In my friend Susan Maddux’s gorgeous Hawaii watercolors, nature and technology cohabitate so convincingly, you can almost feel the heat radiating off the satellite dish. I haven’t been back to South Florida in several years, but so much of my novel takes place there, I can’t get enough of the sensory associations these paintings inspire. No matter what drab square . . .
Colin Marshall interviews me — thoughtfully and at length — for his Marketplace of Ideas show, and inadvertently reminds me why I usually prefer to answer questions in email: Once I start talking, I do not shut up. No wonder my friends never answer their cellphones. Also, good God. Evidently I say “I think” the way some people say “um.” . . .
The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm, and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to . . .
It took a Hitchcock-inspired Barbie for me to register that The Birds is based on a Daphne du Maurier short story.
My review of Aleksandar Hemon’s The Lazarus Project appears in The Boston Globe today. Here’s an excerpt: The late, great writer and World War II veteran Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was captured by the Germans and confined to a prisoner-of-war camp in Dresden. When an American air raid destroyed the city, he was put to work carrying civilians’ corpses. The apocalypse . . .