Pete Dexter in the New York Times!

So it’s a good day when you stumble upon a book review of a Jim Harrison novel written by none other than one of our best living novelists, Pete Dexter, here:

My favorite paragraph, about fiction: “Put together, these things serve (to borrow a phrase from “The Great Leader”) to percolate Sunderson’s brain. That is, to entertain it, which is one of the two possible reasons to write, or for that matter read. To enlighten and to entertain: what else is there? And while good books — even so-so books — serve both functions, if you ever have to choose one over the other, keep in mind that a book that entertains without enlightening can still be a guilty pleasure, but a book that enlightens without entertaining is algebra.”
Dexter is a both an entertaining writer and one who burns a scar of recognition across your brain. His best novels are Deadwood (1986) and Paris Trout (1988), while The Paperboy (1995) is underrated. Last year’s Spooner is a sprawling knockout, like three novels in one.