Blue Tile Skate

Ending a 56-year gap, Sofia Coppola became the second woman to receive the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival as the gala wrapped up on Sunday.

Russian Yuliya Solntseva won for “The Story of the Flaming Years” in 1961. Coppola was honored for “The Beguiled,” a Southern Gothic horror that updates the 1971 Civil War drama starring Clint Eastwood.

“I was thrilled to get this movie made and it’s such an exciting start to be honored in Cannes,” Coppola said in a statement.

Along with praising “my great team and cast,” she thanked Universal Studios and one of its speciality divisions, Focus Features, “for their support of women-driven films.”

Nicole Kidman, a star of “The Beguiled” and three other Cannes selections, received a special prize marking the French festival’s 70th anniversary.

The coveted Palme d’Or, one of filmmaking’s most lauded honors, went to “The Square,” a surprise choice for a festival that typically favors intense dramas. “The Square” is a farce about an art museum staging a radical exhibition that sparks a social crisis. 

Pedro Almódovar, the acclaimed director of “Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and “Talk to Her,” headed this year’s jury, which also included Will Smith, Jessica Chastain, Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, South Korean director Park Chan-wook and Italian director Paolo Sorrentino.

Here’s the full list of winners. Many of the hits at Cannes factor into the race for Oscars.

Palme d’Or: “The Square,” a Swedish art-world satire directed by Ruben Östlund

Grand Prix: “120 Beats Per Minute,” an AIDS drama directed by Robin Campillo

Jury Prize: “Loveless,” a Russian missing-child drama directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev

Best Actress: Diane Kruger, “In the Fade”

Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix, “You Were Never Really Here”

Best Director: Sofia Coppola, “The Beguiled” 

Best Screenplay: a tie between “You Were Never Really Here” (written by Lynne Ramsay) and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou)

Camera d’Or, honoring the best debut feature: “Jeune Femme,” directed by Léonor Sérraille 

Best Short Film: “A Gentle Night,” directed by Qiu Yang

70th Anniversary Prize: Nicole Kidman, who starred in four Cannes titles (”The Beguiled,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” and “Top of the Lake: China Girl”)

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Blockbusters are caught in an endless cycle of bigger-is-better clichés. Budgets have swollen so much over the past few decades that moderation is now a foreign concept for Hollywood’s major studios. This phenomenon manifests most obviously in the special-effects arena, but don’t for one second assume it doesn’t also mean first-class snacks.

One “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie alone allotted a whopping estimate of $2 million for craft services, the department that provides meals and goodies for everyone on the set throughout production. Jack Davenport, who played Commodore James Norrington in the first three “Pirates” films, told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Sunday that a chef once informed him the food budget was “essentially unlimited.”

“I was like, ‘What does that mean?,” Davenport said. “He was like, ‘I don’t know, $2 million.’ I was like, ‘For snacks?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah?’ That sounds frivolous, but it wasn’t. He obviously had to keep people fed.”

Another “Pirates” alum, Lee Arenberg, who played Pintel, recounted the “legendary speech” a producer delivered at the end of a shoot, in which he said the caterers had prepared 170,000 meals. 

For added context: The entire price tag of this year’s Best Picture winner, “Moonlight,” totaled $1.5 million. 

Of course, $2 million is chump change given the “Pirates” movies’ ballooning budgets. The 2003 original cost Disney $140 million, while its 2006 and 2007 sequels climbed to a mind-boggling $225 million and $300 million, respectively. But contextualized within Hollywood history, $2 million is a wild sum: In the early days, actors and crew members brought their own lunches to work, brown-bag style. Now, studios will drop $2 million on food, but they’ll rarely greenlight the mid-budget original stories that drove the movie industry as recently as the 1990s. 

The newest “Pirates” installment, “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” opened this weekend with a $230 million budget, drawing in at least $62 million in ticket sales. Its predecessor, 2011’s “On Stranger Tides,” was the franchise’s weakest grosser domestically, but it saw the heftiest overseas revenue, exemplifying Hollywood’s reliance on foreign ticket sales. Many sequels, reboots and spin-offs have under-performed among American audiences over the past few years, but their foreign profits make that a non-issue.

The “Pirates” sequels’ scathing reviews aren’t enough to keep them down, though box-office analysts expect “Dead Men” could become the series’ weakest stateside moneymaker to date.

But hey, at least everyone on the set ate well. 

