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      Robert Coover, Inventive Novelist in Iconoclastic Era, Dies at 92

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      Once called “probably the funniest and most malicious” of the postmodernists, his books reflected a career-long interest in reimagining folk stories, fairy tales and political myths.Robert Coover, who along with Donald Barthelme, John Barth and others occupied the vanguard of postmodern American fiction in the 1960s and 1970s, and who went on to a long and prolific career writing and teaching, died on Saturday in Warwick, England. He was 92.His death, in a care home, was confirmed on Sunday by his daughter Sara Caldwell to The Associated Press. Ms. Caldwell, an author and filmmaker, did not give a cause but said his health had been declining recently.Mr. Coover’s first novel, “The Origin of the Brunists,” published in 1966 and fairly traditional in its telling, was about a religious cult built around the lone survivor of a mining accident in the Midwest.In The New York Times Book Review, Webster Schott wrote of its author: “If he can somehow control his Hollywood giganticism and focus his vision of life, he may become heir to Dreiser or Lewis.”If it wasn’t obvious then that Mr. Coover had no interest in inheriting the kingdom of social realism from Theodore Dreiser or Sinclair Lewis, his 1969 story collection “Pricksongs and Descants” made it abundantly clear. Those stories firmly established his career-long interest in remixing fairy tales, exploding myths and placing only the most transparent window in front of fiction’s inner machinery.“The Babysitter,” a widely anthologized story from that collection, rifled through the many possible scenarios of one night after a young woman arrives at a house to take care of three children. The brief, fractured episodes range from the banal to the violent and the lascivious, including the fantasies of the babysitter’s boyfriend and of the children’s father. (More than 25 years later the story was, improbably, adapted into a movie with the same title starring Alicia Silverstone.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      2 Books About Old Flames

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      Stephen McCauley’s novel about ex-spouses reuniting, in a sense; Jim Shepard’s noir about a fateful hit-and-run.Twenty47studio/Getty ImagesDear readers,I pulled an old favorite novel from the shelf recently, and a ghost fell out. Not an actual ectoplasm but a small cream-colored card, the lost artifact of a summer fling with a glamorous Spaniard whose chaotic charms were never meant to last past August. (Reader, I ended it at a busy crosswalk and was on the subway back to Brooklyn before the next light changed: over, as they say, in a New York minute.)Perhaps you are a better caretaker of your personal library — and your seasonal romances gone by — than I. But any fan of stoop sales and secondhand bookshops knows what it is to pick up a novel riddled with hand-drawn margin notes or ancient A.T.M. receipts, all the impenetrable detritus of some stranger’s lived-in life.Most times, that kind of mess will at least net you a modest discount. There can also be something magical, though, about these bits of literary flotsam: a whole world of small mysteries and secret histories contained in a scrawled title-page dedication or a cryptic doodle.And there’s an enduring lure, too, in revisiting a long-ago love affair, as the main characters in this week’s newsletter picks do. Whether that’s strictly advisable, mis amores, is another story.—LeahWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      5 Takeaways From Melania Trump’s Book: Abortion Rights, 2020 Election and More

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      Shining a little more light on her mysterious life, her memoir details her support for abortion rights, her doubts about the 2020 election and her explanation for that “I really don’t care” jacket.Melania Trump’s new memoir offers a few new glimpses into a life she has carefully walled off from the public, but readers hoping to understand one of the most mysterious first ladies in modern history will not make it past the gilded front gate.First ladies write memoirs because they want to be understood. (The hefty contract doesn’t hurt, either.) Hillary Clinton wrote about her husband’s affair with an intern and the poisonous political process that followed. Michelle Obama revealed that she was angrier with her husband’s critics — one in particular — than she had ever let on while he was in office. Laura Bush used her book to voice her support for gay marriage and abortion rights.It is almost as if they must survive the role before they can write about it.But in Mrs. Trump’s telling, her time as first lady was largely smooth sailing. Her book, an early copy of which was obtained by The New York Times before its release next week, does not reveal her to harbor differing views from her husband, beyond her support for abortion rights.In fact, her grievances — with the news media, with “the opposition” and with aides she believes failed her and her husband — sound a lot like her husband’s, only dressed up in couture.Here are five takeaways.The big revelation is that she supports abortion rights.Mrs. Trump made headlines this week when a reported excerpt from her book revealed that she supported abortion rights — a notable position given that her husband appointed three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn a constitutional right to the procedure.“A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” Mrs. Trump writes. “Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Melania Trump, Whose Husband Helped End Roe, Signals Support for Abortion Rights

