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Articles and other short nonfiction

When a piece of mine becomes available online, I try to post a link to it here. Click on the title and they'll open in a new window.

Review: The Lost Painting, by Jonathan Harr
"Harr is indisputably a masterful storyteller, and if anything that's what makes this book a less than satisfactory read. "
San Francisco Chronicle, December 11, 2005

Interview with Ian Frazier
The author of On the Rez discusses his ideal writing style and his ideal woman—though only one is “heavy with hot bloatum.”
The Believer, September 2004

Light: Bioluminescence
"If you want to see something truly beautiful, try making a shrimp vomit."
The Believer, August 2003

Review: The Judges, by Elie Wiesel
"Calling Elie Wiesel a writer is like calling Martin Luther King Jr. a pastor -- it's technically true, but it misses entirely the purpose that overrides the profession. "
San Francisco Chronicle, September 29, 2002

Review: The Writer and the World, by V. S. Naipaul
"Disdain can drip from the pages, and yet there's a consistent sense of the writer drawing ever closer to his subject, not farther away."
San Francisco Chronicle, August 18, 2002

Review: When Eve Was Naked, by Josef Skvorecky
"Ignore the airs of quasi-memoir--a swamp of a notion, if ever there was one--and find your own path through the stories. "
San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 2002

Review: The House of Blue Mangos, by David Davidar
"Although not autobiographical, "Mangoes" clearly draws its ambling force from his own cherished memories, sense of family and pride of place."
San Francisco Chronicle, March 17, 2002

Review: The Floating Brothel, by Sian Rees
"The strain of overreaching prose takes a backseat to concerns about the facts presented: Some contradict, some seem grounded in arguable logic and others seem flat-out wrong."
San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 2002

Review: The Birds of Heaven, by Peter Matthiessen
"His nonfiction is consistently driven by a sense that personal truths emerge from the wilderness--or at least from the imperfect quest to engage the wilderness on its own terms."
San Francisco Chronicle, December 30, 2001

Review: Reading Chekhov, by Janet Malcolm
"Most stabs at meaning proceed casually from the mundane, a tactic which of course echoes Chekhov himself, who was a master of small moments illuminating big themes.
San Francisco Chronicle, December 16, 2001

Review: Stories of the Invisible, by Philip Ball
" A frustrating number of technical terms, such as sarcoplasmic reticulum, are invoked exactly once, for no particular purpose, as if the author simply likes the sound of them."
San Francisco Chronicle, November 4, 2001

Review: A Voyage for Madmen, by Peter Nichols
"Nichols' prose has a wonderful streamlined quality, a purpose-built economy of expression that doesn't call attention to its own grace."
San Francisco Chronicle, August 5, 2001

ARTICLES