Three Guys One Book

Things We Didn’t See Coming, II – Steve Amsterdam

Jason Rice — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:00:50 +0000

Let me tell you more about this book: this narrative comes at you slowly but it’s sneaky, like a garden in spring, one day you wake up and it’s all around you. In the first story What We Know Now, our narrator went with his parents to the other side of the world, or so it seemed, ultimately it was just a place in the country. To be honest I knew something special was going on with the book when Amsterdam had his hard-as-nails father profess that the neighbors were going to die if he went to the city the next day. This is the end of the world, but it’s not, certainly, as the people we’ve met, Grandma and Grandpa are still kicking around, and the son who has to witness so much adulthood is now on the road with them in some now forbidden foreign land. It certainly is an interesting if not well worn idea, to be honest, as the end of the world seems to be coming true every day, if you ask me.

In The Theft That Got Me Here, we see the son (from the first story, right?), he’s still unnamed at this point, going sideways, he isn’t being the best grandson in the world. He’s stealing things and pinching his Grand parents prescriptions, but he wants to get ahead in life, even though life as he once knew it is basically over. The road the three of them travel on seems like it might just be the savior they all need, but it’s not. There is a fantastic section where Grandma convinces the border guard at the blockade to let them drive out to the country. It’s one of those moments where you don’t know if she will talk herself out of getting past the guard or she will actually make it. Through a young man’s eyes we see the world that doesn’t give a shit about anyone. That’s a very rare gift to give the reader. There is a ripple of the surroundings, just a taste, meaning we are going to get more, and it will get worse before it gets better. These stories have a tone woven in them that is sad and touching but mostly urgent.

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

3G1B — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:00:32 +0000

JC: When we first started 3G1B, it was a way for us to talk about books together over long distances. Now, of course, three has become four, and while our conversations have turned towards the vagaries of writing and publishing, our en masse book reviews have been replaced by other features that aren’t as difficult to orchestrate as four broad readers reading the same book at the same time, and the accompanying tome-like posts. Fortunately, JE and I coincided recently on Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply and had the chance to discuss it.

JE: Dan Chaon knows when to quit writing and tell a story. And man, can the dude spin a yarn. Literary fiction needs more books like this. During one of our recent conversations, I made the audacious generalization that: “good storytelling is more about the distribution of pertinent information, rather than the manufacture of said information–how and when and in what manner the writer distributes it.” “Await Your Reply” is a perfect example of this. Chaon exhibits astonishing finesse in distributing the necessary information within this puzzle of a novel. In lesser hands (which is just about any writer out there), this novel could’ve been gimmicky with its sleight-of-hand narrative approach. But Chaon sells it on a sentence level. The guy writes beautifully, and he hardly ever navel-gazes. In fact, this book was such a mercilessly compelling un-put-downable read, that there were times when I wish Chaon would’ve slowed down a lingered a bit, but I suppose I might’ve grown impatient and skimmed, so badly did I want to see the story to its conclusion.

JC: I know exactly what you mean, JE, but there are a lot of cases where adding what is meant to be depth to a story, ends up being dead weight. What I thought about when I set the book down, besides Holy Shit, was how stingy he was with revelatory information, knowing which morsels to feed the reader at every moment. I can imagine lots of ham-fisted attempts to pull off this feat of storytelling, which end up either giving up too much information, or not giving enough to keep the reader happy.

But one aspect of Dan Chaon’s writing that impresses me is how well he defines his characters. At root, this is a book about identity, and he has created these nebulous, ghost-like characters, shapeshifting from one name to another. But even with these ambiguities, Chaon manages to give the reader a startlingly clear depiction. How do you give a clear depiction of ambiguity? It’s a paradox, but DC pulls it off. What he does is point out how much of our identity is tied up in the names and things around us, and work his people from the raw material of fear, hate, love. If you weren’t JE, JE, who would you be? Killer.

JE: I think the answer to your question ‘how do you give a clear depiction of ambiguity,’ is the same answer to how you give a clear depiction of anything: details and context. Chaon’s characters are dichotomies, but they are exceptionally well framed and contextualized. And they are very self-conscious, which means asking themselves a lot of questions– it’s not always the answers that are of utmost importance, often it’s the questions. In the case of Lucy, our sui generis, the fundamental questions are: How do I define myself? What do I make of myself? Which tools in my limited toolbox do I chose to work with? And most of all: How do I contextualize myself, when I can’t answer the rest of these questions?