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Gregg Allman, one of the two brothers from legendary rock band the Allman Brothers Band, has died. He was 69.

Allman was born on Dec. 8, 1978, in Nashville. He was also born a ramblin’ man, if his band’s 1973 classic rock hit was any indication. He, along with his brother Duane, helped to create one of the most successful classic rock bands of all time. With that came not just music, but drugs, women and ― at times ― tragedy, including the early death of Duane.

In his later years, Allman developed hepatitis C, and suffered from an irregular heartbeat and a respiratory infection and had to have a liver transplant. In 2017, he canceled a planned summer tour, sparking worries about his health. 

Allman was born to Willis Allman, a WWII veteran who stormed Normandy Beach, came back to his bride after the war, and had two sons. His father’s life was cut short when Gregg was just 2 years old. After Willis Allman offered a stranger a ride home from a bar one night, the man fatally shot him in the back.

Neither Gregg nor Duane showed any interest in emulating their father’s military career. The boys hated the military school their mother sent them to, but found their footing in music while there, according to Rolling Stone.

“I learned to play mostly from black people,” Allman told The Guardian in 2015. “We used to listen to a station that called itself ‘The black spot on your dial.’ It played Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and it hit Duane and me like spaghetti hitting a wall.”

By the time the Allman Brothers Band was formed in 1969, Gregg and Duane were legitimate country hippies ― long-haired, drug-smoking free-loving spirits. Duane played guitar, with Gregg on vocals. Other founding members of the band included drummers “Butch” Trucks and Jai “Jaimoe” Johnny Johnson, along with “Dickey” Betts on guitar and Berry Oakley on bass.

The Allman Brothers Band blended country, jazz, blues and Southern rock in such seamless riffs, pounding drums and twangy vocals that it earned them a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and a Lifetime Achievement award at the Grammys in 2012. The movie “Almost Famous” was also, in part, inspired by the band.

The Allman Brothers Band produced their biggest hits in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, including “Ramblin’ Man,” “Midnight Rider” and “Whipping Post.” During this time, the band experimented heavily with drugs and attracted many groupies on tour.

“Gregg was just a pretty boy,” drummer Butch Trucks told Rolling Stone in 1999. “He had blond hair, and the girls were hanging all over him.”

In his book My Cross To Bear, Gregg bragged about his sexual exploits.

“I would have women in four or five different rooms,” Allman wrote about staying in hotels while on tour. “Mind you, I wouldn’t lie to anybody; I’d just say, ‘I’ll be right back.’”

During those earlier years, he and his bandmates were also experimenting with drugs, including (but not limited to) PCP, cocaine and speed. The band loved psychedelic mushrooms so much, they made them their unofficial logo and tattooed a mushroom on each of their calves, according to Rolling Stone.

In 1971, just as the band found itself being propelled into stardom, Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident. He was  24.

“Duane was the king of laughter, always making jokes,” Gregg Allman told The Guardian in 2015. “You’ve got to keep laughing. It was what Duane would have done, and wanted us to do.”

At Duane’s funeral, Gregg played songs on his older brother’s antique guitar.

“This is a very old guitar, a very beautiful piece,” he said to a crowd of 300. “It was made in 1920 and I’m very proud to have it. And I’m very proud that you all came.”

In 1975, Allman married singer Cher in Las Vegas. The marriage lasted nin days, ending after Allman allegedly pulled a knife on her while trying to score heroin. They reconciled after learning Cher was pregnant with their son, Elijah Blue.

In 1977, Cher divorced Allman for good. The final straw was reportedly at an awards show, when Allman passed out face-first in a plate of spaghetti.

“Every now and then,” Allman wrote in his 2012 memoir, “I’ll think of all the hell I caused other people over the years.” 

Allman eventually embraced sobriety. 

“I’m doing great,” Allman told the Savannah Morning News in 2013. “I’ve been clean and sober for 19 years. I just came off one of best the tours I’ve ever done, and I feel good every day.”

In “Ramblin’ Man,” Allman croons: “And when it’s time for leavin, I hope you’ll understand / That I was born a ramblin’ man.”

We understand, midnight rider. 

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In this week’s episode of “Scheer Intelligence” Robert Scheer speaks with documentarian John Scheinfeld about his latest film, “Chasing Trane” about jazz icon John Coltrane. The two also discuss Scheinfeld’s earlier film, “The U.S. vs. John Lennon,” and Lennon’s political activism during the Vietnam War.

The conversation begins with a look at the parallels between Lennon and Coltrane. Noting that the two music legends “overlapped in time,” Scheer tells Scheinfeld: “What you capture in both stories is a search for integrity and rebellion.”

After delving into Lennon’s political activism during and after the Vietnam War, the two discuss Coltrane’s legacy. Scheinfeld notes that Coltrane was a “practice nut” who would practice “hours and hours every day.”

“Yes, jazz exists today, but it’s not the same thing,” Scheer says.

Scheinfeld explains Coltrane’s background and musical process, and the two agree that his music defied any genre.

“He seemed to always be learning and seeking the truth,” Scheinfeld says. “I didn’t want to make a jazz film. In fact, I think the word ‘jazz’ appears in ‘Chasing Trane’ maybe five times. This is a journey film … it’s a portrait of this remarkable artist.”

Listen to the full conversation and listen to past editions of “Scheer Intelligence” here.

— Adapted from Truthdig.com

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Chinese foot-binding is perceived today as unusual, gruesome, an antiquated fetish, an erotic tradition. 

For decades in China, young girls’ bones were broken and their feet tightly bond in a painful process that would eventually make them appear more desirable to men, according to historians. Their deformed feet, known as lotus feet, were tucked into embroidered shoes and viewed as delicate and dainty. It was a way to show off their social status. It was, at the time, chic.

One study, however, suggests that there was another reason girls were subjected to the practice ― and it wasn’t all about beauty or sex.

Research published in the book Bound Feet, Young Hands suggests that some women’s feet had been bound at a very young age so they could be trained to sit still for hours and help create textiles and clothing for the family.

“What’s groundbreaking about our work is that [foot-binding was] not confined to the elite,” Laurel Bossen, the book’s co-author, told HuffPost. The study, Bossen added, dispels the view that the goal was only to try to please men.

To uncover this little-known history of foot-binding, Bossen and the book’s co-author, researcher Hill Gates, interviewed over 1,800 elderly women in remote villages across China and found that foot-binding was widespread among peasant populations, shattering the belief that foot-binding was a status symbol of the elite.

All the women surveyed were born when foot-binding was still an accepted tradition. It’s unclear when the practice began exactly, but Bossen believes foot-binding in China goes back as far as 1,000 years.

“As the last generation of these foot-bound women disappears, we fortunately managed to interview many of them,” Bossen told HuffPost. “There is no other body of data based on interviews with foot-bound women that is as comprehensive as this. It was really a last chance to do it.”

The type of foot-binding practiced in rural communities was a form of discipline, the book argues. Mothers bound young girls’ feet so they would stay still and work with their hands, creating yarn and spinning thread, among other things, which families could use or sell.

“Women who bound their daughters’ feet had their own interests in controlling the labor of young girls and young women,” she said. “We reject the view that women were exempted from work, treasuring their precious bound feet and not economically important. They developed hand skills and worked with their hands throughout their lives.”

These new findings, Bossen believes, prove that women in rural areas who had bound feet didn’t get the recognition they deserved.

“Chinese women were contributing more to society than they received credit for,” she said of the rural women with bound feet. “They were making very important contributions in the form of textiles [that have] been undervalued and mostly just forgotten.”

And while this new research suggests that this painful practice wasn’t solely for men’s desire, it doesn’t make the practice any less oppressive.

Bossen explained, “It robbed young girls and then women throughout their lives of their ability to do other things, to move around and play, to have more choices. Of course it’s oppressive.”

The practice of foot-binding began to be banned in the early 20th century, though some women, like those interviewed by Bossen, kept their feet bound their entire lives. Bossen believes the stories of the women she interviewed might have gotten lost in history as their generation passed away. 

Still, Bossen and Gates’ book doesn’t deny that “lotus feet” were created to make a woman appear more desirable. Accounts written by feet-bound women in 19th century China, published by the University of Virginia, show that women often believed the tighter the foot-binding, the better the husband they’d attract. 

The research does, however, show that these women were more than just sexualized objects. They worked hard to contribute to their families and to the larger society.

“We often underestimate how important handwork was in China’s pre-industrial economy,” she told HuffPost. “The intense pressure on women to work with their hands, to spin, weave, sew, and stitch cloth, bedding and textile products for their families and for sale has gone unrecognized.”

Their research, Bossen added, aims to look at the whole woman and not just her bound feet.

