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Two Sisters by Mary Hogan, Wil-
liam Morrow, 372 pages, $14.99
Muriel Sullivant has always been an
outsider — at home, at school, at
work and even in her own family.
The one thing she has always been
good at, however, is keeping family
secrets, especially those of her
mother and her sister, Pia. As the
two sisters go on to lead opposite
lives, Muriel avoids her family until Pia shows up one
day with devastating news.
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer,
Riverhead, 539 pages, $17
Six teenage friends vow to pursue
careers in creative fields. As life goes
and the six reach middle age, the
friends remain close, but only two of
them have successfully followed
their dreams. Jules, an aspiring
comic actress, settles for a more
practical occupation; Jonah stops
playing the guitar to become an engineer, and so on.
In her Printers Row review of the book, Beth Kephart
wrote, “Writing about envy and art ... Wolitzer manag-
es to be both skewering and compassionate as she
charts the adultification of the Interestings.”
Eighty Days by Matthew Good-
man, Ballantine, 466 pages, $16
Subtitled “Nellie Bly and Elizabeth
Bisland’s History-Making Race
Around the World,” “Eighty Days”
looks at the race between the two
competing journalists as they try to
complete an around-the-world
journey in less than 80 days. Bly,
who wrote for the New York World,
left New York City by steamship Nov. 14, 1889. On the
same day, Bisland, who wrote for The Cosmopolitan,
headed in the opposite direction by train. Goodman
recounts the race and experiences of both women.
Veil of Time by Claire R. McDou-
gall, Gallery, 406 pages, $16
The medication treating Maggie’s
seizures leaves her dazed. Still over-
coming the death of her daughter
and the end of her marriage, Maggie
retreats to a cottage near Dunadd,
Scotland, which is believed to be the
capital of the 8th century kingdom
Dal Riata. When she wakes up, she
finds herself transported inside the walls of the once
bustling capital, interacting with its people and its
prince. Soon, Maggie must decide if she should stay
behind or return to the present.
Pearls Falls Fast by Stephan Pas-
tis, Andrews McMeel, 256 pages,
$18.99
This treasury collection of “Pearls
Before Swine” comic strips collects
the contents of Pastis’ two previous
collections, “Unsportsmanlike Con-
duct” and “Rat’s Wars.” All the char-
acters — Rat, Pig, Goat, et al — are
included. The collection features Pastis’ annotations
and insights on some of the strips.
— Jeremy Mikula
N E W I N | PA P E R B A C K
truth.
The tension between what is pub-
licly professed as “Chicago” — hot
dogs, tribal politics, Vince Vaughn —
and Chicago, a center of no-non-
sense, experimental art making, is
always evident. Chicago is known by
the whole world as the birthplace of
electric blues, but inside “Chicago,”
try finding a museum that celebrates
this wonderful musical heritage — or
even a statue of Muddy Waters. This
is a city where broadcast personal-
ities are self-anointed as its ambassa-
dors, but many of these people are
short-timers on their way to the next
market, or operate within a limited
set of neighborhoods. There is also
the distinction between celebrities:
Chicago recognizes Studs Terkel as a
totem; people in “Chicago” salute
Jenny McCarthy as their own.
Back to Corgan. True, a millionaire
rock star living in the suburbs may
not need defending. But it is apparent
he requires explaining. The “Sid-
dhartha” project fits in comfortably
with similar side excursions made by
rock stars over decades who have
drawn inspiration from literature:
Pete Townshend (Ted Hughes), Patti
Smith (Allen Ginsberg), Lou Reed
(Edgar Allan Poe), Bruce Springsteen
(John Steinbeck, Flannery O’Con-
nor), Sonic Youth (James Joyce), Van
Morrison (William Blake, W.B.
Yeats), and even an album of new
songs inspired by Jack Kerouac by
Son Volt’s Jay Farrar and Death Cab
for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard. Chicago’s
Bloodshot label released a tribute to
the late Mississippi novelist Larry
Brown with new songs by Vic Ches-
nutt, the North Mississippi Allstars
and Alejandro Escovedo, among
others. Musicians have joined forces
with their literary heroes — Kurt
Cobain with William S. Burroughs,
for example.
