Literary.

Rejected by 25 publishers before finally making it into print, former Naval officer Jeff Garigliano's debut novel is being billed as adult fiction despite its young protagonists and adolescent themes. "I looked at 'young adult' books and I didn't like them and it didn't belong there,' states Garigliano. Most critics agreed with him, citing the novel's black humor, violence, and sex scenes. (Only the Cleveland Plain Dealer felt these elements were "gratuitous, like a sex scene added to a movie to avoid the dreaded 'PG' rating.") Despite the debate over the novel's proper market and a few slow spots, the critics were pleased with Garigliano's strong characters, authentic dialogue, and obvious gift for humor that had reviewers laughing out loud.

****

How the Dead Dream

By Lydia Millet

Disappearing lives in a dying world.

T., a smooth and successful Los Angeles real estate developer obsessed with money since childhood, is driving home after viewing a potential construction site when he hits and fatally wounds a coyote. As he stops and sits with the animal until it dies, his carefully constructed, impassive facade starts to fracture, and he experiences his first-ever spasms of compassion. When his girlfriend dies tragically, his father disappears, and his latest project decimates a colony of kangaroo rats in the Mojave Desert, T. copes with his grief and guilt by breaking into zoos and sleeping near endangered species, seeking solace in his newly discovered connection to the Earth as his life unravels.

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Counterpoint. 256 pages. $24. ISBN: 1593761848

Chicago Sun-Times ****

"For the reader, T.'s adventures with animals carry more emotional impact than any of the human encounters. They prompt the serious, sometimes convoluted but always moving meditations that are the spine of this strange, lovely novel." KIT REED

Kansas City Star ****

"With a master's in environmental policy from duke, Millet sees the natural world with clear-eyed urgency and the social landscape with wisecracking, dark humor. How the Dead Dream is an edgy telegram on behalf of nature and its singular beasts." JEFFREY ANN GOUDIE

Los Angeles Times ****

"T.'s evolution from capitalist to caretaker functions both as allegory and character study, and works if the reader lends t. his sympathies. ... He's rendered in such complex, fine detail--as carefully etched as one of the engravings he studies on the backs of dollar bills--that he comes alive, irresistibly sympathetic, both deadpan and deep." CAROLYN KELLOGG

San Diego Union-Tribune ****

"T. comes off as less than three-dimensional, perhaps because of the twin burdens of parable and parody on his character. ... [Millet] writes marvelously, with a sense of hilarity, but also with a deep passion, especially apparent in her acknowledgments in which she dedicates the book [to extinct and rare species]." WENDY L. SMITH

San Francisco Chronicle ***

"The brevity and opacity of [the character of T.'s girlfriend] don't support the histrionic period of mourning that follows, which, along with T.'s strained relationship with his out-of-the-closet father and his mother's descent into dementia, slow down the middle section of the novel considerably. ... By presenting the facts of biological extinction in a bizarre and compelling fiction, the novel behaves more like the zoo animals T. visits: You may be interested in them, but they're not necessarily interested in you." ANDREW LELAND

Seattle Times ***

"But for all of the acuity that impregnates this novel (the first in a projected trilogy), and for all of the ambition, one big problem remains. T. is as emotionally skeletal a character as his initial is a name." BARBARA LLOYD MCMICHAEL

Washington Post **

"Unfortunately, Millet clogs her moving story with a variety of distracting dead ends: T.'s father 'goes' gay; T. has an affair with a crippled woman; T.'s mother slips into dementia; T.'s only friend is a wealthy jerk of cartoon-like crassness. ... Worse is Millet's tendency toward abstraction and pretentiousness, which sometimes smothers her wit." RON CHARLES

CRITICAL SUMMARY

Lydia Millet, a social novelist with a master's degree in environmental policy, has carved a reputation for herself by exploring difficult topics in edgy, darkly humorous works of fiction. How the Dead Dream--part philosophical meditation, part fable, and part comic escapade--argues for the importance of environmental protection as it portrays T.'s metamorphosis from coldhearted capitalist into compassionate child of the Earth. Critics differed in their opinions of T.'s character: is he a finely-wrought, sympathetic protagonist or a one-dimensional cardboard cutout? A few critics also complained about the many side plots that slow the novel's momentum and blur Millet's message. However, T.'s internal struggles and quest for redemption stress humankind's responsibilities and limitations as stewards of the environment--a timely message indeed.

