The Staff Recommends

Those Guys Have All the Fun by James Andrew Miller & Tom Shales

2011-08-27T13:35:57+00:00

Recommended by John Warner

Note: Unlike most books on The Staff Recommends, this is an unpaid recommendation. But we think you’ll enjoy it, so we’re featuring it anyway.

Here’s a test to see if this book will be of interest to you.

1. Have you watched Irish hurling and/or Australian rules football on television, probably sometime in late 1979 or early 1980?
2. Does the phrase, “The Big Show,” mean anything to you?
3. Could you identify Gayle Gardner in a lineup?
4. Can you correctly use “boo-yah” in a sentence?

If you answered “yes” to at least three of the four, then you (like me) likely have had a better than thirty-year relationship with ESPN, and will be fascinated by the exhaustive oral history of the network and its people.

Shales and Miller previously collaborated on Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told by Its Stars, Writers and Guests, another oral history of a cultural institution, and they repeat the formula here, via one-on-one interviews they manage to get all kinds of people who normally wouldn’t talk so much crap about each other to spill some truths.

The fancy name for this is “oral history,” but that’s cover for what’s going on here, which is free-flowing gossip, self-aggrandizement, and rampant score settling. The origin story of the network reads like some kind of caper that never should’ve been pulled off, a series of accidentally brilliant moves giving birth to what would become one of the most ubiquitous brands in the entire world. The middle section gets underneath the most public drama of the network (i.e., The Olbermann Years), but there’s plenty of more intrigue left, including some things you never would’ve suspected about Mike Tirico.

This sucker is long, but once you’re in the stream, it flies by, almost impossible to put down. The interviews are exhaustive, stones turned and then turned again. It’s the story of America, written about a television network.

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John Warner is the editor of The Staff Recommends and the author of Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice From a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant.

Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta

2011-08-21T03:14:21+00:00

Recommended by John Warner

Note: Unlike most books on The Staff Recommends, this is an unpaid recommendation. But we think you’ll enjoy it, so we’re featuring it anyway.

It’s been three weeks since I finished reading Stone Arabia, and I’m still not entirely sure what I can say about it, other than it’s been three weeks since I finished reading Stone Arabia, and I continue to think about what I might want to say about it.

Its most interesting qualities rest in the nested quality of the narrative, primarily the story of Nik Worth, a failed musician in everyone’s mind, but his own, as told (mostly) by his simultaneously adoring and pretty much fed-up sister, Denise. Denise was Nik’s first fan, as he and his band made a brief splash on the L.A. punk scene, but as Nik’s real career fizzled, a rich fantasy alternate existence came to life, fueled by the creation of his own “chronicles,” scrapbooks detailing the life of Nik Worth, superstar. From this premise, the book burrows deeper and deeper into its concerns, the fragility of memory, the fidelity of family, sibling rivalry and responsibility, and while I’d be hard pressed to even say that the book has a plot, each page reveals more and more tension.

When I finished the book, I had a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, that certain threads dangled in front of me where never properly tied up, including the significance of the book’s title, but the intervening weeks have demonstrated that this is part of Spiotta’s point, that our stories are not so easily explained, and it would be a disservice to pretend otherwise. Stone Arabia is a book that is perfectly true to its own attentions, a real achievement, and a work that will stick with you long after the final page.

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John Warner is the editor of The Staff Recommends and the author of Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice From a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant.

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

2011-04-26T03:07:00+00:00

Recommended by John Warner

I have two tests for narrative non-fiction of the heavily researched and reported variety:

1. While reading (and closely upon completion) I have the urge to tell people about what the book is about, both because the stuff in the book is cool, but also because by talking about it, I will look like I now know something cool that other people don’t know.

2. The book is interesting and complicated and nuanced enough that when I do try to explain, it starts well, until the “but also’s” and “and then’s” and “oh, I forgot’s” pile up like Baptists at a post-church buffet, and the look on the face of the person I’m trying to explain the book to goes confused and cloudy until I’m forced to finish with, “you just have to read the book.”

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats) passes my tests. I should just stop and say that you should read the book, but bear with me.

Ronson uses a test for “psychopathy” developed by Robert Hare and goes hunting, potentially finding psychopaths everywhere, including at the head of Fortune 500 companies (which makes perfect sense). Ronson, who writes from a place of Woody Allen-style neurosis, keeps things light, even when he’s across the table from possible madmen. Ronson lets the subject lead him, so there’s no overarching narrative, and those who prefer the largely absent author of the New Yorker school may take some adjusting to Ronson placing himself so central in the scene, but by sharing his own doubts and fears as the incidents twist and turn, we get to go along for the ride.

Along the way we meet Tony, a man who set out to prove how easy it is to fake madness, and ended up being committed to a mental hospital, unable to prove his sanity because acting sane is a sign of his being crazy. Or Al Dunlap, a famous “turnaround specialist” who seemed to take particular joy in firing people in new and unique ways. You know things are especially odd when a group of powerful Scientologists who befriend Ronson sound like the most reasonable of the bunch.