What makes Chaon’s characterization in AYR even more impressive to me, is the fact that the characters are not all that sympathetic. I’m not rooting for them, exactly. I’m just totally fascinated by them, and the circumstances in which they are enmeshed. I’m guessing that Chaon actually exercised some restraint, here, as nothing will define a character quicker than his/her sympathies. By creating really sympathetic characters, Chaon would have ultimately been doing a disservice to the identity themes.

JC: I don’t quite agree. I think Miles, Lucy and Ryan are all quite sympathetic in their own ways. Fascinating, yes, and certainly not likeable, but sympathetic. Miles is the least enigmatic of the characters and has the most defined identity, but pathetic as he is, it’s pretty easy to generate some feeling. The thing about these three characters is that they are acted upon, rather than being primary actors, so they have a victim-like vulnerability that one can sympathize with.

What I see are three sets of foils. One from each set is sympathetic and pondering how the identity void in their lives affect them existentially. They once had identities which are quickly fading to dust, generating the existential questions you just talked about. Their respective partners in the threads have accepted, even willed that their identities vanish. They are ghosts and lovers, shadows from the past, and glimpse of possible futures. They’re fascinating too, but decidedly unsympathetic.

JE: I guess where I may lack a little sympathy for Lucy and Ryan (and again, I don’t miss it) is where their victimhood ends, and their selfish decisions begin. It’s like what Sartre said of suicide (which is essentially what these two characters are doing, as far as family and friends are concerned): “Suicide hurts two people. That’s what it’s for.” Whatever Lucy’s relationship with her big sister may have been like, they are family, and those ties invariably run deep, often deeper than we want them to. At the very least, she’s left her sister a lot of explaining to do. And you know Ryan’s folks are dying, no matter how Ryan convinces himself otherwise. So, again, these characters are enriched by virtue of yet another contradiction: I feel sorry for them, but I don’t.

As a storyteller, Chaon just gets it on all levels, understands the importance of contradictions, and how they create tension, and beg for resolution. He understand that the real story lies beneath the story, in the interior lives of his characters. That’s why he brilliantly executes what could otherwise be just a tricky story where the author sits behind the curtain withholding key information. Let’s face it, in terms of story mechanics, the resolution of AYR hinges on a single piece of information, which Chaon deftly withholds and disguises throughout the narrative. How many crappy thriller writers and Hollywood screenwriters would bungle this—by telegraphing the reveal, or failing to create the rich narrative texture necessary to divert the reader? Not old Dan-o, though. He knows how to plant a red herring. I can’t wait to interview him, because one of the questions I want to ask him is how much reverse engineering did he do in this novel?

JC: I’m pretty sure that wasn’t Sartre, but Arthur Miller, in the play about Marilyn. Regardless, I’ll see your quote and raise you a Camus, who said that suicide is the only real philosophical problem. For Camus suicide is the rejection of freedom, yet for Lucy and Ryan, the suicide is the freedom. That’s what these kids have done, and I see them as sympathetic because they are both such damaged personalities trying desperately to escape from a miserable existence. They are manipulated by their counterparts into shedding their skins and, thinking they have become free, renew themselves. They’re wrong, alas.

You’re right about the story mechanics though. Let’s not get bogged down in the philosophy of suicide, because that’s strictly ancillary. The real force is, as you say, in the intricate construction, the controlled pace, and the simply great writing by Chaon. There are a million ways to screw this up, but he nailed it. Await Your Reply is a hell of a book. The interview should be fun too.

Things We Didn’t See Coming – Steven Amsterdam

Jason Rice — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:00:53 +0000

It’s the end of the world 1999, Prince said that, or was it REM, before they sold out and Bill Berry walked away? I’m stunned at the amount of collections that make their way out into the world, especially interconnected collections. Every agent and editor worth their salt has told me that collections don’t sell. Funny, I see a half dozen from every major publisher three times a year, so something ain’t right. Sure, collections are always followed by a novel, and when the writer was signed on, he or she handed in that novel too, but what writer working today doesn’t have at least two or three novels in a drawer?

