From Publishers Weekly
The Village Voice Literary Supplement has long been a high profile yet casual meeting place for writers ranging from the avant-garde to the reactionary to the canonical. War of the Words: The VLS Anthology of Writing on Contemporary Literature, assembled by current Voice literary editor Joy Press, features dozens of critical essays by mostly renowned writers on even more renowned writers. Michele Wallace observes that Zora Neale Hurston "rejected the racial uplift agenda of the Talented Tenth on the premise that ordinary bloods had something to say, too." Mark Dery zeroes in on Amok Press's edgy (often disturbing) material, Bharati Mukherjee on Salman Rushdie's apocalyptic tragicomedy. The lit-crit crowd speaks up, too: Scott Malcomson discusses whiteness and anthropology vis-…-vis several cultural studies; Thulani Davis examines a handful of buppie writers. A great opportunity for revisiting quasi-fringe literary happenings (many of which have since become establishment) of the past 20 years. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The Voice Literary Supplement (VLS) was founded in 1981, and its current editor, Press (coauthor, The Sex Revolt: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock'n'Roll), here gathers some of the most exciting writings from the publication's last 20 years. The selections cover writers old, new, and forgotten, as well as cultural forces and popular culture; canon arguments, academic quarrels, and the culture wars are all included. Readers will conclude that the canon is up for grabs and that popular culture is a profound aspect of modern life. Some insightful works include Blanche McCrary Boyd's essay on Katherine Anne Porter, Michele Wallace's on Zora Neale Hurston, Ellen Willis's on black feminism, and Michael B rub 's on postmodernism. Geoffrey O'Brien's wonderful view of "classic comics" highlights what great fun they were. Other authors represented in the collection include Henry Louis Gates Jr., David Foster Wallace, Gary Indiana, Greil Marcus, and Peter Schjeldahl. The VLS is an important and still controversial literary review, recommending this useful overview for most literature collections. Gene Shaw, NYPL Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
In a time of diminished book-review sections in newspapers and magazines, and the tainting of literary and critical writing with marketing, reading this retrospective collection of intelligent and gutsy essays from the Voice Literary Supplement is both exciting and frustrating. The Village Voice spun off its stand-alone book section in 1981, and it's been flourishing ever since, showcasing emerging writers, reconsidering the canon, and according graphic novels, pulp fiction, and other rude literary forms keen critical attention. Many fine writers have found shelter on these pages as both reviewer and reviewee. David Foster Wallace grapples with Dostoevsky and Joseph Frank's four-volume biography, then there's Bharati Mukherjee on Salman Rushdie, Edmund White on Djuana Barnes, Thulani Davis on "Buppie Writers," Dorothy Allison on Anne Rice, Hilton Als on Sammy Davis Jr., and essays on literature and AIDS, black feminism, and queer theory. A substantial and well-made literary feast to be sure, but the self-congratulatory introduction should have been mediated by a critical foreword by a non-VLS writer. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
The Village Voice Literary Supplement – Twenty Years of:
Blasting the Canon
Relocating the Cutting Edge
Resurrecting the Forgotten
* Albert Mobilio on Gertrude Stein * David Foster Wallace on Feodor Dostoevsky * Henry Louis Gates on Langston Hughes * Blanche McCrary Boyd on Katherine Anne Porter * Paul Elie on John Cheever * Bharati Mukherjee on Salman Rushdie * Andrew O’Hagan on Don DeLillo * Michele Wallace on Zora Neale Hurston * Erik Davis on Philip K. Dick * Gary Indiana on Thomas Bernhard * Greg Tate on Samuel Delany * Edmund White on Djuna Barnes * Joe Wood on Albert Murray * Darcey Steinke on William Goyen * Rick Moody on Angela Carter * Walter Kendrick on the Freud Backlash * Ellen Willis on Angela Davis, bell hooks, and Black Feminism * Richard Goldstein on Plague Literature in the Age of AIDS * Thulani Davis on Buppie Writers * Michael B?rub? on Postmodernism * Michael Warner on Queer Theory * Scott L. Malcomson on Whiteness and Anthropology * Lynne Tillman on the Future of Fiction * Dorothy Allison on Anne Rice * Lisa Jones on Black Romance Novels * Geoffrey O’Brien on Classic Comics * Hilton Als on Sammy Davis, Jr. * Greil Marcus on Situationism * Guy Trebay on the Warhol Diaries * Vince Aletti on Physique Magazines * Jonathan Lethem on Science Fiction’s Lost Promise * Paul Berman on The Pentagon Catalog * Mark Dery on Apocalypse Culture * Peter Schjeldahl on Dennis Cooper * C. Carr on Kathy Acker * Stacy D’Erasmo on Mary Gaitskill * David Shields on Nicholson Baker * Katherine Dieckmann on Lorrie Moore * Jeff Yang on Chang-Rae Lee * Richard B. Woodward on Jonathan Lethem
A forum for writers who want to test the boundaries of the traditional book review, the Voice Literary Supplement is smart, iconoclastic, and accessible literary and cultural criticism at its best. In a collection of some of the finest pieces culled from the last twenty years, War of the Words preserves the flavor of this revolutionary magazine and will introduce a whole new generation of readers to the riskiness, urgency, and fun that has always characterized the VLS.
