One Man’s Inky Voyage Toward Meaning
I know that most people get their first tattoo when they’re drunk, or infatuated, or when there’s a race war on their cellblock and they have to quickly join a gang — but not me.
By JAMES PARKER | July 23, 2008

Who gives a truth?

Augusten Burroughs and James Frey try to overcome authenticity scandals with grim new books
Both authors write largely about issues of addiction and abuse, but they couldn’t have more different styles.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | May 28, 2008

Pants afire

Fakeries and the faking fakers who fake them
The ratio of falsehood to truth in the universe has not, of course, altered one jot since the world began.
By JAMES PARKER | March 13, 2008

Making book

Spring Arts Preview: Fiction, non-fiction, and poetry
This spring brings exciting story collections from established authors and hot newcomers.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | March 10, 2008

Can Britney rise again?

It’s tough to be a celebrity on the skids, but even a ‘ticking time-bomb’ can stage a convincing comeback
The first movie star was a woman named Florence Lawrence.
By SHARON STEEL | October 18, 2007

Flash!

Sedaris busted for unreal humor, apathetic Oxycontin addict discovered in California!
David Sedaris, laughing gnome of NPR and bestselling humorist, may — in the course of trying to be funny — have made a few things up.
By JAMES PARKER | March 20, 2007

Life, examined

Delving deeper with Mike Daisey
Solo performer Mike Daisey has been described as a cross between Noam Chomsky and Jack Black, Spalding Gray and Robin Williams and — my favorite — “Jackie Gleason meets Franz Kafka.”
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 26, 2006

Listing forward

Sometimes a media critic just wants to herd a few cats
Like anyone who works a specific beat — sportswriters and political writers come to mind — media critics acquire lots of impressions, opinions, and stray observations that never actually make it into print, and yet they are worth musing over.
By MARK JURKOWITZ | May 03, 2006

Moz-a-mania

The singular brilliance of Morrissey
The disappointing thing about Henry Rollins — otherwise a paragon of American manhood — has always been the fact that he is, in public at least, a Moz basher.
By JAMES PARKER | March 27, 2006

Howie Carr blows up

As Whitey makes him famous, the Bulger -scribe doesn’t have to worry about facts
It’s Friday, and Howie Carr Incorporated is in full flog for his new book, The Brothers Bulger (Warner Books).
By DAVID BOERI | March 16, 2006

Brilliant or bullshit?

The Difficulty of Proving Amnesia
You’re on a subway in an unfamiliar city, and you don’t know how you got there or where you’re going.
By CHRIS FUJIWARA | March 15, 2006

Pop fundamentalism

Matisyahu and Madonna embrace a holy plan
I keep waiting for Madonna to have her James Frey moment.
By JOSH KUN | March 02, 2006

Phantom of the Oprah

Letters to the Boston editor: February 24, 2006

By EDITORIAL | February 23, 2006

From the ashes

Jay McInerney grows up
Honest, perceptive, and keenly felt, The Good Life — the story of two couples’ furtive, hesitant stabs at happiness in the brave and fearful new world of post-9/11 New York — is McInerney’s most mature and affecting book yet.
By MIKE MILIARD | February 22, 2006

Attack of the 50-foot Oprah

Why America’s most powerful celebrity should be more feared than loved
David Letterman is by no means the first one to realize that the road to success — or forgiveness — entails planting a kiss somewhere on Oprah’s oft-fluctuating anatomy.
By MARK JURKOWITZ | February 09, 2006

The trouble with the truth

Politics and other mistakes
I think I deserve considerable credit for not comparing Governor John Baldacci’s state-of-the-state address to the kind of memoir that wins an endorsement from Oprah’s book club.
By AL DIAMON | February 02, 2006

The awful truth

Recent revelations about fictitious memoirs have exposed our society’s lust for stories about savaging helpless children
Not to be outdone by recent Beltway-corruption scandals, the ordinarily more-subdued literary world found itself two weeks ago grappling with its own grim little fraud.
By MICHAEL BRONSKI | January 25, 2006

Busted

The Smoking Gun shoots author James Frey, and bags Oprah and Doubleday in the process
If you are one of the more than 3.5 million readers (and climbing) who forked over $22.95 for James Frey’s autobiographical account of his addiction to booze and cocaine, and his subsequent recovery from the depths of spiritual squalor, you were robbed.
By THE PHOENIX EDITORIAL | January 20, 2006

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Me and my tattoos