Australian writers have been on my mind lately, especially Richard Flanagan’s Unknown Terrorist and the fantastic A Fraction of the Whole. So it was no shock when Steven Amsterdam’s book, Things We Didn’t See Coming landed on my desk (Winner of the Age Book of the Year Award, in Australia). This book has been billed as a collection that is set in a “not-too-distant dystopian” future. Now you have my interest. What We Know Now opens the book, and its a warming up of things to come, and I don’t think we’re in for easy ride. A family is suddenly and with some enthusiastic urgency packing up their car to head out to the country on New Years Eve. It’s 1999, and our narrator is the son of parents that he likes to refer to by their first names. He gets a laugh about packing vegetables into the car, when they are headed to the country. Dad isn’t laughing, he knows the end is near, at least he fears it, and it drives his every action. Mom, well, she’s not convinced the end is near, but she’s on the fence too, and will do anything to keep her husband on the right track. But when Dad hears his neighbor is going to work the next day, he tells his son, “he’s a dead man.” It’s scary what parents know, or what their children think they know.

There is a wonderful electricity surrounding this story, we feel alone, and vulnerable while not really knowing what’s next. It’s a unique talent, this story delivers through matter of fact chatter and tight prose interesting moments, especially when a father and son meet in the woods under the funky lights of near by fireworks. There are moments when your parents do things that you don’t understand, and won’t ever fully comprehend, and Amsterdam captures that blinding innocence perfectly. There isn’t any fat on this story, and the chatter is razor sharp. I don’t know what’s next, but I’ll bet there is a novel attached to this collection.

Stephen King apes Raymond Carver, like we need that.

Jason Rice — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:09:10 +0000

Stephen King’s hardcover adaptation of the Simpson’s movie arrives; I mean lands in stores all over the country this week. He’s also got a story in the New Yorker, arriving in your laps this week. Ray and Mary are driving along, going out for smokes, on the way to Wal-Mart, and King is trying hard to be Raymond Carver, he even sits in the car like Carver used to, or Richard Ford for that matter, (see Rock Springs, the first story in the collection) and tells the reader exactly what’s on the minds of his characters, and then has them speak it aloud. Its minimalist, this King story, and Mary and Ray are all surface. Ray is a janitor, and he loves to reflect, saying that arguing in a marriage is like a race at a dog track, but ultimately it’s swell. Who says swell anymore? Who ever said it? Don’t get me wrong, I loved Stephen King. When I did an oral book report on Pet Cemetery in the ninth grade it was greeted with a standing ovation. Kids followed me down the hall after class, begging me to tell them the end. The Shining, great movie, lousy book, and I mean the Kubrick movie, not that whale shit adaptation with Steven Weber.

This story, Premium Harmony, is really weird, and not just because it’s in the New Yorker. I know, he’s accepted high brow literature now, and I’m supposed to be cool with that. Their driving along a wasteland of bankrupt strip malls, Mary and Ray, he wants cigarettes, she wants him to quit, they want a kid, and they can’t have one, so they get a dog (in the car), now they have a baby-substitute. This is how this story goes, like short quick farts or belches, over and over, round and round. Ray thinks she’s fat; he makes fun of her, in reflection, and to her face. Oh, and they speak in cliché, “penny wise, pound foolish” but they are both dead set on oral gratification as a way out of their fat lives; Mary with junk food, Ray with cigarettes, and it’s a race to see who dies first. Then Mary has a chest-grabber, and drops at the gas station…oh, and they’re in Castle Rock, come on, can King place his stories in say…Idaho? I get the whole write what you know, but does it always have to be, writing where you know too?

