May 1996

Haven't heard from your favorite author in a while? Curious to know if another book is on the way? Send us a note (email and snail mail address below) and we'll see what we can find out for you. Each month the BookPage Burning Questions staff goes to the ends of the Earth and back again to find the answers to our readers' most burning questions. The answers are printed each month, both online as well as in our print edition. Go ahead, try to stump us!

Remember Mother's Day

No one thought to ask BQ, but for those who are looking for a Mother's Day gift a bit more on the outrageous than the sentimental side, there is a perfect book for you. Mother, a campy book of photographs by Judy Olausen is a sometimes strange but always hilarious look at motherhood and American culture. Olausen, one of the most prominent photographers working today, and her mother, Vivian, collaborate on this decidedly different mother-daughter project (Penguin Studio, $24.95).

A new addition to a great House

Dear Burning Questions:
Can you bring us up to date on Dorothy Dunnett? Her series of books, the Lymond Chronicles, is one of my favorites. Is her book The Unicorn Hunt (Alfred A. Knopf, $25) the last one in The House of Niccolo series, or is there another one forthcoming?
Many thanks,
Deborah S. Gaunt
via the Internet

Fortunately, The Unicorn is not the last in the series. Alfred A. Knopf will publish volume six of the ongoing The House of Niccolo sequence next month. It is entitled To Lie with Lions ($27).

Cliff-hanging

Dear Burning Questions:
Greetings! Do you know when Stephen King's next book in his Dark Tower series is due to be released? The last ended with a cliffhanger, and I am getting impatient!

Thanks,
Drew Wiest
via the Internet

Well, we have good news and bad news.
The good news is that Stephen King does have a new serialized novel in six parts, the first book of which is available this month. This first installment is called The Green Mile #1: The Two Dead Girls (Signet, $2.99).

The bad news is that King has not even begun to write the next book in the Dark Tower series, so you will have to wait for at least another year. He hoped to begin writing it last winter.

While you are dangling over the precipice awaiting the next Dark Tower book, why not try The Green Mile? It might be just what you need for a quick fix.

Works in progress . . .

Dear Burning Questions:
Anyone know what my favorite author, Saul Bellow, is up to? The last I've seen of him was the Salmugundi special issue this year celebrating his 80th birthday. I know thereีs been a collection of his nonfiction works out relatively recently.

Just wondering if anyone's heard any rumors about another work of fiction.
Thanks in advance,
David Hudson
via the Internet

Saul Bellow is working on a novel which will be published by Viking some time in the 90s (the 1990s, that is, not Bellow's nineties). No publication date has been set. It All Adds Up is his latest work (Viking, $12.95).

Dear Burning Questions:
I've read all of Barbara Kingsolver's books and was wondering if she is working on another and when it may be published? I really enjoyed all of them, especially Animal Dreams.
via the Internet

The tide is high, and she's moving on. Kingsolver's publicist at HarperCollins tells us that the author is always working on something, but that nothing is scheduled for publication. High Tide in Tuscon ($22) was released in November of last year.

Dear Burning Questions:
During college, I read The Virgin Suicides (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $18; Warner Books, $11.99) by Jeffery Eugenides and wrote my senior thesis on it. Since then, I haven't found any fiction that matches Eugenides's in tone or quality of details. Do you have any idea when we might see any new work from him?
Thanks,
Aimee Ellis
Chicago, IL

The Virgin Suicides was indeed a stunning debut, peaking the interest of many readers. Our sources at Farrar, Straus & Giroux tell us that Jeffery Eugenides is busy being a newlywed and is not scheduled to publish anything in the near future. However, rumor has it that he is working on something, and that there are a few chapters floating around somewhere

Missing your favorite author? Is something eating you? Write us with your questions, and we'll try to get answers:

Write us with your BQs: Burning Questions, 2501 21st Ave. South, Suite 5, Nashville, TN 37212. Or email us at Burning_Questions@bookpage.com.

Alas, we regret that personal replies are not possible.

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