"Everything's Changin'," as Kak said in a great song on their essential psych LP (Epic) from 1969. So true, and so it is with "Beyond." As of 3/31/2007 the long-maintained reader's advisory website will no longer be maintained on a quarterly basis. It's a matter of life-changes, career-changes and time-availability. However, updates will be posted with some frequency, and the front page will continue to post particularly interesting or significant books and authors. (See below: the backlist will also be reduced from the thousands to the hundreds, in hopes of having only the really, really stong (or weird--my favorites) in here. As before, "Beyond" will continue to be not a book review; book reviews are supposed to be impartial, and "Beyond" is
anything but. It's in part intended as an antidote to the sniffy pseudo-intellectual platform that holds the novel to musty or elite academic standards. Contrary to elitist dogma, there's lots of good fiction out there in the late 20th-early 21st centuries, and this is a painless (one hopes) way to sample some of it. It's also in part a dismissal of the accepted notion that fiction failed after Faulkner, leaving literature with only uncrowned King and stained Steel. Below
O’Nan, Stewart LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER
A small book full of details: a Red Lobster in Connecticut plays out its last day, in a Nor’easter, no less, just before Christmas. This breaks up a “team” of many years standing, only 5 of whom can transfer to a nearby Olive Garden. Among these is the manager, Manny, who mourns the loss of his beloved restaurant, his beloved (who can’t and won’t make the transfer), and his recently deceased abuelita. Some of his staff remain loyal, some defect, some remain loyal and sabotage at the same time. In time for the holidays, a book full of personal insight and restaurant mechanics. (5 December 2007)To see some of the newer items in the "Beyond" catalog,
have a look at "Beyond the Bestsellers" recent additions.
"Beyond" has had some authors on its lists who later became famous: even, through a
quirk of fate, Robert James Waller of all people. But its best asset is its access to authors of imagination and talent who somehow miss celebrity; writers like Kathleen Cambor, Stephen Dobyns, Jasper Fforde, Laurence
Naumoff, George Pelecanos, Cathie Pelletier, Lana Witt and of others. Have a look; it can't hurt you.Alexie-Lowy McColley-Zigman