As to who is and who isn’t a psychopath, or some other form of crazy, Ronson’s exploring made me start to wonder about my own mental health, which shows there’s maybe less science to these things than one may wish.

Or we are all crazy.

Just read the book.

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John Warner is the editor of The Staff Recommends and the author of Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice From a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant.

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

2011-03-21T11:21:33+00:00

Recommended by John Warner

At first, when it came time for me to consider Started Early, Took My Dog for The Staff Recommends, this one seemed like a no-brainer. I am a posters-on-the-wall, commemorative-magazine-with-exclusive-trading-cards fanboy of Ms. Atkinson’s books, particularly the previous three “Jackson Brodie” novels (Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News).

Upon further consideration, though, I was worried. It’s almost inevitable that a series will go on too long. Rocky IV, the second entire Star Wars trilogy? Surely Atkinson would run out of interesting road for Jackson Brodie to travel.

Well, she didn’t. Started Early, Took My Dog is perhaps the best of the series and ready for enjoying even if it’s your first Brodie.

Former P.I. Brodie is now mostly retired, taking only the occasional job to stay active, and here, he’s engaged in tracking down the past for a client who was adopted and spirited out of England for Australia as a child. But Brodie is only a co-star in this edition, as we also follow the story of Tracy Waterhouse, herself a retired detective who makes a rash decision to “purchase” a small girl from a known prostitute and drug abuser.

In a moment, Tracy Waterhouse goes from spinsterhood to new mother, with the added complication that someone seems to want this child back very very badly.

As is Atkinson’s way, the story threads entangle, bringing the characters closer together throughout the novel, teasing out information in the manner of the best detective stories. One of her most remarkable talents is the way she drives the plot forward in the present, while also revealing the history that has brought the characters to the present.

Atkinson is often deservedly praised for her plotting, but she’s also at work on deeper levels and Started Early, Took My Dog becomes an extended and multi-faceted exploration of parenting and love, of the ways people fail to protect children. This could turn out bleak, but as always, Jackson Brodie is—as they say—a hoot, and Tracy Waterhouse gives him a run for his wise-cracking money.

Atkinson’s novels are simply alive, and Started Early, Took My Dog is no exception.

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John Warner is the editor of The Staff Recommends and the author of Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice From a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant.

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell

2011-03-14T12:57:28+00:00

Recommended by John Warner

Sarah Vowell is a fascinating writer. She launched her career as a radio (and print) essayist in the Sedaris mode, with a wry and self-mocking tone mixed in with pointed barbs that didn’t seem to hurt anyone all that much, leaving plenty of room for laughter.

Over the last several of her books she has evolved from personal essayist to what she now appears to be in her last two books: our best and most entertaining historian of Puritan America.

That might not sound like much fun, but Vowell’s mix of history with present-day reportage and sharp one-liners achieves what the best history does: shows us how our past is reflected in our present. Unfamiliar Fishes is a kind of sequel to her previous release, The Wordy Shipmates, as once again she’s fixated on the Puritan experience, but this time she’s engaged with New England missionaries who mean to civilize the native Hawaiian islanders and cause unpredictable, but inevitable mayhem. Just about every third page, you’ll find yourself shaking your head in disbelief over some tasty historical nugget that Vowell manages to unearth. Incest, leprosy, and prostitution are all apparently central to our 50th state’s transition from a self-contained culture to an “Americanized” colony.

As Vowell shows, the American imperial impulse reached a kind of peak in the final years of the 19th century, as the new power flexed its regional muscle, not just in Hawaii, but Puerto Rico and the Philippines as well, in the form of the Spanish-American war, which ended in a victory that ultimately turned pretty sour. Vowell makes the reader reflect on the costs of America inserting itself where it wasn’t invited, and may not be needed without lapsing into polemic. She’s questioning and searching, and it’s a pleasure to follow along.

Vowell the wisecracking character is less involved in her recent work, as for the most part she stays out of the action and in the background, but the voice is still there, as though you’re going on a historical places tour with the world’s wittiest tour guide. Her fans will love the book as much as they’ve loved all the others. Newcomers, particularly those who enjoy popular history, will be well satisfied.

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John Warner is the editor of The Staff Recommends and the author of Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice From a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant.

The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan

2011-02-21T00:04:24+00:00

Recommended by John Warner

I have to be honest. This book had two strikes against it. One, it looked gimmicky, a novel told as a series of dictionary entries written by one lover addressed to another. Very clever, but I’d seen clever before, and clever, by itself, is not so interesting.

Two, it was described in the press materials as “romantic.” Also, by turns “heartbreaking” and “hilarious.” Don’t get me wrong. I’m fine with romance, (and hilarity, and heartbreak, as long as it isn’t my own) but by and large, these things are not done well. For example, name the last romantic comedy film that actually felt as though it had something meaningful and true and interesting to say about human relationships.