“Somehow, people have been so fascinated by the feet that they ignored the rest of the woman and what she did,” she said.

“It’s very rare to find people who notice the role of handwork in the lives of foot-bound women or who ask these elderly women what work they did when they were young girls.”

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You may not think it, but there’s a direct relationship between plunging your chopsticks into that white, quart-sized box of cheaply priced Chinese food — and a laborer diligently driving a spike to lay the railroad tracks that became the gateway to the American West. 

May, which is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, marks the anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. It was largely built by Chinese immigrants from 1864 to 1869, working at a grueling pace for less money than white workers. And these labor practices have an impact today on how much we’re willing to pay for Chinese food ― rooted in a perception that Chinese labor is inherently “cheap,” historians say.

The earliest Chinese restaurants in America were created for Chinese railroad laborers, who were under contract and lacked negotiating power as they laid tracks from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California ― cutting through the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. With Chinese laborers earning an estimated two-thirds of what white workers made, owners had to keep restaurant prices low, Beatrice Chen, programming vice president at the Museum of Chinese in America, explained to HuffPost. 

The mainstream American consumer mindset is that there is a ceiling to how much we’re willing to pay for Chinese food.

“This perception of Chinese restaurants has stuck, even though high-end Chinese restaurants in Asia are common and popular,” Chen said. “The mainstream American consumer mindset is that there is a ceiling to how much we’re willing to pay for Chinese food, even if they are made with the same fresh ingredients and intricate cooking techniques as say, French or Japanese cuisine.”

‘Cheap Labor’ And ‘Job Stealers’

The railroad also laid the foundation for perceptions of Chinese people themselves. White workers at the time were unionizing, and were less willing to work for lower wages. Railroad executives had been skeptical of the aptitude of Chinese workers, but the laborers set out to prove them wrong, Chen explained.

“This led to the general perception that Chinese were willing to work for lower wages and were job stealers,” she said. 

But what was perceived as a robotic work ethic might have just been survival, Beth Lew-Williams, an assistant professor at Princeton specializing in Asian American history, told HuffPost in an interview in December. She pointed out a discriminatory labor system within the railroad. 

Chinese were paid less, given the worst strenuous jobs. People against the Chinese saw this as revealing of their innate nature.

“It was a race-based dual wage system at the time,” Lew-Williams said. “Chinese were paid less, given the worst strenuous jobs. People against the Chinese saw this as revealing of their innate nature. That Chinese were fundamentally ‘cheap’ labor and designed to do this back-breaking labor.”

On top of negative perceptions, Chinese contributions were largely erased through history. Chen said that of the 17,000 railroad workers, 15,000 were Chinese, though estimates vary. A photo below of the final stake being driven into the track at Promontory Summit, Utah, would have people believe they didn’t contribute at all.

“I hope that telling and disseminating American history told from Asian American perspectives will illuminate that Asian Americans are not necessarily quiet (per the stereotype), but rather, Asian American history/stories and perspectives tend to be silenced in the mainstream,” Chen said. 

Building A Railroad, And Then Banned

Following completion of the tracks, the U.S. implemented the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, stemming further immigration of Chinese laborers. It was the first major law that banned a group’s immigration to the U.S. based on ethnicity.

“The Chinese were originally seen as racially unassimilable,” Lew-Williams said. “They could not become Americanized. They were simultaneously racially inferior, backwards, savage heathen ― and in some dangerous ways ― superior.”

The act was technically repealed on Dec. 17, 1943, allowing 105 Chinese visas per year. The measure was largely seen as an attempt to maintain U.S.-China relationships against Japan during World War II.

In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act fully reversed exclusionary practices, which some historians say was meant to prop up Asians as the “model minority” during the Civil Rights movement ― sending a message to other minority groups. 

An Immigrant Story For Today 

Much has been written about the dangers in grouping together Asian Americans as a model minority monolith and erasing the experiences of immigrants. Peter Kwong, a former Asian American studies professor at Hunter College, pointed out that the struggles of the original Chinese Americans have persisted.

It may be that food is the easiest lens through which to view such thorny topics as class, race, social mobility and how much value we place on a given culture. 

If you take price as a surrogate for prestige … there are some cuisines we are willing to pay for and some we are not willing to pay for, and that is related partly, I think, to how we evaluate those national cultures and their people.

Krishnendu Ray, a professor of food studies at New York University, has written about the topic, and said that we might simply hold less veneration for food from certain countries that we see as less well-off. 

“If you take price as a surrogate for prestige … there are some cuisines we are willing to pay for and some we are not willing to pay for, and that is related partly, I think, to how we evaluate those national cultures and their people,” Ray said in Voice of America. 

Eddie Huang, owner of Baohaus and a host on Vice, often talks about how mainstream appreciation of food and culture remain a barometer for how conditional your status is as a foreigner, and of your stock value in America. 

Huang has expressed dismay that immigrants like his parents feel they have to work harder just to achieve the same pay as non-immigrants. And thumbing his nose to any such established expectation, Huang has said in the past: 

“I sell Taiwanese gua bao for a full f**king price in America.”  

Read more from HuffPost on Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. 

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Developers and real estate agents thought that they could come into the lower area of Harlem and dub it “SoHa,” short for South Harlem. 

As far as residents are concerned, they thought wrong. NY1 reports that developers want to refer to the area between 110th and 125th Streets to make it more trendy, similar to SoHo.

During a press conference on Wednesday, local leaders rejected the name, saying that it was insulting the culturally rich neighborhood and whitewashes the historically black community. They said the name change would only welcome more high-end developers and wealthy white people, leading to the displacement of long-time residents.

“How dare someone try to rob our culture, and try to act as if we were not here, and create a new name, a new reality as if the clock started when other people showed up?” state Senator-elect Brian Benjamin said. 

 The name “SoHa” first appeared in a New York Times story in 1999, according to NY1. Since then, it has increasingly appeared on real estate websites like StreetEasy. Realtor Keller Williams recently dedicated a “SoHa” team in the neighborhood.

“We’re not going to let people who just got here change the name of our community for their profit,” Harlem District Leader Cordell Cleare said. “This is about greed and lust.”

Community Board 10 member and real estate broker Danni Tyson said profit is possible without rebranding the neighborhood.“This is Harlem — a wonderful brand, a brand that is known all over this world,” she said. 

“No real estate company, no coffee shop, no business should be using the term ‘SoHa’ to refer to Harlem. This is a home, this is a culture, this is a place that people visit,” she continued in the video above.

In addition to residents protesting, folks on social media are less than enthused about the proposed name change. 

Benjamin said he’s working on a proposal to legislate the renaming of neighborhoods, according to DNAinfo. It would require a community review of new projects planning to use new name for an area while also receiving local or state subsidies. 

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A wrestler sets his sights on the NCAA championship; a man goes on a statewide search for his missing son. A trends forecaster learns to cope with the market’s return to IRL experiences; an ex-musician reflects on his glory days. The journeys — both literal and metaphorical — that make up this summer’s new titles will move you. Below are a few of the books we’re most looking forward to in the coming months.

Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki

In LA, “the beauty’s in the tap water.” At least that what memoirist Lady Daniels says when S., the woman she’s hired to care for her young son while she works, arrives at her door, looking plainer than she’d expected. But she grows close to S. amid the heat of the Hollywood summer. -Maddie Crum, Books and Culture Writer

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore.

 

New People by Danzy Senna

The award-winning author of Caucasia is publishing her first novel in over 10 years this summer: a striking, off-kilter exploration of race and class. Biracial graduate student Maria lives in Brooklyn with her fiancé Khalil, also biracial, where they’ve ensconced themselves in a bourgeois, racially mixed community of intellectuals. Maria finds herself falling into an unrequited obsession with a black poet that threatens to shatter her relationship, her reputation, and her fragile mental state. -Claire Fallon, Books and Culture Writer

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam

Sixteen years ago (!), Matthew Klam wrote a collection of much-anthologized stories. He hasn’t published a book since then, so Who Is Rich?, his first novel, actually earns the perhaps hackneyed label of “highly anticipated.” The book follows Rich, a struggling cartoonist, and Amy, a painting student, through their dangerous liaisons at an artist’s retreat. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

 The Locals by Jonathan Dee

Dee, the author of several previous novels, including 2010’s The Privileges, has plenty of experience analyzing the perils of wealth and power. The Locals promises a particularly timely twist, featuring a white working class community in Massachusetts that elects a millionaire expat from New York City as its mayor. Can he save them from economic decline, or will his radically conservative policies wreak havoc ― and what will the new regime mean for the community? -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash

