Book alert... there may be another great New Orleans novel out there now... Jim Grimsley has just published BOULEVARD. I've only read the first twelve pages of it, but it seems to capture the texture of 1970s New Orleans quite well from the first page.

Grimsley has several previous books, most all of them quite good. My favorite of them is DREAM BOY, a novel that has one the most indescribably beautiful but disturbing endings I've ever read. It stayed with me for days the first time I read it.

I'll be starting BOULEVARD shortly and have a report on it soon.

Also in bookstores yesterday, the latest novel from Dennis Cooper, first one in a while. And!!!!! the rerelease of one of Jonathan Carroll's out of print novels. That's the second one in the last year, on top of the trade paperback release of THE WOODEN SEA.

BONES OF THE MOON is a story about dreams. It's not Carroll's best book, IMO, but that's like saying a painting is a minor Picasso. Any Jonathan Carroll book is a delight that will have you stumbling through the world for days after looking at everything around you and every facet of your life wondering what lies behind it all.

I highly recommend any and all of his books. Every single person that I've ever suggested his books to has come back and thanked me later. Every one.