Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Lethem on Front Page of NY Times Book Review

Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem (who visits today) was reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review last Sunday by Yiyun Li.

Longtime readers of Jonathan Lethem will not be surprised to learn that New York City is the setting of his new novel, “Dissident Gardens,” though center stage this time is not the author’s native Brooklyn or the Upper East Side but Queens — specifically, Sunnyside Gardens, the planned community complex built in the 1920s. Readers may, however, be either disappointed or relieved to find no superheroes, no aliens, not even a Tourette’s-afflicted self-appointed private detective. No genre-bending this time, the novel seems to say: spanning 80 years and three generations, it realistically portrays an enchanted — or disenchanted — garden of American revolutionaries.

More in the NYTBR:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/books/review/jonathan-lethems-dissident-gardens.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

More about Lethem's visit today:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/lethem_jonathan13.html

Full series:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#lethem