In his debut book about athleticism and obsession, Habash follows the titular character on his journey to become an NCAA-winning college wrestler. Even if you’re not a sports fan, the prose is dizzyingly good. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Eastman Was Here by Alex Gilvarry

Gilvarry’s second novel takes us back to the 1970s, as a dissolute, once-prominent writer attempts to deal with his atrophied career and an unexpected separation from his wife. Hoping to prove himself once again, to his critics and to the wife he routinely cheated on, he decides to head to Vietnam, where he will research and write a magnum opus on the war. How could that plan possibly go wrong? -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis

If you’re interested in class, and the ways it can inform a community’s politics, Louis’ novel is a worthy read. He manages to write lyrically about the literal, physical blood and sweat that dirtied his childhood in a small, poor town in France, and about what it was like to live there as a gay man. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Everybody’s Son by Thrity Umrigar

Umrigar peels back the heartwarming narrative surrounding interracial adoption in a novel about a black boy separated from his mother, an addict sent to jail under dubious circumstances. Her beloved son is permanently placed with a wealthy white couple, and it’s not until years later that he is confronted with the dark reality behind his adoption. -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore.

 

Lonesome Lies Before Us by Don Lee

In his last novel, The Collective, Lee demonstrated his skill at writing about the fears and ambitions that drive artists’ lives. He explores similar themes in his latest novel, about a musician who never quite made it, for superficial reasons: his appearance, his lack of charisma. The book’s lyrics were all written by Will Johnson, of Monsters of Folk Fame. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Made for Love by Alissa Nutting

The author of the provocative hit Tampa returns with this Lisa Frank-sheathed, subversive tale of a woman pulled between a boisterous, messy life in a trailer park with her father and his companion, a sex doll, and a deeply circumscribed and monitored, yet luxurious, life with her husband, the CEO of a tentacular tech corporation. -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

Touch by Courtney Maum

When trend forecaster Sloane Jacobsen realizes that tactile, in-person experiences are on the rise, she panics ― what’s a woman whose life is built around digital connectivity to do? Maum’s own resume informs her satire; she’s worked as a trend forecaster, and currently works as a product namer for MAC Cosmetics. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Modern Gods by Nick Laird

Domestic drama, adventure travelogue and political thriller meet in this dazzling saga by Laird, a poet and novelist. An Irish family finds itself dangerously entangled in two very different religious extremist movements, as one daughter seeks fulfillment in a second marriage to a local man with a mysterious past and her sister seeks it in a work trip to report on a new cult in Papua New Guinea. Family tensions, and individual traumas, must be reckoned with. -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

Dear Cyborgs by Eugene Lim

In his slim, smart new book, Eugene Lim weaves together two seemingly disparate narratives. Two boys ― social outcasts ― bond over drawing and pornographic comics in their isolating Midwestern town. Meanwhile, a cast of superheroes wax poetic about art, protest and Capitalism. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore.

 

Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo

Adebayo’s novel is the story of a marriage, from the perspective of both partners. Although it’s expected that Yejide and Akin ― a couple living in Nigeria ― will be polyamorous, they agree to forgo the convention. That is, until Yejide fails to get pregnant, and Akin decides to bring a second wife into their home. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore.

 

The Answers by Catherine Lacey

The heroine of Lacey’s moody, surreal sophomore novel begins suffering from a host of inexplicable medical problems, only alleviated by a wildly expensive New Age therapy. Broke, isolated, and haunted by her troubled childhood, Mary joins a cultish relationship experiment funded by a wealthy actor to pay for her treatments. -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami

If a Murakami story doesn’t in some way involve a magical cat, is it really a Murakami story? In his latest ― a collection of seven tales, all involving men who are isolated or otherwise lonely ― a vanishing cat makes a welcome appearance. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore.

 

Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy

A beach read for masochistic parents, Meloy’s novel depicts a family cruise gone horribly awry. A shocking tragedy exposes the cracks in two sets of parents, and their longtime friendships with one another. -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Bad Dreams and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley

The author of The Past further demonstrates her knack for quiet lyricism in a new collection. As in her latest novel, Hadley’s stories often center on brewing familial tensions. Diaries are read in secret; houses are explored in the dark. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore.