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      Melania Trump, the former first lady, said in a video on Thursday that there was “no room for compromise” on a woman’s right to “individual freedom,” a day after a reported excerpt from her coming memoir said she supported abortion rights.Mrs. Trump’s comments landed as Mr. Trump and his party are trying to soften their opposition to abortion, a key issue threatening his support with women voters and attempt to return to the White House. They were released in a promotional video for a new memoir scheduled for release on Tuesday,, who opposes federal abortion rights and has taken credit for helping overturn Roe v. Wade. “Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” she said in the video, which was posted to her account on X. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth, individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?”On Wednesday evening, the British news site The Guardian published excerpts from Mrs. Trump’s book, in which she appeared to go a step further than her words in the video: “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”A spokeswoman for Skyhorse Publishing, the publisher of the book, did not respond to a request to confirm the book’s contents or supply an early copy.Mr. Trump, aware of the political pressure over his position on abortion rights, has gone from crowing over the downfall of Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion, to pondering what limits on the procedure he would be willing to accept.Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022, Republicans have toyed with the idea of national abortion limits even as a number of state ballot measures to protect access to the procedure have succeeded.And Democrats have seized on the slate of new abortion restrictions in Republican-led states — and the harrowing stories from women who have died or faced life-threatening complications tied to restrictions on health care — as a winning issue ahead of November.So, in recent months, Mr. Trump has waffled on his views on access to the procedure. In a presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris last month, he declined to say whether he would support a national ban on abortion.On Wednesday, in an all-capital-letters post on social media, Mr. Trump said: “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!).”Mr. Trump went on to say he supported exceptions for abortion if a woman had been raped or a victim of incest, or if her life were in danger. More

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      3 Poets Who See Society Freaking Out, and Respond in Kind

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      New collections from Alexandra Teague, Daniel Borzutzky and August Kleinzahler tap into a strain of cultural anxiety.Are you overwhelmed? I know I am. Even with recent sparks of hope, there have been a hell of a lot of slings and arrows lately. We have not been fine. But when things get tough, we can turn to poetry. Of course, poetry’s as overwhelmed as we are, anxious company, as these three new books amply illustrate.Alexandra Teague meets this moment with megaphones blaring in her fourth collection, OMINOUS MUSIC INTENSIFYING (Persea, paperback, $18) — the volume knob on most of these poems starts at seven and goes way past 11. They portray an oversaturated America where “the man in the size-twelve heels calling Girl, how do these look?/would never tell you walking in this country is free.” This multiscreen, surround-sound blitz is often thrilling — Teague seems to have an everlasting supply of ideas, and she is frighteningly clever. Her best lines are like stand-up tragedy.Everywhere Teague looks she sees the rapid degradation of human civilization and the planet along with it. “Because something has to be to blame,” she recruits Yeats’s rough beast, that famous harbinger of doom, as her avatar in a series of poems that journey into the bowels of a fallen nation plagued by guns and “foreclosed windows. Meth.” The beast is, of course, an embodiment of the horrors humanity has wrought, “made of the past like a junk shop/with split-frame washboards/and dolls with crazed, crazy eyes.” Teague’s beast reminds me of They Might Be Giants’ “person man,” the one who was “hit on the head with a frying pan”: sad, sympathetic and a bit blank.In Teague’s more personal poems, all that churning associative machinery sharpens her metaphors to startling points, as in the gorgeous “The Horse That Threw Me,” a visionary lyric, one of the finest I’ve read in years. Figures braid and cascade until horseback riding becomes synonymous with the will to live: “Didn’t you want to canter beyond yourself? Of course you/did.” It’s a glorious poem, and there are more. But be warned: Teague dramatizes a seriously overwhelming world by seriously overwhelming her readers. This book may induce authentic anxiety. But so does your phone, every time you pick it up.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      2024 National Book Award Finalists Are Named

