death of the genre (despite noble attempts at resurrection by Jonathan Lethem ("Gun With Occasional Music") and Charlie Smith ("Chimney Rock"). Stone dispenses the crime elements offstage, and then wallows in drugs, suicide, madness, Oedipal failures and Mexico -- the traditional dumping ground for noir.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

He named his five favorite books on scandals for the Wall Street Journal. One book on the list:

A Gospel of Shameby Frank Bruni and Elinor Burkett

"A Gospel of Shame" is a disturbing account of religious scandal. New York Times reporter Frank Bruni and magazine writer Elinor Burkett put the reader in parochial-school classrooms and vividly conjure the terror felt by children subjected to gropings and worse by the priests who were supposed to be their moral shepherds. Bruni and Burkett alsodocument the now well-known conspiracy by the Catholic Church hierarchy to cover up the child-abuse scandals. "Shame" opens with the story of 40-year-old Frank Fitzpatrick's 1990 telephone call to Father James Porter, his childhood priest at St. Mary's Church in North Attleboro, Mass. Fitzpatrick confronts him: Why did Porter molest Fitzpatrick and other children? The priest replies: "Who knows?"—and laughs.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

At the Guardian, John Mullan named a list of ten of the best women writing as men in literature.

One book on the list:

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Wharton's story is told by a nameless young man, who has been sent by his employers to the small town of Starkfield in wintry New England. He is intrigued by the mysterious Ethan, whom he hires as his driver. Thus