Arts

Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is her debut novel.

Oprah's Second Pick: A First-Time Novelist

by Lynn Neary

Oprah Winfrey's second pick for her rebooted book club is The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, by first-time novelist Ayana Mathis. It's a chronicle of the Great Migration of African-Americans leaving the rural South, following a family matriarch who leaves Georgia to start a new life in Philadelphia.
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Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket Dons A Trenchcoat

In Who Could That Be at This Hour?, a prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events, Daniel Handler satirizes pulp mysteries and uncovers the parallels between detective fiction and childhood. In both, he says, an outsider is trying to make his way in a mysteriously corrupt world.
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Edward Hopper is well-known in the U.S. for paintings such as Nighthawks (1942) — pensive, lonely portraits of people sitting together yet alone. He was less well-known in France, but an exhibit of his work at the Grand Palais has drawn impressive crowd

Hopper's Lonely Figures Find Some Friends In Paris

by Susan Stamberg

An exhibition of works by American realist Edward Hopper is drawing impressive crowds at the Grand Palais. Hopper is well-known in the U.S. for his pensive, lonely portraits of people sitting together yet alone. He's less well-known in France, but the exhibit has been a surprising success.
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"Were going to blink and be 90," Debbie tells Paul. "We have to make a choice to make things different."

In 'This Is 40,' Family Life In All Its Glory

Judd Apatow draws on his own experiences as a husband and father in a new comedy that explores the ups and downs of family life. The film stays close to home, literally and figuratively. It stars his wife, Leslie Mann, as well as their two daughters, and was filmed a few doors down from his house.
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Jeff Bridges as John L. Bridges, Isabelle Huppert as Ella Watson and Kris Kristofferson as James Averill in the 1980 Western Heaven's Gate, a director's cut of which was released in November.

Revisiting, Reappraising Cimino's 'Heaven's Gate'

by John Powers

When it was released 32 years ago, Michael Cimino's revisionist Western was considered one of the most colossal flops in Hollywood history. Critic John Powers takes a second look at the film and concludes that it's clearly "the work of one man and ... he wanted you to remember it forever."
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