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      Percival Everett’s “James,” Salman Rushdie’s “Knife” and Diane Seuss’ “Modern Poetry” are among the honorees. Winners will be announced next month.This year’s finalists for the National Book Award include the novel “James,” by Percival Everett, a retelling of the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of an enslaved man, “Knife,” by Salman Rushdie, a memoir about the stabbing attempt on his life and his recovery, as well as books translated from Arabic, Mandarin Chinese and French.The National Book Foundation announced its 25 finalists on Tuesday for awards across five categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young people’s literature. The winners of the National Book Award, among the most prestigious literary prizes in the United States, will be announced in November.The fiction finalists also included Miranda July’s “All Fours,” about a 45-year-old artist whose road trip is cut short for a torrid affair. ’Pemi Aguda’s “Ghostroots,” a debut short story collection set in Lagos, Nigeria, was also on the list, as was “Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar, a book about addiction, grief and art, and “My Friends,” by Hisham Matar, which follows three Libyan exiles living in Britain.In the nonfiction category, Kate Manne’s “Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia” explores weight stigma in different facets of society, including health care and employment. “Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church,” by Eliza Griswold, who won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, documents the rise and fall of a progressive Christian church. In “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling,” Jason De León embeds with human smugglers. Deborah Jackson Taffa examines her Native identity and her family’s history of displacement in “Whiskey Tender.”The poetry finalists include Diane Seuss, who won the Pulitzer Prize for the same category in 2022, and m.s. RedCherries, who was nominated for her debut poetry collection, “mother,” which is about an Indigenous child who is adopted by a non-Indigenous family. Anne Carson’s “Wrong Norma” is made up of prose poems and drawings about everyday life. Fady Joudah’s collection “[…]” is about Palestinians and the horrors of war, and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s “Something About Living” is about the erasure of Palestinian history.In translated literature, Bothayna Al-Essa’s “The Book Censor’s Library” is set in a dystopian future. It was translated from Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain. “Taiwan Travelogue,” by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King, is about a Japanese writer and her relationship with her Taiwanese interpreter. “Where the Wind Calls Home,” by Samar Yazbek, translated from Arabic by Leri Price, is told through a 19-year-old soldier who is trying to survive the Syrian Civil War. “The Villain’s Dance,” by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, was translated from French by Roland Glasser and “Ædnan” by Linnea Axelsson was translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Find the Book Titles Hidden in This Story

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      “I don’t care if you have roots in the business, but I think being a detective is a risk and an unsuitable job for a woman,” said Doyle, as he picked the lock on the door. “Just say the word if you want to stay in the car.”“I’d say that word is misogyny,” snapped Duncan as they entered the apartment. “My dad knew I had the right stuff — and usually the scruples — to be a P.I.” She glanced around the spotless home. “And I fortified myself this morning with a big bowl of Wheaties, the breakfast of champions.”“Time and again I’ve seen awful things in these searches,” said Doyle, as he looked around. “But there’s no sign that something happened or evidence someone in the final days before self-harm.”Duncan checked behind a curtain and saw an imprint on the shag rug where a suitcase had clearly been stored. On the desk sat an open book and a brochure for a Poconos resort. “Song of Solomon 2:16, a verse often used in weddings, is underlined in this Bible,” she announced. “Maybe this is just a love story with a secret elopement.”“I don’t care if you have roots in the business, but I think being a detective is a risk and an unsuitable job for a woman,” said Doyle, as he picked the lock on the door. “Just say the word if you want to stay in the car.”“I’d say that word is misogyny,” snapped Duncan as they entered the apartment. “My dad knew I had the right stuff — and usually the scruples — to be a P.I.” She glanced around the spotless home. “And I fortified myself this morning with a big bowl of Wheaties, the breakfast of champions.”“Time and again I’ve seen awful things in these searches,” said Doyle, as he looked around. “But there’s no sign that something happened or evidence someone in the final days before self-harm.”Duncan checked behind a curtain and saw an imprint on the shag rug where a suitcase had clearly been stored. On the desk sat an open book and a brochure for a Poconos resort. “Song of Solomon 2:16, a verse often used in weddings, is underlined in this Bible,” she announced. “Maybe this is just a love story with a secret elopement.”“I don’t care if you have roots in the business, but I think being a detective is a risk and an unsuitable job for a woman,” said Doyle, as he picked the lock on the door. “Just say the word if you want to stay in the car.”“I’d say that word is misogyny,” snapped Duncan as they entered the apartment. “My dad knew I had the right stuff — and usually the scruples — to be a P.I.” She glanced around the spotless home. “And I fortified myself this morning with a big bowl of Wheaties, the breakfast of champions.”“Time and again I’ve seen awful things in these searches,” said Doyle, as he looked around. “But there’s no sign that something happened or evidence someone in the final days before self-harm.”Duncan checked behind a curtain and saw an imprint on the shag rug where a suitcase had clearly been stored. On the desk sat an open book and a brochure for a Poconos resort. “Song of Solomon 2:16, a verse often used in weddings, is underlined in this Bible,” she announced. “Maybe this is just a love story with a secret elopement.” More