Maybe this endorsement heavy story (one side character eats Bugles during the unhappy event, Bugles, who the fuck eats Bugles?) is supposed to appeal to the people who shop where Under the Dome is selling the best (code for cheapest), the chains, BJ’s, Costco, and Wal-Mart. I know that the intellectual northeast isn’t the breeding ground for Stephen King fans, and it certainly doesn’t surprise me to see this story in a magazine like the New Yorker. (I’m sure it sells in Chicago, LA and Seattle, but what about the fly-over states?) Stephen King appeals to everyone, so why not the people who read Pamuk, Lethem and AM Homes? Do we need more evidence that the Sarah Palin crowd eats, sleeps and breaths (sorry for the cliché) Stephen King-like stories? Entertainment that just entertains, and never makes you work, which sounds like a powerful laxative to me. King doesn’t really do Carver here, because Carver was doing Chekhov, and King is no Chekhov. So for that, he gets to be in the New Yorker.

50 Things a Writer Shouldn’t Do

3G1B — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00:41 +0000

DH: A list recently published in The New York Times by a noted restaurateur gave 100 rules for what service staff should not do. I thought a list of 50 things that writers shouldn’t do would give us all a chance to vent. I’m contributing 10 items. Some of these pet peeves have pissed me off for years:

Don’t use italics for more than one line.
Don’t tell me what someone looks like if it doesn’t matter.
Don’t make me draw a diagram to figure out who’s speaking.
Don’t write in a manner that’s different from your everyday speech. You should write like your best talk when you’re having a very good day.
Don’t start your story with a character alone in a room unless you’re Kafka and your character is going to turn into a bug.
I should be able to turn to any passage in your story and enjoy the craft of it. Don’t write a coy opening to draw me in. I’ll throw the book away instead.
You have five minutes to interest me, not with gimmicks but with craft.
Topicality is another word for bullshit.
If you use one awkward word in 500 pages, I’ll notice it. It counts against you.
You’re the artist. Ignore my rules.

And here’s 30 more Don’ts from the Three Guys! But we want your help with the last ten! So read over our list and add your suggestions so we can make up 50 Don’ts!

JE:

Don’t write. Tell me a story.
Don’t include scenes just because they’re good scenes.
Don’t tell the story with your head, tell it with your body, even when it’s cerebral.
Don’t let overarching symbolism marginalize your characters.
Don’t show off, it doesn’t serve the story.
Don’t try to be culturally significant, just report the human condition
Don’t hide behind sarcasm.
Avoid obtuse narrative devices and ambiguous POV transitions.
Don’t be too explicit, the reader has a brain.
Don’t burden me with peripheral information, unless your intent is to distract.

JR:

Don’t tell me what you want from my writing. I’ll give it to you. Take it or leave it.
Don’t write in cliche.
Don’t write in stereotype unless you’re poking fun at that stereotype, and it’s obvious, like Wes Anderson in the Royal Tannebaums.
Don’t give me a love interest just to make the character “likeable/relatable” or “well rounded”, people fall in love, if your characters don’t, then that’s it, love doesn’t find everyone.
Don’t use pop culture as a crutch when you have no characters or story to tell. I don’t give a fuck about Whitney Houston, ever, and she has no business in a novel.
Don’t glue your story to a cause or a distrupted group or country and call it a novel. I call that bad reporting.
Don’t go 250 pages without something happening in the story. You’re not John Irving. Even John Irving isn’t John Irving.
If you want to give me information, technical or otherwise, don’t turn it into a sleep aid. Make me want to read it. See: The Corrections.
Don’t let someone write in your galley, “the first great novel of…” because I know it’s not. Why? Because someone told me it was.
If I send you books to be signed, as I’m a collector of first editions, and you said you’d do it, then you better do it. And respond to my email where I ask if you got the books. You’re just a writer after all. No one is on the operating table.

JC:

Don’t write something where nothing happens. This ain’t Godot. Make something happen. If you find you don’t have enough material, try microblogging instead.
Don’t let your publicity materials be less compelling than the book. You’ve got to convince someone to read it. That counts for query letters, too.
Don’t rely on brands to describe your character to me. Define you character by more than his possessions
Don’t get so bogged down in description that I don’t care about the story. Tell me what I need to know and get on with it.
Don’t be technical. If you must, be concise and clear. See Richard Powers for a positive example.
Don’t write fiction with an agenda. It reaps tedium.
Don’t let your characters act at odds to their established patterns.
Don’t ask for advice or criticism if what you want is a pat on the back.
Don’t hold the reader’s hand. It’s ok to make them think. Hold something important back. Spill it at the opportune moment. Make sure it’s worth waiting for.
Don’t write about trends or fads. In 10 years you’ll either be ridiculous, or no one will know what the hell you’re talking about. See any Twitter novel.

