Free Republic

One opens a new novel and is promptly introduced to some dull minor characters. Tiring of them, one skims ahead to meet the leads, only to realize: those minor characters are the leads. A common experience for even the occasional reader of contemporary fiction, it never fails to make the heart sink. The problem is not only one of craft or execution. Characters are now conceived as if the whole point of literature were to create plausible likenesses of the folks next door. They have their little worries, but so what? Do writers really believe that every unhappy family is...

FUTURE SOUNDTRACK FOR AMERICA Barsuk Records is set to release a fundraising CD compilation, titled future soundtrack for america, a joint project with MoveOn.org and Music For America, on August 10th. The compilation will include R.E.M.'s "The Final Straw (MoveOn mix)." McSweeney's Publishing is also releasing a book with similar fundraising goals that will include a copy of the CD; the future dictionary of america features contributions from an astounding group of almost 200 writers, from Paul Auster to Michael Chabon to Jonathan Franzen to Joyce Carol Oates to Kurt Vonnegut to Wendy Wasserstein. One hundred percent of the proceeds...

NEW YORK -- Magazines aren't just for reading any more. They are the centrepiece of brand identities, core products that can be extended into every avenue of life. Maxim recently loaned its name to a line of hair-colour products aimed at the randy twentysomething men comprising its primary demographic. Last June, Seventeen magazine opened a salon and spa in a Dallas mall, where overstressed teenaged gals could relax with a massage and pedicure on their daddy's credit card. The challenge for brand extension is perhaps a little more acute for the publisher of The New Yorker, an institution that remains...