Bookworm

Donald Antrim The Verificationist (Knopf) Donald Antrim-s weird sensibility instinctually concocts hierarchical societies that ritually reject and expel their zanies and oddballs: in other words, him. The supremely evasive Antrim describes the new group of writers he is not so sure he is a part of.

Mark Danielewski builds a haunted house out of the pages of his first novel. It has dark passages, ghostly echoes (of the great books of the past) and a monster at its center. 

Period (Grove)Dennis Cooper is one of the originators of the new fiction. We look at the violently sexual five-book series he recently completed with Period. We focus on its interior design, its aesthetics and, in particular, the sense of integration Cooper feels at the conclusion of his ten-year project.

Bookworm is excited to celebrate the emergence of a vibrant new generation of fiction writers by talking to the new -staggering geniuses- and some of their forebears. This series, which begins June 22nd, is named in tribute to Dave Eggers- groundbreaking best-seller A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Dave Eggers A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Simon & Schuster) The publication of AHWOSG caused readers to sit up and take notice of a new generation of American writers, many of whom are published in Dave Eggers- magazine McSweeney-s. Their common concerns include sincerity (and the lack thereof), difficulty (and its challenge to readers), and extravagance (a 700-page novel in this crowd is par for the course). In this new interview, Dave Eggers on the new crew.

Jon Davis Scrimmage of Appetite (University of Akron Press) Jon Davis is a recent discovery. His poems are beginning to win recognition and awards... unusual for a wildly comic poet in a poetry culture that usually rewards somber meditative works. We discuss the dangers that come with unbridled imagination.

Evan S. Connell Deus Lo Volt! Chronicle of the Crusades (Counterpoint) Evan S. Connell, who rarely grants an interview, discusses both the savagery of Holy Wars and his elegant fictionalizing of bloody history.

Kate Wheeler When Mountains Walked (Houghton Mifflin) Prize-winning short-story writer Kate Wheeler describes the ordeal of tackling her first novel. Ordeal it was, bringing her into South American jungles and shattering her Buddhist calm.

Margot Livesey The Missing World (Knopf) With an alarming, but quiet malice and wit, Livesey dissects the dark motives underlying her sinister world view.

Eliza Minot The Tiny One (Knopf) Literary sibling rivalry: Eliza, the younger sister of Susan, offers her slant on a family we've met before in her sister's novels.

Swarm (Ecco, Harper Collins) In an unprecedented impulse to clarify, Pulitzer Prize-winner Jorie Graham offers an elaborate interpretation of her stunning new book-length poem.