Comforting myths Concerning the political in art

In this trenchant treatise, Lebanese American novelist Alameddine (The Wrong End of the Telescope) pushes back against the argument that "art should be separate from politics." He contends that all art is political and that writing only appears apolitical if it "reinforces the dominant society's values." For instance, Alameddine argues that John Updike's decision to write about "stultifying suburbia" at the height of the Vietnam War should be considered as political as Tim O'Brien's war fiction. An author's racial identity often determines whether their work is considered "political," Alameddine posits, lamenting that Alice Munro's short stories are often viewed as universal while James Baldwin's fiction is deemed "more political, or more dated, or more fill in the blank." In the book's most searching passages, Alameddine reflects with ambivalence on how his Lebanese American background positions him as a "cute other" whose novels about Arab characters are at once "domesticated" enough to not ruffle feathers and yet "exotic" enough to make white people feel open-minded for reading them. Alameddine's lucid analysis cuts to the heart of contemporary discussions about the intersections of politics, identity, and fiction. This is essential reading. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi, Inc. (Oct.)

Two lectures look to unsettle audiences complacent about the role of politics in contemporary fiction. Lebanese-born novelist Alameddine is the author of six novels, most recentlyThe Wrong End of the Telescope. This slim volume consists of two essays that he delivered as lectures, the second of which was published inHarper's Magazine in 2018. In both, he plays the role of political gadfly. The first essay begins with the assertion that "every time I talk politics in this country, I notice that people's faces go blank. Never fails." He goes on to question the assumption that political novels are necessarily inferior, and to make a case that all novels are in fact political. "If a novel reinforces the dominant culture's values, that culture will not think of the novel as political; if it doesn't, it will," he writes. "If John Updike writes a novel about a white man's life, is it not identity politics?" In the book's second lecture, the author writes about himself and others involved in "this world literature thing"--including Amy Tan, Junot Díaz, and Salman Rushdie--as being coopted by American universities and of being "safe, domesticated, just exotic enough to make readers feel they are liberal." They are, he says, "the cute other," not the "utterly strange other, the other who can't stand you." Alameddine might not always be convincing, but he is consistently entertaining. A provocative pair of essays. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.