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      John D. MacDonald Knew a Hurricane Like Helene Was Coming

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      John D. MacDonald was eerily prescient about the risks of human-driven climate disasters in the region.When I learned early Friday morning that Cedar Key, Fla., had been flattened overnight by Hurricane Helene, one of the first things that came to my mind was a song lyric by Jimmy Buffett — early Buffett, before he became a walking tourist attraction. One of his better songs is “Incommunicado,” released in 1981. It begins: “Travis McGee’s still in Cedar Key/That’s what old John MacDonald said.”Buffett didn’t get it quite right. McGee, the tanned, laid-back antihero of John D. MacDonald’s terrific thriller novels, didn’t hang out in Cedar Key. He docked the houseboat he lived in — it was named the Busted Flush, because he’d won it in a card game — on the opposite coast, in Fort Lauderdale.But Buffett clearly knew MacDonald’s own geography. The novelist, who died in 1986, spent most of his adult life in Sarasota and on nearby Siesta Key, just a few hours south of Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast. When Helene scraped ruinously along the central and northern parts of the Florida’s Gulf Coast on Thursday night, it was taking aim at MacDonald country.There are many reasons to read MacDonald’s 21 Travis McGee novels, which include “The Deep Blue Good-By” (1964), “Pale Gray for Guilt” (1968) and “The Dreadful Lemon Sky” (1974). They’re sly, satirical, tattered around the edges. Kingsley Amis thought MacDonald was a better writer than Saul Bellow. All of the McGee books have colors in their titles. MacDonald was among the first to use this sort of mnemonic device, as Sue Grafton would in her alphabet series, so readers could remember which ones they’d read.Another reason to read MacDonald is that he was eerily prescient. How much so? He saw Helene coming, more clearly than most. Here is a paragraph from his novel “Dead Low Tide,” from 1953:You pray, every night, that the big one doesn’t come this year. A big one stomped and churned around Cedar Key a couple of years back, and took a mild pass at Clearwater and huffed itself out. One year it is going to show up, walking out of the Gulf and up the coast, like a big red top walking across the schoolyard. … It’s going to be like taking a good kick at an anthill, and then the local segment of that peculiar aberration called the human race is going to pick itself up, whistle for the dredges and start it all over again.In his 1956 novel “Murder in the Wind” (also published as “Hurricane”), he wrote about a storm named Hilda — not Helene, but close enough — that destroys the area around Cedar Key. In an author’s note at the front, he urges anyone doubting the plausibility of such a disaster to remember that just six years earlier, a hurricane had put much of the region underwater.“Though the chance is statistically remote,” MacDonald writes, “there need only be the unfortunate conjunction of hurricane path and high Gulf tide to create coastal death and damage surpassing the fictional account in this book.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More