Blog: Michael Patrick Brady

My review of Norumbega Park by Anthony Giardina ran today in the Boston Globe It tells the story about a family in suburban Massachusetts who... well, they don't do a whole lot. There's angst, and plenty of sexual anxiety (though very little consummation). At first, the story seems to be about the father, Richie Palumbo, moving his family to an idyllic, New England small town in the hopes that they would become part of a more refined segment of society. It's set up to be about the hopes he's [...]

My review of Edna O'Brien's James Joyce: A Life ran today at PopMatters . A few years ago, I picked up Richard Ellmann's massive biography of Joyce, which is considered to be the best literary biography ever writtnn. I still haven't read it. It's so big, so imposing, I've yet to find an opportunity to fit it into my life. Someday. Order James Joyce: A Life at Amazon For now, Edna O'Brien's compact, 179-page biography will [...]

9. James Joyce: A Life Edna O'Brien (My Review @ PopMatters | Blog ) Buy At Amazon 8. Blood Work Holly Tucker (My Review @ PopMatters | Blog ) Buy At Amazon 7. Confessions of [...]

My review of Lou Beach's 420 Characters ran today in the Boston Globe . The book is a collection of short, micro fiction that Beach wrote as Facebook status updates back when the maximum character count for updates was 420. It was later raised to 500 and today it's 5,000. While there were some fun moments in his stories, overall it seemed like a rather weak experiment. The stories make no use of Facebook's unique social features; I would've liked to have seen Beach examine how instant publishing, instant feedback, and [...]

My review of Becoming Dickens by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst ran today in the Boston Globe . Douglas-Fairhurst does an excellent job portraying the world young Charles Dickens grew up in, showing how the "novel" aspects of the Victorian era enabled the artistic and commercial viability of the literary novel, and thus provided an outlet for Dickens's genius. The economic expansion of that time created an upwardly-mobile middle class, which gave poor kids like Dickens an opportunity to raise his station in life. Art was no longer the province of [...]

Feature: Rob Mazurek My feature on Rob Mazurek , Chicago bandleader extraordinaire, the brains behind the Chicago Undergroun Duo/Trio and the Exploding Star Orchestra, was posted today at ALARM . It ran as part of their astonishingly beautiful Chromatic issue, which was published this past September. It was a pleasure to get to talk with Rob, and I think the article provides a really interesting look into the motivation and process of a great jazz/experimental artist.

My review of Saladin by Anne Marie Eddé ran today in the Boston Globe . I've been looking for a good biography of Saladin ever since I read Richard and John: Kings at War . This one, however, did not really do it for me. Eddé deconstructs the very nature of biography, untangling fact from fiction and asking whether we can truly know or understand figures of the past. It's an intriguing premise, and the work she does in detailing how the "legend" of Saladin was [...]

My review of Broken Irish by Edward J. Delaney ran today in the Boston Globe . I was very pleased that Delaney managed to write a South Boston tragedy that didn't lean too heavily on the genre-fiction standbys of organized crime or drug abuse. It's not that those topics aren't important or very real parts of South Boston's history, it's that writers and filmmakers seem disinterested in the actual human stories behind them and instead rely on them for cheap, lazy sensationalism. Really, after The Departed , what more is [...]

My review of Ben Loory's Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day ran today in the Boston Globe . It's a lightweight collection of short stories, and a lot of fun. Loory's writing is very spare, but loaded with meaning and portent. He's a writer of crisp, surreal fables, each of which has a distinct undercurrent of dread just lurking beneath the surface. In the review, I call Loory a mix of Lydia Davis and H.P. Lovecraft, but he has a strong, humorous voice that is entirely his [...]

My review of Ben Loory's Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day ran today in the Boston Globe . It's a lightweight collection of short stories, and a lot of fun. Loory's writing is very spare, but loaded with meaning and portent. He's a writer of crisp, surreal fables, each of which has a distinct undercurrent of dread just lurking beneath the surface. In the review, I call Loory a mix of Lydia Davis and H.P. Lovecraft, but he has a strong, humorous voice that is entirely his [...]

