75 Books, Books #43-48
Written byPosted on November 29, 2006
Filed Under 75 Books
Book #43 was Harvey Pekar’s The Quitter. As Pekar keeps a great prolificity in his post-retirement years, it’s been fascinating to see him investigating millieus other than the immediately contemporary and the immediately personal. In The Quitter, a book chronicling Pekar’s boyhood, there is no madeliene tea per se, but there are certainly specific incidents, presented without adornment, which explain a good deal about Pekar’s rage and misanthropy. The book’s unflinching attitude towards 1950s racism and Pekar’s efforts to fit in are puncutated by Dean Haspiel’s sharp lines and the book’s careful attention to period detail. Pekar’s no hero, nor should he be, but he’s certainly an interesting and misunderstood figure, a flawed everyman who remains as important a fixture in comic books as superheroes. (Podcast with Pekar and Haspiel.)
Book #44 was Harvey Pekar’s Ego & Hubris. If Michael Malice did not exist, it would be necessary for Pekar to invent him. And yet he does exist, portrayed by Pekar as an opinionated, platitude-spouting loudmouth who, nevertheless, lives an independent existence not unlike Pekar, playing by his own rules in a manner that, however off-putting, is defiantly nonconformist — even if Malice is a Republican. Or possibly a centrist. Or perhaps none of these things at all. Malice’s unrepentant dialogue grows wearisome after a while, but Pekar is nothing if not a faithful reporter and Malice’s ironies and contradictions make up for Ego & Hubris’s occasionally flagging narrative. (Podcast with Pekar and Haspiel.)
Book #45 was Hal Niedzviecki’s Hello, I’m Special. Niedzviecki believes that the act of being “special” is a conformist sham. He suggests that whole cottage industries have sprung up overnight to maintain this ideology and lobs several arrows at America and Canada, often in direct contradiction with his previous volume, We Want Some Too. Niedzviecki is often an interesting cultural critic, citing such interesting examples as voyeuristic online wrestling matches (a prescient example of the “amateur as star” in light of the rise of YouTube), but I’m not sure I buy his overall argument, which is laden with a dichotomy (special vs. conformist) that doesn’t account for gray areas. His assumptions assume that humans are guided almost exclusively by solipsism or exhibitionism and, while these are certainly values that are ineluctably associated with pop culture, I found Niedzviecki a tad too cynical for my tastes. It is, of course, quite possible to escape some cultural trappings if you apply a baseball bat to your television (or, if you aren’t so violent, perhaps just keeping it turned off). Or perhaps one can look more to books and everyday obervation as sources of inspiration. But I still found Niedzviecki an interesting guy to talk with. (Podcast interview.)
Book #46 was Yannick Murphy’s Here They Come. This McSweeney’s “rectangular,” along with Salvador Plascencia’s People of Paper, has helped to restore my faith in McSweeney’s as one of the most vibrant independent publishing houses today. Murphy’s imagery, which is blunt, beautiful and often heartbreaking, fuels the story of a girl living in impoverished 1970s New York, who allows a hot dog vendor to fondle her developing breast, contends with a mentally troubled brother, a home laden with refuse, and a crazy mother who shouts “Merde!” at almost every troubled moment. The book is often episodic and its ending is anticlimactic, but it effectively puts the real into the hyperreal. (Podcast interview.)
Book #47 was Ron Hogan’s The Stewardess is Flying the Plane!. I’ve long been a fan of Mr. Hogan’s online work and, as a caveat, he is a pal of mine. And with Stewardess, he’s created an unusual coffee table book that explores a period of cinema that serves as an enjoyable photographic counterpart to John Waters’ books on trash cinema, perhaps scratching the hairy underbelly of Peter Biskind. I would have liked to see Ron offer lengthier text expressing his clear affinity for 1970s cinema (in particular, The Muppet Movie). But perhaps he might be persuaded to do this at a later point in time. (Podcast interview.)
Book #48 was Harvey Pekar’s Our Movie Year. I realize there are a lot of Pekar volumes here, but I did want to do a thorough interview with the man. Our Movie Year is, alas, more of a Pekar grab bag. This is both good and bad. We get many uncollected Pekar stories here, including his infamous spats with David Letterman and what happened to Pekar after the American Splendor movie. But many of the sections involving cultural figures are more tailored for word-only essays (and indeed many of these were expanded from Pekar’s criticism) and carry the distinct whiff of padding. Still, Pekar is Pekar. And even a mixed volume of Pekar carries more honesty than most graphic novel memoirists seem capable of. (Podcast with Pekar and Haspiel.)
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Why are there so many songs about rainbows?
Oh boy oh boy! I just found this blog (did you know you’re the top Google hit AOTW for “Chums of Chance”) and am I happy to have done so! Looks like just the thing for your truly.