From the Inside Flap
The Village Voice Literary Supplement – Twenty Years of:
Blasting the Canon
Relocating the Cutting Edge
Resurrecting the Forgotten
* Albert Mobilio on Gertrude Stein * David Foster Wallace on Feodor Dostoevsky * Henry Louis Gates on Langston Hughes * Blanche McCrary Boyd on Katherine Anne Porter * Paul Elie on John Cheever * Bharati Mukherjee on Salman Rushdie * Andrew O’Hagan on Don DeLillo * Michele Wallace on Zora Neale Hurston * Erik Davis on Philip K. Dick * Gary Indiana on Thomas Bernhard * Greg Tate on Samuel Delany * Edmund White on Djuna Barnes * Joe Wood on Albert Murray * Darcey Steinke on William Goyen * Rick Moody on Angela Carter * Walter Kendrick on the Freud Backlash * Ellen Willis on Angela Davis, bell hooks, and Black Feminism * Richard Goldstein on Plague Literature in the Age of AIDS * Thulani Davis on Buppie Writers * Michael B?rub? on Postmodernism * Michael Warner on Queer Theory * Scott L. Malcomson on Whiteness and Anthropology * Lynne Tillman on the Future of Fiction * Dorothy Allison on Anne Rice * Lisa Jones on Black Romance Novels * Geoffrey O’Brien on Classic Comics * Hilton Als on Sammy Davis, Jr. * Greil Marcus on Situationism * Guy Trebay on the Warhol Diaries * Vince Aletti on Physique Magazines * Jonathan Lethem on Science Fiction’s Lost Promise * Paul Berman on The Pentagon Catalog * Mark Dery on Apocalypse Culture * Peter Schjeldahl on Dennis Cooper * C. Carr on Kathy Acker * Stacy D’Erasmo on Mary Gaitskill * David Shields on Nicholson Baker * Katherine Dieckmann on Lorrie Moore * Jeff Yang on Chang-Rae Lee * Richard B. Woodward on Jonathan Lethem
A forum for writers who want to test the boundaries of the traditional book review, the Voice Literary Supplement is smart, iconoclastic, and accessible literary and cultural criticism at its best. In a collection of some of the finest pieces culled from the last twenty years, War of the Words preserves the flavor of this revolutionary magazine and will introduce a whole new generation of readers to the riskiness, urgency, and fun that has always characterized the VLS.
About the Author
Joy Press is the editor of the Voice Literary Supplement and the literary editor of The Village Voice. She has written about books and music for numerous publications and is the coauthor of The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock’n’Roll.