There you have it: 40 rules, some of which no doubt contradict each other. So tell us, readers, what would you have a writer never do?

Tomorrow is National Bookstore Day

Jason Chambers — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0000

We spend a lot of time around here trying to develop schemes and strategies to save the book biz. The best way I can think of to keep the book industry healthy in the short-term, anyway, is to go out and fork out some cash at your local indie bookstore. Tomorrow is National Bookstore Day. Yes, I know e-books are the wave of the future, but we all love brick and mortar! Spend some cash, people! Here are just a few recommendations from each of the four Three Guys, just in case you’re at a loss on what to read next:

JE:

Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply: JC and I will be covering this kick-ass puzzle of a novel next week some time, and following up with an interview with Chaon, whom as far as I can tell, is truly one of the good guys. You won’t be able to put this novel down. And it’s cheap for a hardcover– twenty-five bones!

Joshua Mohr’s Some Things That Meant the World to Me: Dark and exciting debut from one of my new favorite indie houses, Two Dollar Radio. If you like Patrick deWitt’s Ablutions (which we covered here), you’ll dig this unsettling story of a man named Rhonda suffering from depersonalization. This is a trade paper original, so your only out about fourteen bucks.

Steve Hely’s How I Became A Famous Novelist: I nearly peed my pants reading this debut from TV writer Heley. A seriously hilarious send up of literary pretension and the publishing industry. This dude spins comic gold. Nobody is safe from his skewering. The plot is as thin as your average romantic comedy, but the laughs will keep you turning the pages furiously. Hardback, about twenty-six bucks, I think. Well worth the price of three movies.

JR:

Dead Boys by Richard Lange: This is a tremendous debut collection,examining several lives in the sun bleached but fractured community that is LA.

Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon: Probably one of the most insightful and concise examinations of the small town, like Cheever and Updike without the sex and booze, and replaced by oddity, magic and heart.

Ablutions by Patrick DeWitt: A smashing debut novel about a dishwasher who wants for a better life, but is drowning in self pity, hellish surroundings and a broken relationship. Dewitt is a true unvarnished talent; this book grabs the reader by the seat of the pants, and tells it like it is.

DH:

My taste in novels is communitarian. The story should include the whole group. If I start reading a story that has only one or two characters; I bin it.

Stories about the city, about art and ideas, food and sex, are a big plus. But what’s most important is family, children and parents, friends and lovers, a dog even. Marriage, in all senses of the word, finding connections, should be the central subject. Art is an act of marriage.

Three near-perfect, 21st century stories are listed below. You should go to your local bookstore and buy all three if you can relate to what I’ve said!

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud

The Great Man by Kate Christensen

JC:Cockroach by Rawi Hage: While comparison’s to Kafka are to be expected of this tale of a thief who sees himself as an invincible insect, he’s as much kin to William Burroughs as to FK. Hage’s characters emerge from the darkness of the Montreal immigrant underground, reliving the horrors of wars left behind and scratching for the crumbs of a rich society. Dark and raw.

Jarrettsville by Cornelia Nixon: The wonderfully talented Nixon tells the story of a Mason-Dixon border town during and immediately following the Civil War. Postwar, neighbors and relatives are cast against each other in very personal battles, and Martha Cairnes publicly murders the man she loves. Nixon methodically and brilliantly unravels the transgressions that led the couple to their fate.

Hell by Robert Olen Butler: Just so you know, pretty much every one goes to Hell. Hatcher McCord is there. So is his father, all the presidents and kings, popes, movie stars, and ordinary people. And they all deserve it, because otherwise why would they be there? Butler is hilarious and brutal, inventing methods of creative torture for all of Satan’s guests, wrapping it all around a clever little hardboiled mystery.

Go buy a book!

3G1B

Some Things That Meant The World to Me

Jonathan Evison — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Two Dollar Radio is fast becoming one of my favorite indie presses. I love their brand, I’m digging their editorial voice (they recently picked up Rudolph Wurlitzer’s backlist), and I love love love that TDR is a family joint. I sort of see them as the new Soft Skull. But different.

