.I.s returning to peacetime America after World War II, Clara Park wrote her mother of her frustration with Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Her students, she noted, “had […]
WRITERS
The Tarnished Legacy of the Sacklers
Patrick Radden Keefe takes on a dynastic family
“I like a well-turned story,” says Patrick Radden Keefe. “I try to write stories that are engaging, the kinds of stories that you might not have an interest in at […]
BOOK REVIEW
Understanding The Man Who Ate Too Much
A biography of James Beard takes on new pandemic meaning
About a month ago, my husband Christopher and I were invited to dinner at my in-laws — our first dinner party since the world fell apart last year. While enjoying […]
COMIC STRIP ART
Karl Stevens Turns His Penny Strip Into a Graphic Memoir
The book’s peerlessly inked pages are on view in Provincetown
Most anyone who spends time with a cat will ask what goes on behind the impenetrable stare of its almond-shaped eyes. The Boston-based comic artist and painter Karl Stevens posits […]
BOOK REVIEW
Reassuring the First-Time Gardener
Jessica Sowards’s book is the cure for ‘analysis paralysis’
Sometime in the last year, as one does in a pandemic, I began cleaning drawers. Among the items that I found were unopened packets of seeds. Columbines I’d bought when […]