 

A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

A family saga rooted in black Louisiana society, A Kind of Freedom follows three generations of young adults ― Evelyn, a studious girl from an established Creole family who falls in love with a man from a rough background; her daughter Jacqueline, whose successful pharmacist husband spirals into a cocaine addiction, leaving her to care for their infant son T.C.; and T.C., hustling the streets of post-Katrina New Orleans to make a living for himself, his sometime-girlfriend, and the baby they’re expecting. In the process, Wilkerson Sexton subtly lays bare the ever-present societal forces at work to undermine black success and family. -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash by Eka Kurniawan

Kurniawan has become the rare Indonesian author to break through to a typically translation-allergic U.S. market, after his novels Beauty Is a Wound and FT Emerging Voices Fiction Prize winner Man Tiger were published stateside in 2015. Like Man Tiger, Vengeance Is Mine promises dark, sexually charged and subversive comedy in the story of a Javanese teenager who becomes impotent after witnessing a violent rape ― then, troubled and desperate, gets drawn into a dark criminal underworld. -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

A Life of Adventure and Delight by Akhil Sharma

With his last novel, Family Life, Sharma demonstrated his skill at writing economically and feelingly about familial tensions and tragedies. In his forthcoming story collection, A Life of Adventure and Delight, promises to do the same. The stories, including “We Didn’t Like Him,” a smart examination of class in India, have been published elsewhere, in The New Yorker and Best American Short Stories. -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore.

 

What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons

Like debut author Clemmons, narrator Thandi is the Pennsylvania-grown daughter of a South African mother and an American father. In the novel, constructed of precise, charged vignettes, Thandi traces her parents’ history and her own upbringing; meanwhile, her strong-willed mother is dying of cancer. Thandi is left searching for meaning, and sorting through her scattered internal collage of experiences to piece together a cohesive racial and personal identity. -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

The author of the Booker Prize-winning The God of Small Things has written another sprawling epic, another story that weaves together the quotidian rituals that make up a life and the trying relationships that test our spirit. This time, Roy has dedicated her book, simply, to “the unconsoled.” -MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore.

 

The Red-Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk

The Nobel Prize winner returns with a tragic and dreamy novel: A young, fatherless laborer finds a parental figure in the well-digger he is working for. But when he’s caught up in a distracting romantic fantasy over a mysterious beauty from a theater troupe, his master is killed in an accident, leaving the young man once again adrift, and wracked with guilt. -CF

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

 

Eat Only When You’re Hungry by Lindsay Hunter 

The author of Ugly Girls ― a smart, spare novel about a pair of lovable young delinquents ― returns with a book about the myriad forms of addiction. An overweight father takes a trip in an RV to find his son, an addict who’s gone missing. If Eat Only When You’re Hungry is anything like Hunter’s last book, it’ll be both a tender examination of character, and a spot-on look at class in America. –MC

Buy it on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. 

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Writer Denis Johnson, the author of the modern classic short story collection Jesus’ Son and National Book Award-winning novel Tree of Smoke, died on Thursday at 67.

His death was confirmed to the Associated Press by Jonathan Galassi, president of Johnson’s longtime publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Fellow writer and friend Chris Offutt also confirmed on Twitter, noting that Johnson was “at home, peaceful” when he died. 

Johnson was best-known for his 1992 Jesus’ Son, a collection of linked short stories set in a gritty realm of drug addiction, violence, and casual destruction. The stories, narrated by a young drifter named Fuckhead, drew attention for the stylishly jumbled narratives and neon-bright prose. The collection was adapted into a 1999 film starring Billy Crudup.

His 2007 novel Tree of Smoke, a hefty book about CIA operations in Vietnam during the war, won the National Book Award and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His novella Train Dreams, first published in the Paris Review in 2002, came out as a book for the first time in 2011. It was shortlisted for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize, but the fiction prize that year went, controversially, unawarded. 

Johnson’s body of work ran far deeper than his most famous titles, however; he penned plays, poetry collections, screenplays, journalistic works, and numerous novels. His last novel, The Laughing Monsters, came out in 2014 and received comparatively unenthusiastic reviews. HuffPost deemed the book, a brooding spy caper set in Sierre Leone, “a compelling read” constructed of “stripped-down, evocative prose,” yet “disappointingly underbaked.” 

A powerful inspiration to many American writers, Johnson’s reputation amongst the literati has never faded. His distinctive, arresting style and capacity for human insight can be found in stories like “Car Crash While Hitchhiking,” “Happy Hour,” and “Emergency,” and in his ongoing influence on contemporary fiction writers.