Joshua Mohr’s debut, “Some Things That Meant the World to Me,” is a gritty debut worth getting excited about. You may have seen the coverage of this in Poets & Writers this spring—and BTW, thanks P&W for always including an indie when you do your seasonal coverage! STTMTWTM (okay, this is not a book which lends itself well to acronyms) is the story of a man named Rhonda suffering from depersonalization as a result of childhood trauma. Rhonda, a hardcore alcoholic, sleeps on an immolated sofa with a zip-lock bag full of rotting fruit pulp, likes hairy women, and frequently crawls through a magical hole in the bottom of a dumpster—all of which makes this book the perfect stocking stuffer for your eight year old son! I daresay this is the darkest book I’ve read since Patrick deWitt’s debut “Ablutions.” What keeps this book from tipping the shock-o-meter for me is the humanity. I’m just guessing, here, but it seems like Mr. Mohr may have tilted a few horns on an immolated sofa at some point, and possibly even slept with a zip-lock full of rotting fruit pulp, because this stuff feels lived.

Mohr, who lives in San Francisco, has a second novel coming out early next year from Two Dollar Radio, entitled “Termite Parade,” which promises to be as dark and unsettling as this fine debut.

Look at the Birdie – Kurt Vonnegut

Jason Rice — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:30:00 +0000

There must be a million different reviews of Kurt Vonnegut and his fiction. He was a legend, who sadly left this mortal coil after many fruitful years at the typewriter. For me, this is the first Vonnegut I’ve had the pleasure to read. I should hear crickets at this point, if you’re still interested in what a complete Vonnegut virgin has to say, please read on.

I heard or read a few very nice reviews of this book, but none more pleasing than Mr. Dave Eggers shocking love letter to Vonnegut, (it says so in the press material I got in a personal letter, the book came to me through another publisher source, unsolicited, if they’d asked me I would have said, “it’s up to you, I’ve never read the guy”. Let me not stare a gift horse.But reviewers have to take chances, I guess). Still interested? I like his brevity, the crisp quality to the writing, but these stories were unpublished for a reason. Why? Ask Vonnegut, oh right, you can’t he’s dead.

What was I doing in High School when everyone else was reading this legend’s books? Trying to get through remedial math and the alternate track classes, as I was a succesful underachiever, plus I didn’t learn how to read until the fifth grade. So I missed these books, and now I’m fucking pissed. A good friend of mine swears by Vonnegut (and I have mad respect for this guy, especially when he swears), and my pal even has the rare Kurt Vonnegut soap on a rope that came with his copy of Breakfast of Champions, the Kindle Edition. That’s right, it’s a rare first electronic printing. This pal of mine even named his son Kurt. Weird? I named my son Jackson, after a nasty bastard who happens to be one of the greatest painters of the last hundred years.

Look at the Birdie, is a great collection of short stories, and for me, a wonderful introduction to a writer that I just said, “fuck it, I don’t have time in my life to go back and read all these books, jesus, who has the energy, forget time?” Now I guess I have to go back. I love the story at the end of the collection, The Good Explainer, about a Doctor who is a complete asshole and bullshit artist. He’s pulling the wool over a poor bastards eyes because he doesn’t have the stones to fess up to a really shitty deed from his past. And this story is slicker than deer guts, and you know what? I feel for the Doctor, and worse I feel for the husband who is trying to conceive a child with his stone cold wife. Getting pregnant is hard when you try. But what’s easier than lying to other people, lying to yourself of course.

How about this line from Hello, Red. “He was a heavy young man, twenty-eight, with the flat, mean face of a butcher boy.” I don’t know any butcher boys, personally, but heck, if Vonnegut says they look like this, I have to assume he’s right. Red Mayo, who names a character that? Sounds a lot like Jack’s aching libido, yes, I’ll say it, Vonnegut had a love child, with Ayn Rand, his name is Chuck Palahniuk. Everyone says Chuck is Vonnegut, but Fight Club is my greatest love as a reader. But Red Mayo, yes, he’s watching a little girl he’s named Red (her real name is Nancy, to tell you why he calls her Red, well, that would be unkind on my part), his own namesake, he watches her everyday from his spot on the bridge, and one day he confronts her father. You can’t really get this story unless you’re a dad, and I dare say that Vonnegut gives the stories best moment to the reader, it’s towards the end when Red can’t bare it anymore, and tells everyone he’s, or wait, what he has in the…never mind. Read the story, what good would it do to spoil it?

