Upcoming
Caleb Carr made a name for himself by excavating turn-of-the-century New York in both The Alienist and The Prince of Darkness, and he made it a mysterious, exciting place to be. Now he’s moving on: to 2023, to be exact, six years after U.S. President Emily Forrester is assassinated. In Carr’s new novel Killing Time, Dr. Gideon Wolfe is a criminologist who sort of happens across some evidence that the man convicted of killing the president didn’t do such a thing at all. The government has been bought by a big corporation, and the Net seems to control everyone. Carr occasionally enlivens all that strange, ominous doom with notes of humor; his noted ability to ratchet up the intrigue chapter by chapter is in full effect here. He’ll be at BookPeople on Monday, Dec. 4, at 7pm… If you’re an Oprah fan or saw Saturday Night Live several weeks ago when Oprah regular and relationship guru Dr. Phil McGraw was caricatured and are curious to see what the real item looks like up close and personal, he and his son, Jay McGraw, who has a new book, Life Strategies for Teens, will be at BookPeople on Tuesday, Dec. 5, at 7pm. Dr. Phil helped Oprah through her mad cow trial in Amarillo, when she was accused of verbally tainting the minds of the nation’s carnivores by saying some crazy things about beef, like she wasn’t going to eat it anymore. For ye hordes of people expected to attend this event, I’m going to take a step toward being accountable for every aspect of my life (and make Dr. Phil proud of me in the process), by doing what I’ve been asked to do, which is point out that Dr. Phil will not be signing copies of his own books, though he will sign his son’s since he wrote the foreword. I already feel better about myself. I promise to apply a stance of tough love to this column from now on… Neal Barrett Jr. has a new novel out in paperback, The Prophecy Machine, the first in a new series of books from Barrett derived from “The Lizard Shoppe,” a story he originally published in Dragon magazine. More dragons: Barrett has also written the novelization for the forthcoming film Dungeons & Dragons. He’ll sign both works at Adventures in Crime and Space on Saturday, Dec. 9, from 4-6… The money raised for Texas libraries from this year’s Texas Book Festival will bring the total amount of donations raised over five years of Festival existence to more than $1 million. Attendance matched last year’s at 25,000 tenacious people who didn’t mind all the rain and tornado warnings… Smallmouth Press, a small electronic press that is doling out some tough love to all of us by routinely publishing Stephen Dixon, is offering $1,000 and electronic publication as an e-book for the best novella submitted to its first annual Andre Dubus Novella Contest. On the press’ Web site (www.smallmouthpress.com), the editors explain the impetus for the competition: “In such a loud and crass literary culture,” they write, “Dubus’s devotion to writing and the mastery of his craft demands recognition, remembrance.” Send double-spaced manuscripts of 75-150 pages. Your name should not appear anywhere on the manuscript. Include a cover sheet with your name, address, phone, e-mail, and manuscript title. One entry per person. Manuscripts must be postmarked before March 1, 2001. Send entries to: Andre Dubus Novella Award, Smallmouth Press, PO Box 661, New York, NY 10185.
This article appears in December 1 • 2000.