Culture

Doctors’ Brains Doctors’ Brains

It's 9:45 Tuesday night, and the house lights have just come on after the final scene of Wit--the surprise Off Broadway hit about a terminally ill English professor and her exper...

Jul 8, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Suzanne Gordon

Scandalocracy Scandalocracy

Public scandals are America's favorite parlor sport. Learning about the flaws and misdeeds of the rich and famous seems to satisfy our egalitarian yearnings.

Jul 8, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Robert Dallek

‘Snake Eat Snake’ ‘Snake Eat Snake’

A few years ago, one of Lebanon's giddier periodicals, suitably titled Prestige, published as its cover story an interview with a Lebanese celebrity.

Jul 1, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Walid Harb

‘Free-Range Rude’ ‘Free-Range Rude’

Early in Hannibal, Thomas Harris's hungrily anticipated sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, an Italian chief investigator on the trail of Dr.

Jul 1, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Annie Gottlieb

Bridge Over Troubled Water Bridge Over Troubled Water

Legend has it that Potemkin, burdened by duties and melancholy, once neglected to order the packing up of one of his stage-set villages.

Jul 1, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

The Non-Silence of the Un-Lamblike The Non-Silence of the Un-Lamblike

After the success of Infinite Jest in 1996, David Foster Wallace took a vacation from fiction and, perhaps, from fans' expectations with A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Agai...

Jul 1, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Tom LeClair

Holocaust Creationism Holocaust Creationism

Between 1945 and 1947 the United States underwent perhaps the most breathtaking ideological transformation in its history.

Jun 24, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Jon Wiener

Republic of Pain Republic of Pain

Quick, name a recent Nobel Peace Prize laureate accused of colluding in a program of mass murder. No, not Henry Kissinger--that's old news.

Jun 24, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Roane Carey

Born Cool Born Cool

The title character in Run Lola Run lives underneath a fibrous growth that in shape resembles a neglected patch of lawn and in color brings to mind a fire engine--or maybe a fire...

Jun 24, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Eat, Drink and Be Chary Eat, Drink and Be Chary

J.M. Coetzee's new novella, The Lives of Animals, must be some kind of first.

Jun 17, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Benjamin Kunkel

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