Short takes
Hatchet Jobs
By Dale Peck
New Press, 228 pp., $23.95
"But tell us what you really think . . ." Words not likely to be uttered in the vicinity of Dale Peck, the brash young novelist-slash-critic (with the emphasis on "slash") who began one infamous review, reprinted here, with the pronouncement "Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation." The fact that Peck's estimation of Moody turns out to be somewhat more nuanced than that is par for the course in this collection of polemics by the self-proclaimed bad boy of belles-lettres.
Peck displays all the idol-smashing impulses of the young and ambitious, though it's an extraordinarily well-read iconoclast who can confidently dismiss the "ridiculous dithering" of Barth, Hawkes, and Gaddis, along with DeLillo, Barthelme, Pynchon -- and much of Nabokov, Faulkner, and Joyce for good measure. His likes can be as baffling as his dislikes. He wastes time and talent blasting harmless movie fodder like "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," though his larger point about the insidious invasion of niche-market fiction is well taken. He notes Philip Roth's misogyny but also, more insightfully, its blinkering effect on Roth.
In short, Peck challenges received critical wisdom with energy, fire, and unmitigated gall. Behind the loudmouth cynicism is an idealist who'd open a hill of literary oysters in search of a single pearl.
Resistance
By Barry Lopez
Knopf, 176 pp., $18
As a Hollywood mogul notoriously advised, if you want to send a message, use Western Union. National Book Award winner Barry Lopez courageously ignores that warning, with mixed results.
"Resistance" consists of nine short fictions, each delivered by a different narrator in somber first person. These sincere and thoughtful protagonists have two things in common. Each is actively seeking meaning, whether through creative endeavor, spiritual quest, or social engagement. And all have come under suspicion as threats to a powerful, unnamed, but perfectly recognizable supernation whose philistine masses regard such expressions of conscience and individuality "as disruptions in the warm stream of what pleases them."
The fictions, illustrated with haunting monotypes by Alan Magee, are parables of struggle and yearning reflected in tranquillity. Among the narrators are a blinded and mutilated Vietnam veteran who returns to Southeast Asia, a young woman architect striving to distill art from family tragedy, a human-rights activist working deep in the
Sex With Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge
By Eleanor Herman
Morrow, 287 pp., illustrated, $25.95
In the glory days of European royalty, kings had near-absolute power, with one galling exception: They could not marry as their fancy took them. For love, for lust, for the comforts of companionship, a king had to take a mistress.
As this entertaining history shows, the royal mistress, far from being the king's dirty little secret, occupied a recognized and formalized role at many a court. In return for serving literally at the monarch's pleasure, she was often rewarded with riches, titles, influence. Her life was not all diamonds and dalliance, however. There was always the worry of knowing that she might be discarded in disgrace the moment her charms faded. Sexually frigid (she subcontracted her sexual chores to prostitutes) and in frail health, the legendary Madame de Pompadour had to leave her sickbed to glitter and be gay at Louis XV's command. Even lusty Nell Gwynn wore out early, dying at 37 from the venereal disease that was Charles II's gift to his faithful mistress.
Studded with these and other gems of royal tittle-tattle, "Sex With Kings" will please readers who like their history liberally spiked with glamour and gossip.
Amanda Heller is a critic and editor who lives in Newton.
