Literary.

John Burnham Schwartz bases his fourth novel on the Empress Michiko and Crown Princess Masako of Japan. Though Japanese imperial life remains shrouded in mystery, Schwartz teases out the details through extensive research. Much to the astonishment and pleasure of the critics, he gives Haruko an authentic and completely convincing voice. While his vivid depictions of postwar Japan are stunning, it is Haruko's vibrant inner life that propels the narrative and resounds with readers. Though not as intense as Reservation Road (1998), Schwartz's unflinching portrayal of the aftermath of a child's death, and though slightly marred by an implausible ending, The Commoner will captivate readers by providing a haunting look into the 2,000 years of secrets surrounding the Chrysanthemum Throne.

CITED BY THE CRITICS

MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA | ARTHUR GOLDEN (1997): This lush, vibrant fairy tale about a young girl sold into servitude who rises to become the most famous geisha of pre-WWII Japan opens a window into the hidden, misunderstood world of Tokyo's pleasure district.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

RELATED ARTICLE; BOOKMARKS SELECTION

****

Now You See Him

By Eli Gottlieb

Rob Castor, a gifted short story writer and New York City literary darling, inexplicably shoots his girlfriend and then turns the gun on himself. Hit particularly hard by the writer's death is the former childhood friend he left behind in upstate New York, Nick Framingham, whose life begins to disintegrate after he hears the news. Nick doesn't show up for work, he ignores his parents and two young sons, and he disgustedly rebuffs his wife while he embarks on an affair with rob's equally disturbed sister Belinda. overwhelmed by grief, Nick fixatedly mines the past for answers while he slowly loses his grip on the present.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Morrow. 272 pages. $22.95. ISBN: 0061284645

Charlotte Observer *****

"This book is so beautifully written that if you are a lover of language you probably won't want to rip through the pages to find out what happens next. Instead, you may find yourself lingering over the sentences, dazzled at eli Gottlieb's masterful and at times heart-rending way with words." PAT MACENUlTY

Denver Post ****

"Suspenseful novels usually carry secrets, but few do so with the literary grace and intensity of now You See Him. eli Gottlieb of Boulder has crafted a work that is unique in that it propels the reader through the narrative using the nuance of character, not the sledgehammer of plot." ROBIN VIDIMOS

USA Today ****

"The writing is deft and sharp, and his characters so real and vivid they could be people you know. and he delivers a whopper of an ending, one that isn't neat or pretty but is totally satisfying and unexpected." DONNA FREYDKIN

NY Times Book Review ****

"Nick doesn't answer the most interesting questions about Rob. What he does do, though--and remarkably well--is present a heartfelt picture of enduring friendship and inconsolable, debilitating grief, even if that grief is complicated by jaw-dropping revelations." DANIELLE TRUSSONI

Vancouver Sun ****

"Now You See Him is a haunting and affecting portrait not only of an act of unthinkable violence but also of deeply personal grief and the self-questioning that follows a psychologically scarring event." ROBERT J. WIERSEMA

Toronto Globe and Mail ****

"Gottlieb has managed to rig for his characters a mess of lies, deception and betrayal, which we enjoy watching them sort out ... because some part of them always reminds us of some part of ourselves. ... Sometimes, however, it feels as if Gottlieb is explaining too much about nick's feelings; we'd be happier if he were to show us even more aimlessness, confusion and desperation in the moment, rather than constantly dipping his authorial brush into the paint pot of nick's past in order to illustrate his present." WILLIAM KOWALSKI

Entertainment Weekly ***

"This is a fast, haunting read with Days of our Lives-style revelations coming every few pages toward the end. But someone really should've sat Gottlieb down and had a chat about his embarrassing love scenes, which are full of metaphors about nozzles and sprockets. Ick." CHRIS NASHAWATY

CRITICAL SUMMARY

Eli Gottlieb's suspenseful second novel looks intensely at the bonds of male friendship. Hailed as "the work of a master" (Denver Post) and "a brilliant work of art" (Charlotte Observer), Now You See Him is propelled by its stark, lucid language and skillfully drawn characters. Nick's grief and confusion are genuinely moving, and readers will easily sympathize with his long-suffering wife and family. Though the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Vancouver Sun thought the novel overwritten and predictable in places and Entertainment Weekly claimed it devolved into the realm of the soap opera toward the end, most critics praised it as a poignant and compelling account of lives torn apart by secrets, lies, and madness.