The relationship between music
and words runs deep, and poets and
writers have made their fair share of
art paying homage to musicians who
have served as inspirations. These
interchanges have shown that the
creative mind is not constricted to
boundaries as are radio playlists or
Nielsen SoundScan data.
The “Siddhartha” event is not the
first time Corgan has drifted away
from his main duties in the Smashing
Pumpkins to perform music on the
fringe. He once staged a night at
Metro to debut a song cycle of un-
released folk songs related to Chi-
cago, and he hosted a Monday night
residency in 2003 at the Hideout
where he often gave the stage to local
musicians to perform their own
songs.
Corgan is an easy target, but no
one would have thought to lash out at
Lou Reed when he performed songs
inspired by Poe’s “The Raven” at the
Bowery Ballroom in 2003, or another
date in 2011 when he appeared at the
Strand to read Poe’s works; instead,
Reed and many musicians of his
generation who emerged from the
city’s downtown art scene were al-
lowed to experiment because there
was an appreciation for who they
were and what they accomplished,
and there is the recognition that a
world-class city needs artists of glob-
al stature who reflect its creative
spirit. Even if it strays from “normal
music.” Maybe especially so.
Lambasting Corgan for taking a
quirky side turn brandishes Chicago’s
undeserved status as the second city,
a cow town with a tradition of driving
artists away. Giving him space to
experiment elevates everything else,
from the free jazz combos at Constel-
lation to the apartment galleries in
Bridgeport to the noise-rock bands at
the Empty Bottle. It says, “we want
you here, we want this to thrive.”
A bumper sticker in Texas reads
“Keep Austin Weird,” a reaction to
the fading art scene in that city due to
its growing digital class. I propose a
version for our streets: “Keep Weird,
Chicago.” Maybe enough exposure
will inspire some people to switch off
“Law & Order: SVU” for one night,
put down the poison pens and let
their minds expand.
Mark Guarino is a staff writer with
The Christian Science Monitor, where
he covers national news out of the
Midwest.
Rock ’n’ lit
Rock stars have drawn inspira-
tion from literature for decades.
Here are a few examples:
Albums
S Lou Reed, “The Raven” (Edgar
Allan Poe)
S Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard,
“One Fast Move or I’m Gone:
Music From Kerouac’s Big Sur”
(Jack Kerouac)
S Greg Brown, “Songs of In-
nocence and of Experience”
(William Blake)
S John Mellencamp and Ste-
phen King, “Ghost Brothers of
Darkland County”
S Bruce Springsteen, “The
Ghost of Tom Joad” (John Stein-
beck)
S Kurt Cobain and William S.
Burroughs, “The ‘Priest’ They
Called Him”
S Various, “Just One More: A
Musical Tribute to Larry Brown”
S Santana, “Abraxas” (Her-
mann Hesse)
S Van Morrison, “A Sense of
Wonder” (Rachel Carson)
S The Alan Parsons Project, “I
Robot” (Isaac Asimov)
S The Decemberists, “The
Crane Wife” (Japanese folklore)
Songs
S Metallica, “For Whom the Bell
Tolls” (Ernest Hemingway)
S The Cure, “Killing an Arab”
(Albert Camus)
S Sting, “Moon Over Bourbon
Street” (Anne Rice)
S Led Zeppelin, “Ramble On”
(J.R.R. Tolkien)
S Phish, “Prince Caspian” (C.S.
Lewis)
S PJ Harvey, “The River” (Flan-
nery O’Connor)
S Nirvana, “Scentless Appren-
tice” (Patrick Suskind)
S Jefferson Airplane, “White
Rabbit” (Lewis Carroll)
S Kate Bush, “Wuthering
Heights” (Emily Bronte)
S Van Morrison, “Tore Down a la
Rimbaud” (Arthur Rimbaud)
— M.G.