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book blitzBook BlitzAll about fiction.2NA=1154&NC=1215&DI=4098&PS=82533&PI=7315BookBlitzfalsefalsespacernotembeddedbook blitzFall Fiction Week at SlateSlate's annual look at the novel.noFall Fiction Week at SlateFall Fiction Week at Slate.noWelcome to Slate's Fall Fiction Week. Over the next few days, we'll be supplementing our regular literary coverage with a special issue conceived for your reading pleasure. You can find an updated list of articles on this page each day.truenotochyperlinkno20071030113659AMTuesdayOctOctober1110/30/2007 3:36:59 PM633293410190000000200711174007AMThursdayNovNovember711/1/2007 11:40:07 AM633294996070000000book blitzNo Second ChancesEmily JohnstonThe bracing vision of William Trevor.noNo Second ChancesWilliam Trevor's Cheating at Canasta.noThe first lines of a William Trevor story often act as a small window on the difficult world within.  " 'Well at least don't tell him,' their mother begged. 'At least do nothing until he's gone.' " And: " 'Do you know why you are doing this?' he asked, and Katherine hesitated, then shook her head, although she did know." And: "Jasmin knew he was going to be different, no way he couldn't be, no way he'd be wearing a baseball cap backwards over a number-one cut, or be gawky like Lukie Giggs, or make the clucking noises that Darren Finn made when he was trying to get a word out."truenotochyperlinkno2007103013544PMTuesdayOctOctober1310/30/2007 5:35:44 PM633293481440000000200711173601AMThursdayNovNovember711/1/2007 11:36:01 AM633294993610000000book blitzWhen Poetry Meets PoliticsNathan HellerRobert Hass' poetic journey.noWhen Poetry Meets PoliticsRobert Hass' Time and Materials.noTime and Materials, Robert Hass' fifth collection of poems, is a book about hitting the cold water of late middle age, but the story it tells is not so much of decline as of reinvention. Hass is in the front lines of a baby-boom generation coming to terms with its past. He was born in San Francisco a few months before the Pearl Harbor bombing and came of age in a cultural landscape overshadowed by Beats, hippies, and the Vietnam War. He got interested in Eastern thought, got subpoenaed as an SDS adviser in Buffalo, returned to California in time for the first tech boom, and eventually taught at Berkeley. The zeitgeist stuck with him like an Al Capp rain cloud even through his 50s: In 1995, Hass—whose poetry features proud regionalism and plainspoken eloquence, not to mention a strong tropism toward sex—became poet laureate during the Clinton administration.truenotochyperlinkno200711173539AMThursdayNovNovember711/1/2007 11:35:39 AM633294993390000000200711173539AMThursdayNovNovember711/1/2007 11:35:39 AM633294993390000000book blitzI Was Gordon Lish's Editor Gerald HowardNot that he let me do any editing.noI Was Gordon Lish's Editor Editing the infamous Gordon Lish.noA recent article in the New York Times about the desire of Tess Gallagher, Raymond Carver's widow, to have Carver's stories published in their original, unedited form, has ignited a controversy over the slash-and-burn handiwork of his first editor, Gordon Lish. This contretemps has brought back memories of my own brief stint as Lish's editor.truenotochyperlinkno2007103161258PMWednesdayOctOctober1810/31/2007 10:12:58 PM6332945117800000002007103161258PMWednesdayOctOctober1810/31/2007 10:12:58 PM633294511780000000book blitzIs It a Chamber Pot?Joshua GlennNope! A century-old literary mystery, solved.noIs It a Chamber Pot?The mystery at the heart of Henry James' The Ambassadors, solved.noEver since the 1903 publication of Henry James' The Ambassadors, critics and readers have puzzled over a literary mystery that has come to be known as the Woollett Question. What, everyone from E.M. Forster to David Lodge has wanted to know, is the "little nameless object" manufactured in Woollett, Mass.? The case went cold at some point in the 1960s, but earlier this week it was reopened … and cracked.truenotochyperlinkno2007103142827PMWednesdayOctOctober1610/31/2007 8:28:27 PM6332944490700000002007103142827PMWednesdayOctOctober1610/31/2007 8:28:27 PM6332944490700000002004101134909PMMondayOctOctober1510/11/2004 7:49:09 PM6323310654900000002004101134909PMMondayOctOctober1510/11/2004 7:49:09 PM632331065490000000falsetruetruetruetruetruetrue2004101134909PMMondayOctOctober1510/11/2004 7:49:09 PM63233106549000000020071030113659AMTuesdayOctOctober1110/30/2007 3:36:59 PM633293410190000000