War of the Words: 20 Years of Writing on Contemporary Literature FROM THE PUBLISHER
The Village Voice Literary Supplement – Twenty Years of:
Blasting the Canon
Relocating the Cutting Edge
Resurrecting the Forgotten
* Albert Mobilio on Gertrude Stein * David Foster Wallace on Feodor Dostoevsky * Henry Louis Gates on Langston Hughes * Blanche McCrary Boyd on Katherine Anne Porter * Paul Elie on John Cheever * Bharati Mukherjee on Salman Rushdie * Andrew O’Hagan on Don DeLillo * Michele Wallace on Zora Neale Hurston * Erik Davis on Philip K. Dick * Gary Indiana on Thomas Bernhard * Greg Tate on Samuel Delany * Edmund White on Djuna Barnes * Joe Wood on Albert Murray * Darcey Steinke on William Goyen * Rick Moody on Angela Carter * Walter Kendrick on the Freud Backlash * Ellen Willis on Angela Davis, bell hooks, and Black Feminism * Richard Goldstein on Plague Literature in the Age of AIDS * Thulani Davis on Buppie Writers * Michael B?rub? on Postmodernism * Michael Warner on Queer Theory * Scott L. Malcomson on Whiteness and Anthropology * Lynne Tillman on the Future of Fiction * Dorothy Allison on Anne Rice * Lisa Jones on Black Romance Novels * Geoffrey O’Brien on Classic Comics * Hilton Als on Sammy Davis, Jr. * Greil Marcus on Situationism * Guy Trebay on the Warhol Diaries * Vince Aletti on Physique Magazines * Jonathan Lethem on Science Fiction’s Lost Promise * Paul Berman on The Pentagon Catalog * Mark Dery on Apocalypse Culture * Peter Schjeldahl on Dennis Cooper * C. Carr on Kathy Acker * Stacy D’Erasmo on Mary Gaitskill * David Shields on Nicholson Baker * Katherine Dieckmann on Lorrie Moore * Jeff Yang on Chang-Rae Lee * Richard B. Woodward on Jonathan Lethem
A forum for writers who want totest the boundaries of the traditional book review, the Voice Literary Supplement is smart, iconoclastic, and accessible literary and cultural criticism at its best. In a collection of some of the finest pieces culled from the last twenty years, War of the Words preserves the flavor of this revolutionary magazine and will introduce a whole new generation of readers to the riskiness, urgency, and fun that has always characterized the VLS.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
The Village Voice Literary Supplement has long been a high profile yet casual meeting place for writers ranging from the avant-garde to the reactionary to the canonical. War of the Words: The VLS Anthology of Writing on Contemporary Literature, assembled by current Voice literary editor Joy Press, features dozens of critical essays by mostly renowned writers on even more renowned writers. Michele Wallace observes that Zora Neale Hurston "rejected the racial uplift agenda of the Talented Tenth on the premise that ordinary bloods had something to say, too." Mark Dery zeroes in on Amok Press's edgy (often disturbing) material, Bharati Mukherjee on Salman Rushdie's apocalyptic tragicomedy. The lit-crit crowd speaks up, too: Scott Malcomson discusses whiteness and anthropology vis-?-vis several cultural studies; Thulani Davis examines a handful of buppie writers. A great opportunity for revisiting quasi-fringe literary happenings (many of which have since become establishment) of the past 20 years. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
The Voice Literary Supplement (VLS) was founded in 1981, and its current editor, Press (coauthor, The Sex Revolt: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock'n'Roll), here gathers some of the most exciting writings from the publication's last 20 years. The selections cover writers old, new, and forgotten, as well as cultural forces and popular culture; canon arguments, academic quarrels, and the culture wars are all included. Readers will conclude that the canon is up for grabs and that popular culture is a profound aspect of modern life. Some insightful works include Blanche McCrary Boyd's essay on Katherine Anne Porter, Michele Wallace's on Zora Neale Hurston, Ellen Willis's on black feminism, and Michael B rub 's on postmodernism. Geoffrey O'Brien's wonderful view of "classic comics" highlights what great fun they were. Other authors represented in the collection include Henry Louis Gates Jr., David Foster Wallace, Gary Indiana, Greil Marcus, and Peter Schjeldahl. The VLS is an important and still controversial literary review, recommending this useful overview for most literature collections. Gene Shaw, NYPL Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Art & Photography
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