I’m still waiting.

Point being, there’s reasons for the skepticism. We’re talking very difficult and tricky territory here.

But The Lover’s Dictionary won me over completely. Yes, it’s romantic, and heartbreaking, and hilarious, but the more interesting question to me is how it manages to be these things.

One reason is the structure, which is no gimmick, but instead allows a strategy of oblique storytelling to emerge, where we come at incident slantwise, like an Emily Dickinson poem. Seeing the puzzle of this relationship come together in this way is a real pleasure.

Under the entry for “balk” we learn of a big step in the relationship: “I was the one who said we should live together. And even as I was doing it. I knew this would mean I would be the one to blame if it all went wrong. Then I consoled myself with this: if it all went wrong, the last thing I’d care about was who was to blame for moving in together.”

Also, the prose. As you can see, it’s precise, modulated, real. Care has clearly been taken.

And last, the romance. The Lover’s Dictionary does something brave for literary fiction, it risks sentiment, and in that risk it’s rewarded. It’s easy to do phony BS romance of the genre or teenage vampire variety because in those emotions there is no risk, nothing real is at stake because those characters haven’t put themselves on any kind of limb. In The Lover’s Dictionary, David Levithan shows that real romance is all about risk, the risk of two people extending themselves toward each other with love and fear and uncertainty in the hope of something good.

I started reading the book as a cynic. By page 20 I was a convert. By the end, an evangelist.

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John Warner is the editor of The Staff Recommends and the author of Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice From a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant.

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah

2011-02-02T18:08:18+00:00

Recommended by John Warner

Big is easy to hype. When a book is long and juggles multiple narrators or covers decades, the sheer enormity of the thing can’t fail to impress. It’s like seeing Picasso’s Guernica or Michelangelo’s David in person and marveling at the stamina, at the vision it took to pull something like that off.

So when a little book like The Last Brother comes along, a mere 208 unassuming paperback pages, and it manages to deliver an amazing emotional wallop, you better take some notice. It’s like Picasso deciding to render Guernica on a grain of rice and somehow maintaining all the power of the original.

The Last Brother is the story of Raj, an aging man looking back on his life, searching through the moments that haunt him. Growing up isolated from the rest of the world on the island of Mauritius, Raj is a child during WWII, unaware of anything outside the poverty of his small village and his drunken father’s frequent rages. When his brothers are killed during a sudden storm, Raj and his mother are moved by the father to another part of the island so the father can work as a prison guard. Soon, Raj meets ten-year-old orphan David, one of the “prisoners,” Jewish exiles shipwrecked on their way to Australia. Raj and David bond over their losses, and when an opportunity presents itself, Raj is determined to help David escape.

The most impressive part of The Last Brother has to be Appanah’s handling of the retrospective point of view, the feeling of the older Raj looking back at his childhood self and trying after so many years to understand a life. Even though we’re told the ultimate outcome early in the novel, the book maintains narrative tension throughout because we’re so close to Raj, and the power is not just in finding out what happened, but in being present as Raj remembers them. It’s a different kind of vision than the magnum opus at work here, a peering closer to find meaning in smaller moments and that’s as significant an achievement as any doorstop.

This is the kind of book to pick up on a day where you can set aside a couple of hours for reading, and you’ll find yourself slipping inside Raj’s story and not looking up until you come out the other side.

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John Warner is the editor of The Staff Recommends and the author of Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice From a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant.

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

2010-10-21T07:16:02+00:00

Recommended by John Warner

There’s another big book released this year that’s getting a lot of attention and for as good as that book is (and it’s really good), this one is better. Set at a private Catholic prep school (Seabrook College) in current Dublin and centered around a group of fourteen-year-old boys and the adults who teach them, Murray kills off his titular protagonist who is in the midst of a donut-eating race with his best friend, Ruprecht van Doren, aka, “VonBlowjob.” Everyone assumes Skippy has choked to death, except that none of his donuts have been touched.

So yeah, it’s sort of a whodunit, or maybe a howdunit, but Skippy Dies is really about everything, being young, loving someone, impossible things that you want to believe could be true (like time travel, or the hottest chick in the girls’ school actually being into you, or your best friend coming back from the dead). The bulk of the novel traces Skippy’s life before his death, and when we arrive back at the moment of Skippy’s demise, it’s heartbreaking, even though, or maybe especially because we know what’s going to happen.

When the book isn’t breaking your heart, it’s busting your gut with the unique wisdom of the fourteen-year-old male on subjects like whether or not mermaids are desirable sexual partners. Murray captures the adolescent psyche better than anyone this side of J.D. Salinger. Even at better than 600 pages, I would’ve loved to spend more time in this world.

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John Warner is the editor of The Staff Recommends and the author of Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice From a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant.