OCTOBER 1997

Stumper of the Month

Dear Burning Questions:
My burning question: Where in the world is A. Nina Toro?
Linda Shepard-Gebhart
Churchville, Minnesota

P.S. Didn't one of your resident wits a few months back suggest that looking at "Southern Living" for book reviews is like looking at "Playboy" for articles? Resident Wit should go peruse that books that have been reviewed in S.L.'s "Books About the South" for the past few years!

BQ:
OK, Linda, we confess that we are human. We have a lot of little tricks to use to figure out all these questions, but there are limits. The closest we can come to A. Nina Toro is E.F. Toro, whose "Reiman Solvers and Numerical Methods for Fluid Dynamics: A Practical Introduction" is a reading club favorite in our neck of the woods. We have no idea who A. Nina Toro is, and we definitely don't know where in the world she is. Is she a cousin of yours or something?

And yes, we did have a former resident with who made fun of "Southern Living" all the time, but we corporately reengineered her right out of here when she started making fun of "Motorhome" magazine. Some of us might be subscribers, you know.

A season in hell, indeed

Dear Sir or Madam:
Times Square transvestites, hustlers, junkies, homeless -- these are Bruce Benderson's people -- and mine, after reading his 1994 novel "User." Is this Big Apple Rimbaud close to producing another book?

Also, I am unable to locate a copy of his earlier "The United Nations of Times Square." Any suggestions?
Glenn Gustafson
Dedham, Massachusetts

BQ:
Whoa, this gritty urban/Symbolist scene is new to us. We're still trying to figure out the City of Light Rimbaud.

We are, however, intrigued (not to say mystified) with what Benderson has to say about his influences:

"I'm strongly influenced by two strands of literature: the American gritty urban school (Hubert Selby, for example) and the French Symbolists. My favorite writer is Joris-Karl Huysmans, the French Naturalist, Symbolist, and Catholic decadent. I was also influenced by the French noveau roman and by the Beats."

"The United Nations of Times Square" is seriously out of print, as you know, so all we can suggest is that you wander the streets -- don't get all hopeless, now -- and keep asking for it.

When in Rome

Dear Burning Questions:
When will Colleen McCullough's next book in the First Man in Rome series be coming out, please?

Thank you.
Justine

BQ:
Colleen McCullough's "Caesar" will be coming out in December from William Morrow. Watch for our review by one of the brave souls who has read the four previous bozillion-page installments in this saga set in Rome during the last years of the Republic: "The First Man in Rome," "The Grass Crown," "Fortune's Favorites," and "Caesar's Women" will keep you busy for a year or so.

We will always love Colleen McCullough for her all-time great forbidden love novel "The Thorn Birds." Back in seventh grade, we wallowed in Catholic guilt even though we aren't Catholic, and Father de Bricassart's famous rainy-clothes-on-the-front-porch scene taught our friend Erica the meaning of the word "flaccid."

Speaking of authors moving to higher ground . . .

Dear Burning Questions:
I was wondering if you guys know what Alexandra Ripley is up to these days. After "A Love Divine," I was wondering if she was working on anything else.
M. Brown

BQ:
Where Colleen McCullough made her name writing about a sheep ranch in Australia, Alexandra Ripley will forever be known as the woman who reunited Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler in "Scarlett." (Brilliant? Or abominable? We won't reopen that old Tupperware container from the back of the fridge.)

Curiously, both authors have ended up writing about the Roman Empire. Ripley's most recent book "A Love Divine" follows that peripatetic guy Joseph of Arimathea on his adventures spreading Christianity. Now, Ripley tells us, she's tackling still another sort of novel:

"I am working on a novel about a woman who has a life filled with surprises while she is searching for firm footing in the confusion of today's world. It's an exciting and daunting challenge. Life in the first century was much less complicated than it is today. I'm also keeping up as best I can with the very encouraging fan mail for 'A Love Divine' and bracing myself for the interviews scheduled in October, when the paperback will be released."

No publication date is set for the new book.

That's entertainment

Dear Burning Questions:
For years I heard that Gene Kelly was writing his memoirs of his years in show business. Now that he's dead, will his book -- rumored to be "delightful" and "fascinating" -- ever see print?
B.G. Harris
Decatur, Georgia

BQ:
We have tried channeling, Eight Ball and Ouija, but no luck yet. Try Again Later.

As they say in Lisbon, "Obrigada!"

A final thank you to all the kind readers who provided information about the tricky, alluring world of International Standard Book Numbers. Our reader in Portugal will rest easy now that he has a pontoon boatful of information.

And we thought we were disorganized

Dear Burning Questions:
I work for the Italian publisher of "The Shipping News" and "Accordion Crimes," due to be published here in November with the title "Crimini per fisarmonica." Do you happen to know if Miss Proulx has an e-mail address?

Thank you.
Giulia Crivelli
Editor, Baldini Castoldi

BQ:
Ah, misplaced it have you? Our rule number one: check your in box. You never know what you might find there.

Readers! Wondering where that favorite author went? Fatally grumpy about something? Write us at Burning Questions, 2501 21st Ave. South, Suite 5, Nashville, TN 37212. Or better yet, e-mail us at Burning_Questions@bookpage.com.

Alas, we regret that personal replies are not possible.

©1997, ProMotion, inc.

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