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

OH PURE AND RADIANT HEART (2005): The creators of the atomic bomb--Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard--are transported from the 1940s to 2003, where they come face to face with the effects of their invention. (**** Nov/dec 2005)

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****

The Learners

By Chip Kidd

Experimentation, 1960s style.

Introduced in The Cheese Monkeys (2001), Happy, a recent art school graduate in the 1960s, lands a job as a graphic designer at a small, quirky New Haven ad agency. He happily navigates his new world of eccentric colleagues and lunchtime cocktails as he learns the trade. When he designs a small newspaper ad for a psychological study on authority and obedience, he willingly embraces the era of experimentation and answers it himself. He soon becomes involved in the infamous Mil-gram experiments as a "teacher" who administers dangerous electric shocks to "learners." Soon enough, Happy is not so, well, happy--and starts to confront some long-held beliefs about himself.

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Scribner. 258 pages. $26. ISBN: 0743255240

Los Angeles Times ****

"As Happy tries to get his bearings after the experiment, the imagery remains somewhat vivid but takes on a slightly more pedestrian form. ... Snags are inevitable when it comes to form versus function, but Kidd's quirky approach to life is endearingly recognizable in its expression." EDWARD CHAMPION

Newsday ****

"For me, the resolution of the story sped by too fast, with subthemes suggested rather than explored--though perhaps that will be remedied if Kidd follows Happy to a new locale in his next novel?" DEKKER DARE

Oregonian ****

"Reading the Cheese monkeys beforehand will add more depth to the overall picture of Happy's life (like how he got his nickname). Both novels are humorous and insightful and full of amusingly accurate scenes from the early 1960s--right down to the threemartini lunches and pillbox hats." NICOLE CHVATAL

USA Today ****

"Best known for his book-jacket designs, Kidd puts the story on pause at times so he can discuss design, literary styles and the link between form and content. the interludes may be self-conscious, but they're also genuinely interesting and mercifully brief." ROBERT BIANCO

Christian Science Monitor ***

"Although Happy's odd adventures are captivating, there is an essential element missing from this sequel: the unique graphic design assignments that Happy and his classmates at state U. received in the Cheese monkeys. ... So design professors (and others) hoping to score a sheaf of cool new design assignments will have to stick with Kidd's first book." LAURA DISTEL

NY Times Book Review ***

"Where [it] fails, when it does, is in character development, tone, affect--all those intangibles that are neither Form nor content, but are conjured up by the interplay of the two." JAMES PONIEWOZIK

CRITICAL SUMMARY

Graphic designer and novelist Chip Kidd is best known for his smart book-jacket designs for Donna Tartt, David Sedaris, and Michael Crichton, among others. He used his innovative design elements to explore the relationship between form and content in The Cheese Monkeys, and he employs the same design virtuosity here, though critics diverged in opinion about how much virtuosity, exactly, was enough. While most reviewers praised Kidd's design talent, a few thought he courted gimmickry with his page and font designs, and others thought he didn't go far enough. With the exception of the New York Times Book Review, however, reviewers agreed on Kidd's ample literary talent--his dark, satirical wit, solid characterizations, and ability to explore the dark abyss of the human soul. For pure originality, there's little else like The Learners--except, of course, The Cheese Monkeys, where readers may wish to start.

****

Mudbound

By Hillary Jordan

A Southern tragedy.

BELLWETHER PRIZE