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Nameberry is honoring the veteran celebrity moms ― the ones who have gracefully combined high-profile careers with parenting and added another baby to the mix since last May.

These stylish mamas have chosen a mix of traditional and surprising names for their new additions. Plenty of these could prove influential in the upcoming years. What are your favorites? From Amalia to Zen, there’s something here to suit every style.

Amalia

Natalie Portman made headlines when she named her firstborn Aleph in 2011. Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Recently she and husband Benjamin Millepied added a daughter to their family. Amalia is a slightly more conventional choice, but sticks with the A theme. With Amelia near the top of the popularity lists, cousin Amalia promises to inspire.

Caleb

Kerry Washington has stuck with a winning strategy for naming her two children with husband Nnamdi Asomugha. New baby Caleb Kelechi joined big sister Isabelle Amarachi last October. Both first names are mainstream favorites, but the “Scandal” star and her NFL husband chose middles that honor his Nigerian heritage.

Daisy

Olivia Wilde impressed us all when she and husband Jason Sudeikis named their son Otis Alexander. They did it again, with daughter Daisy Josephine’s name in October. The first names are vintage and nickname-proof, while the middles feel longer and slightly more traditional. Otis re-entered the U.S. Top 1000 following his birth announcement; Daisy already ranks in the Top 200, but might also get a boost.

Dimitri

After Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher named their daughter Wyatt Isabelle, we knew their son’s name would be equally unexpected. Sure enough, the couple went with Dimitri Portwood for their November 2016 new arrival. Ashton has shared that Mila suggested the name, but not explained why. Since Mila was born in the Ukraine, it feels like a great heritage choice for the couple. 

Hugo 

Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas might be the best boy namers of our time. Firstborn son Oliver Finlay arrived in 2014. The “Once Upon a Time” stars added son Hugo Wilson in June 2016. Oliver has raced up the popularity charts in recent years. Now his little brother’s name seems likely to do the same. The subtle connection between an O-starting and an O-ending name links the boys nicely, too.

Ines

After bestowing family name James on a daughter in 2014, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds surprised us with their second daughter’s name, too. Instead of a borrowed-from-the-boys pick, the famous family opted for a traditional Spanish choice, Ines. A form of Agnes also spelled Inez, it was quite stylish in the US circa 1910. No word on why they made the choice, but Ines feels like one to watch.

Lula

Liv Tyler knows what it means to grow up with a trendsetting name, and now her children will, too. She welcomed firstborn Milo back in 2004. Now she and David Gardner are parents to son Sailor Gene, born in 2015, and July 2016 arrival Lula Rose. Vintage Lula fits in with Lucy and Louisa, an early 20th century favorite all but forgotten until now.

Major

Like Natalie and Benjamin, Eva Amurri and husband Kyle Martino stuck with their favorite initial for their children. Daughter Marlowe arrived in August 2014. The family added son Major in October 2016. Eva has talked about sticking with her instincts and choosing unusual names that feel right for her family. Major makes for a big name, but like many bold word names, it feels very current. 

Onyx

Alanis Morissette went with the short and meaningful Ever Imre for her son back in 2010. Now she and Mario Treadway have added a daughter to their family with an equally brief and bold name: Onyx Solace. The double word name fits nicely with big brother Ever. While gemstone names like Ruby and Pearl are familiar for girls, Onyx tends to lean masculine – at least for now.

Phoenix

Vanessa Lachey and husband Nick have traveled the U.S. with their children’s names. Eldest son is Camden, followed by daughter Brooklyn. In December 2016, they added son Phoenix. While it sounds like the couple is borrowing from the map, that’s not quite the case ― though Camden was inspired by an LA street and Brooklyn by New York. This last time, Vanessa just plain liked the fast-rising and meaning-rich name.

Sally

Audra McDonald’s firstborn was already a teenager when she welcomed her second. The Tony-winning actress named her elder daughter Zoe Madeline, a choice that proved very stylish in recent years. Last October, she and husband Will Swenson added daughter Sally James to the mix. We know that James is a white hot middle name pick for girls. Is Sally the next Sadie?

Zen

Zoe Saldana and Marco Perego added a third son to their family earlier this year. Zen joined brothers Cy Aridio and Bowie Ezio, twins born in 2014. Zoe and Marco have opted for modern names with roots, unexpected and seldom heard but still very wearable. All three choices could prove influential in the coming years. What we’d love to know: Zen’s middle name!

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