Writers come a long way in their lives, and Vonnegut has seen a lot. I’m always pleased when a writer says, “to hell with it, I’m using some cliches,” like I’ve just witnessed in Little Drops of Water. “Still waters run deep” and “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” both used to death, then dug up and used again. Vonnegut is drifting towards Carver country with this story, and it’s not half bad, the other half, well, you’ll have to read it. Larry was this guy who used to train women how to sing, and he’s teaching them a thing or two between the sheets. Obviously, Vonnegut is making fun of this foolish man, and by describing him as a succesful bachelor, even more fun can be had when love finds its way into the hearts of all involved. By writing their emotions or, excuse me, having the characters use cliche to sum up an action or emotion, Vonnegut is getting to the heart of the story, telling it like it is, and saving the best for last. He’s making the point that all people bend towards the common when they speak about themselves, it’s easier to understand and to be understood. Larry drifts from one end of the story to the other like a man unsure of which three piece suit to wear, so he try’s them all on.

Vonnegut rights faster than falling rain, and it’s fun to watch. This is a worthwhile collection, and a great way to get to know the writer. Just because people say it’s a classic, doesn’t make it good, just look at Hemingway, God he is awful. My pal said that to me years ago, right after he told me he named his son after Kurt Vonnegut. You should hear who he named his second son after…

-JR

The Best Book I’ve Read This Year Is Out!

Jonathan Evison — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0000

I’ve talked a number of times here on the blog about Hesh Kestin’s fantastic The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats, from one of my favorite indie presses, Dzanc. I read the ARC for Cats at least six months ago, and the book is still fresh in my mind, which in itself makes this novel plug-worthy now that launch time is upon us. Haven’t read any good fiction lately? Go out and buy “The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats,” and don’t blame me when you don’t get anything done for two days.

This unlikely tale of Jewish mobsters avoids all the clichés of the genre. The story is thoroughly engaging and masterfully told, and the writing kicks ass in a hard-nosed Budd Schulberg kinda’ way. I’m rooting for this book to get the attention it deserves—and then I’m going to take credit for it. And no, I don’t have crush on Hesh Kestin. I’ve never even met the guy.

je

Labor Days: An Anthology of Fiction About Work – Edited by David Gates

Jason Rice — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:00:00 +0000

There isn’t much to be said about David Gates that hasn’t already been said countless times. I read Jernigan after it had been out for a while, and then realized it was published at the same time as The Sportswriter. The Wonders of the Invisible World, is a collection of stories that I didn’t particularly care for one way or the other. A writer can’t please his readers all the time. There was a shift, and moment when I was reading Jernigan, that I knew it was something great. Maybe it’s the hero, which echoes again in Preston Falls, his last novel, which when I read it, also kicked my ass.

Standing in a bar once, I recalled a scene from Preston Falls to my friends, where the Doug Willis, and early Don Draper, or late, depending on how you look at it, is remodeling his summer house, and he actually goes out and beats on the ground with hammer after he fucks up some part of the inside of the house with his hammer. Then he goes back in the house and has two more fingers of hooch, and keeps working, where more shit happens, and he’s totally losing his mind. To my credit, I got lots of laughs when I told this story, probably more than I’m getting now.

I waited around for more David Gates fiction, and I’m still waiting, but I recently grabbed Labor Days off the shelf and realized I hadn’t given it a good read. Then I saw there was a Cheever story in the book, I had to remind myself of those days when I told stories in bars, that I didn’t or wouldn’t read Cheever. Now, I’m a changed man, and Cheever is loose in my life, like a uncle I never knew I had who only shows up for Thanksgiving dinner at my house. Maybe it’s living in the suburbs that made me who I am now, evolved with out trying, but the question remains, is it for the better? Work, suburbs, life, living, happiness? You decide.

-JR