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

THE BOY WHO WENT AWAY (1997):* ROME PRIZE. In this touching coming-of-age novel set in 1967, young denny Graubert attempts to make sense of his parents' crumbling marriage and self-destructive behavior as they fight to keep the State of New Jersey from institutionalizing his autistic older brother.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

RELATED ARTICLE; BOOKMARKS SELECTION

****

Sway

By Zachary Lazar

The underside of the summer of Love.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In this powerful novel, three interconnected stories emerge from the shadows of the 1960s counterculture. In 1962, Brian Jones, Keith richards, and Mick Jagger are living in a squalid london apartment, struggling to master the simplest Chuck Berry song. Across the Atlantic in New York City, gay filmmaker Kenneth Anger produces underground movies charged with sinister occult symbolism and homoerotic imagery. Further west, handsome young musician Bobby Beausoleil, having walked off the set of Anger's Lucifer Rising, joins Charles Manson and his "Family" in los Angeles. Each story embodies the dark, new spirit of the age as the decade rushes headlong into the fulfillment of its terrible promise.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Little, Brown. 272 pages. $23.99. ISBN: 0316113093

Boston Globe ****

"The story of the '60s becomes--in the hands of a writer too young to have lived through that era--an intimate and finely wrought examination of a time when excitement about new ways of living often became frenzied devotion to the avatars of that newness, whether cult leaders or rock stars." ADAM MANSBACH

Los Angeles Times ****

"By highlighting the little-known links among Jones; Kenneth anger, the notorious filmmaker behind such oddball, darkly camp creations as Kustom Kar Kommandos and Inauguration of the pleasure Dome (he is also the author of Hollywood Babylon); and Bobby Beausoleil, the would-be california rock star who became charles Manson's murderous yes-man, Lazar has created a powerful, infernal prism through which to view the potent, still-rippling contradictions of the late '60s. It's no mean feat." MARK ROZZO

NY Times Book Review ****

"Lazar has taken territory, the 60s, where the individual blades of grass have long been trampled into the mud by legions of literary, sociological and critical boots, and found something new. ... This brilliant novel is about what's to be found in the shadows, the most terrifying crannies of twisted souls, the darkest gleaming gems." CHARLES TAYLOR

San Francisco Chronicle ****

"One could object that the Maysles brothers have already documented the road to altamont in Gimme Shelter, or that Lazar borrows too heavily from the mosaic approach to storytelling favored by postmodern filmmakers such as alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (amores perros, Babel). But such complaints are forgotten as one succumbs to this richly imagined, hauntingly vivid novel, wherein everyone falls under the sway of someone or something, the culture itself appears spellbound and the pursuit of self finds ironic culmination in the loss of identity." GREGORY LEON MILLER

Toronto Star ***

"Primarily, the novel is a literary variation on a Love Generation theme already so well covered (Gimme Shelter, Helter Skelter, a. e. Hotchner's Blown away: the rolling Stones and the Death of the Sixties) that you've sometimes got to wonder if there's anyone left still believing the flower power fantasy in the first place. still, as a kind of novelistic tone poem, Sway has a certain dark and propulsive power." GEOFF PEVERE

CRITICAL SUMMARY

Zachary lazar, who took his title from the Keith richards song of the same name on the Sticky fingers album, was an infant in the closing years of the 1960s. He therefore writes from copious research rather than memory, but the novel seems to be the appropriate form for his story. Several critics expressed surprise that there could be anything new to say about the overanalyzed decade, but with the exception of the Toronto Star, they agreed that lazar offers fresh insight into the era's more ominous undercurrents. Critics praised his vivid, sparkling prose and his success in depicting characters already so well known, as he strips them bare of myth and legend and renders them completely human. "lazar makes the atmosphere of a decade almost palpable," claims the Boston Globe, and readers just may forget that Sway is a work of fiction.

CITED BY THE CRITICS