Author Archives: williamjcobb

I’m glad to see that Pete Dexter’s new novel, Spooner, is getting much attention. He’s one of our best. Here’s an article in the NY Times that makes Dexter sound like a likable guy: www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/books/14dexter.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=books The elephant novel-in-progress sounds good, … Continue reading →

So I feel as clueless as George H.W. Bush marveling at bar codes in the supermarket, but I’ve just seen the trailer for the Coen Brothers new film, A Serious Man, and it looks seriously good: www.moviefone.com/movie/a-serious-man/29878/video/a-serious-man-trailer-no-1/32367210001 Their last film, … Continue reading →

I’ve never thought twice about Gore Vidal. No matter how many times the East Coast literary hype machine tells me he’s an important writer, he’s always seemed a bit of a dinosaur from the Kennedy years. (It’s a tagline with … Continue reading →

Here’s the url to my review of Pete Dexter’s new novel, Spooner, which appears today in the Dallas Morning News: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/books/stories/DN-bk_spooner_0927gd.ART.State.Edition1.4bb3c8d.html It’s a terrific book. For Dexter fans, I’d say it’s my favorite since Deadwood and Paris Trout, vaulting it … Continue reading →

So here’s a url to my short story “The Hidden Jesus,” currently in the new issue of The Hopkins Review (as in Johns-Hopkins University): http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_hopkins_review/v002/2.4.cobb.pdf The cemetery mentioned in the story is based on a number of windswept, high-lonesome cemeteries … Continue reading →

Neil Labute is an eviscerating playwright, screenwriter, and now, director, who makes squirmy films that are hard to ignore or look away from. Usually they present the dark side of male bonding and distrust of women, as in In the … Continue reading →

This has to be No. 1 in some weird category of Books I Like But Have Not Read. I’ve mentioned it before: Steve Hely’s satiric/comic novel, How I Became a Famous Novelist, which came out this summer, and it sounds … Continue reading →

So this weekend I read Nick Reding’s Methland, a nonfiction book about the effects of the crystal meth “epidemic” on America (this is harped on too much) and in particular, on the town of Oelwein, Iowa. In part I read … Continue reading →

So being the father of a two-year-old, it took me a while to watch the based-on-a-true-story Changeling (2008)—a star turn for Angelina Jolie (whom I sympathize with; she seems like a kind mom, even if she is a Hollywood brat, … Continue reading →

So there’s a minidebate in the NY Times this week about nonfiction writers writing about family, the painful and embarrassing moments. It arises from a book published in the U.K. and recently in the U.S., Julie Myerson’s The Lost Child, … Continue reading →