< Native Americans (cont)
Al Gore lhe/lssau/t or: , ‘ . Reason /\ possible
I Ht ASS/\U L 1 ON RhASON
lorewarrrng here for Mr Obama as the man who should have been President posits that fear. secrecy and shameless
backhanders are running and ru ning the American
political system. Bloomsbury 2:) May.
AL GOR l“.
Michael Chabon lhe Yiddish Policemen 's Union Tire Pulit/er Pri/e Winning Chabon dreams up an alternative history for his sixth novel. in which a Jewish homeland :5; created ll‘l Alaska after the Holocaust. Foorth Estate. 4 June.
Dave Eggers liahar :s the l.‘/ha! lite cheeky scamp of the US lrterary scene returns '~.'.’lil‘. a
t:ct or: ;r‘sprred li'y Valentino Acrzak Deng. a rnernber of the l ost Boys of Sudan programme which has resettled
refugees from the ow war tha; k.r|(;(t ()Ver two
million people. Hamish
Hana/ton. 7 June.
Charles Webb / lonre School l-le's r‘e‘xer been able to es :ape the shadow of his 1963 debut. The Graduate. So it's little surprise that he has chosen to finally write the sooner. taking the story 1 ‘- year‘s on from the moment when Benjamin rescued [Elaine tron: the aisle. Hutchinson. /‘ June.
Tina Brown He Diana (,‘lrrorir<,v’e:; Horn“- l".
Maidenhead but an
to .".f,” erl'tors‘rro o‘ fir:- rlev. ' r. the :ltis. l
Brow". ras site's knots/n to
legacy of the ()tl(:(}l! of Hearts frorr‘ ‘corr'thy girl
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Century, /' June.
18 THE LIST 26 Apr -l(r May 200/
honorary Arrer'rrxtn thanks
showbr/ pals explores the
Armistead Maupin Michael lo/live/ Lives His sweeping Tales of the City gained this Washington-born scribe his legendary status. and here he returns to one of the characters. who is now aged 5:3 and irying wrth lllV. Bantam. 78 June.
TlllllVER
Miranda July No One Belong/rs Here More lhan 7 ' ' You lhe performance
artist. musician and pop Hem More-many“, promo director who picked
her surname after the moctn xi. \.'.’l‘..(:l‘. her creative Ju'ces *lox’x most freely. offers up a book of stones about peopie on a guest for love and acceptance. Canongate. 74 June.
Woody Allen Mere Anarchy His book's out after Independence Day. but why not sauce/e in the little fella whose star seems to burn less br-ght on the lrlm stage these days. This is his first collection of essays. mas rigs. riddles and short tales since the riotous Side [ ffects in 1980. Ebert: :3 July.
Seil’: (Berlin 8/72er is o the New Big Marketing , ideologrst. entrepreneur - a y d and tourider of the v 4’
‘recomnrertdatior: network website Sourdoo brzrrgs us more ll‘.(3()l'l(353 ll‘. a book small is the new biq subtitled ‘And 191% Other Riffs. llants and Remarkable BUSH‘USES ldeas.' Il/l/chae/ Joseph, 28 Jr rne.
SETH GODIN
Don DeLillo Falling Man It had to happen.
Hi l mu MAk‘ .tlllllllllll‘
really. as the hiring heavyweight of US letters brings his forensic analysis to bear on E) l t. It is already being hailed by many critics as a return to form after his disappointing last novel. ()osmopolrs. Picador; 18 May.
working deeply disturbing personal stuff into your writing.
In 199‘). Palahniuk‘s father was murdered. Fred l’alalmiuk. who had divorced his wife Carol when their son (‘huck and his live siblings were kids. had taken up with a woman named Donna liontaine. who had just put her sexually abusive ex-boyl‘riend Dale Shacklel‘ord in prison. When Shacklel‘ord was released. he went to liontaine‘s home and shot her and Palahniuk‘s father and then burned the place to the ground. Shacklel‘ord was subsequently arrested. tried. found guilty of l'irst-degree murder and executed. Palahniuk. who was involved in the court‘s decision to give his father‘s killer the death penalty. exercised his demons in his next novel. Lullaby. in which the protagonists deal with the moral implications of committing murder.
All of Palahniuk‘s novels l'eature absent fathers and surrogate l'amilies (Chuck and his brother
and tour sisters were raised by their grandparents after his parents divorced: his surname is a conjoining ol~ granny Paula and grandpa Nick). ln Rani. the killer disease-carrying serial killer Buster (‘asey discovers he has an adoptive father and an absent biological one. ‘()ne goal in my writing is always to find a really visceral metaphor ~ drugs. violence. ll mutilation. or in this case illness.‘ he says. 'lllness as a I metaphor for one person. or one idea that continually I'M inl‘ects everyone it comes into contact with and in that 1 way changes a culture. But I add a caveat that the person is absent. and so maybe the glory of that person is what others project onto them. Death is where that archetype comes from. and whether you perceive that as a distant and now missing father or Christ. it comes to embody all that is wrong with right now.‘ l’alahniuk‘s brand of Spanbauer"s semi- conl'essional dangerous writing has seen him criticised for being a shock-meister and a nihilist. 11‘ you don‘t believe what other people believe. then they‘ll accuse you of being nihilistic.~ he says. In practice. Palahniuk‘s prose promotes alternative belief systems. from l’ig/rr ('luh‘s anarchic Project Mayhem to Runr‘s subverted (‘hristian iconography.
America’s censorious climate has done nothing to diminish his desire to provoke. Recently he did a reading of his play ('urrlr' (all, which is coming out next year as a novel entitled Snuff ‘lt‘s about a group of men gathered to shoot the world‘s largest gangbang porn movie. Three men are waiting in the green room for their number to be called. and gradually they reveal their reasons l’or being there and how they deal with the fact that the star ol' the movie might be dead when they get to interact with her. And she‘s doing this in order to end gangbang movies by dying in the middle of it and becoming a legend.~
ll' anything. the author is becoming increasingly provocative. And with a global network of conspiratorial taletellers boosting a growing lan- base. l’alahniuk is clearly doing something right. So. let‘s hear it for Robert l’atrlson.
Rant is published by Doubleday on Tue 1 May.