My review of Heretics: The Creation of Christianity from the Gnostics to the Modern Church by Jonathan Wright ran today at PopMatters . Heretics is a fine, focused survey of the religion's history for readers who might find Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years too daunting. Wright employs a novel approach, telling the story of Christianity by highlighting pivotal moments in which it was challenged by potential offshoots. He shows how the reaction to these "heretics" clarified orthodoxy and, at [...]

A few months back, in my post about John Nichols's The S Word , I mentioned a brief, formal correspondence between Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx that the author had made reference to. I found the idea of these two men interacting to be fascinating, and was a little disappointed that Nichols didn't explore it more in depth. Thankfully, author Robin Blackburn has it covered. His An Unfinished Revolution is entirely about the relationship (largely indirect) between Marx and Lincoln, particularly how they shared similar, if not exactly complimentary, views on the place of [...]

"In the city there's a thousand things I wanna say to you..." When I saw the breathless news reports that nearly a thousand people were involved in gang violence on Carson Beach this past Monday, I was skeptical. It looks like I was right to be. The Boston Police is now disputing the State Police report, saying there was no evidence of gang activity . In a story that makes more sense as viral marketing for the upcoming production of West Side Story at the Colonial Theater, the State [...]

"In the city there's a thousand things I wanna say to you..." When I saw the breathless news reports that nearly a thousand people were involved in gang violence on Carson Beach this past Monday, I was skeptical. It looks like I was right to be. The Boston Police is now disputing the State Police report, saying there was no evidence of gang activity . In a story that makes more sense as viral marketing for the upcoming production of West Side Story at the Colonial Theater, the State [...]

History The Civil War | Ken Burns My review of the 150th anniversary edition of Ken Burns's The Civil War ran today at PopMatters . The Civil War is extraordinary, and of course, everybody already knows that. Rather than restate the obvious, I instead took on an interesting issue raised by the bonus features—outtake and subsequent interviews with Shelby Foote and Ken Burns. In them, Foote (both in 1987 and 2002) [...]

My review of Confessions of a Young Novelist by Umberto Eco ran today at PopMatters . I'm a huge fan of Eco's novels, and I'd be inclined to name him as, perhaps, my favorite author. I appreciate his ability to weave high-minded, thoughtful ideas in with compelling narratives without coming off as (too) pretentious. The Name of the Rose and Baudolino are exquisite, and despite a disappointing ending, Foucault's Pendulum is still provocative and illuminating. Confessions is a window into the author's process, [...]

My review of Confessions of a Young Novelist by Umberto Eco ran today at PopMatters . I'm a huge fan of Eco's novels, and I'd be inclined to name him as, perhaps, my favorite author. I appreciate his ability to weave high-minded, thoughtful ideas in with compelling narratives without coming off as (too) pretentious. The Name of the Rose and Baudolino are exquisite, and despite a disappointing ending, Foucault's Pendulum is still provocative and illuminating. Confessions is a window into the author's process, [...]

My review of Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton ran today at PopMatters . :: Order Why Marx Was Right at Amazon.com :: I wrote this review before Rep. Paul Ryan's insane budget proposal was announced, or else I would have referenced it. It's a perfect example of class warfare, lowering the top marginal U.S. tax rate by 10% using "savings" generated by virtually eliminating Medicare, and slashing trillions from Medicaid, food stamps, and Pell Grants -essentially any kind [...]

My review of Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton ran today at PopMatters . :: Order Why Marx Was Right at Amazon.com :: I wrote this review before Rep. Paul Ryan's insane budget proposal was announced, or else I would have referenced it. It's a perfect example of class warfare, lowering the top marginal U.S. tax rate by 10% using "savings" generated by virtually eliminating Medicare, and slashing trillions from Medicaid, food stamps, and Pell Grants -essentially any kind of service [...]

My review of Blood Work by Holly Tucker ran today at PopMatters . :: Order Blood Work at Amazon.com :: This was a great story, one of those nonfiction tales that reads like fiction. It reminded me quite a bit of both London Rising and Duel at Dawn , as it concerned the early days of science in enlightenment France and England. Tucker tells the story of some of the [...]