Ad Hom to Ad Hom
Written byPosted on January 31, 2004
Filed Under Author Publicity, Peck, Dale
Dale Peck isn’t just a bitch, but he’s an hubric mofo who compares his Moody blues to both Edmund Wilson and Virginia Woolf. (And, of course, the standard Coleridge line.)
Judy Blume is on the defensive. Her book, Deenie, deals in part with masturbation. But Hernando County elementary schools are pulling the book from their shelves.
Chica has a nice roundup of author photos. Me? I’m still squirming over Max Barry’s photo on Jennifer Government (see right). The book, which was so bad that I gave up on it (and I rarely do this), is terrible enough with its amateurish prose and failure to live up its central idea. But Barry himself looks instinctively like a new fraternity pledge who barely made it into the house. And I’d say the photo has helped me to hate the book more. Which isn’t good. Because I’d prefer to just erase the book out of my mind and reclaim the time I invested.
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12 Responses to “Ad Hom to Ad Hom”
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.)
Okay….DEENIE IS NOT A NEW BOOK IT’S LIKE FROM 1978!!!!!!!! And if they think that’s bad, they should try “Wifey”. Or “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t”. Or ANY BOOK IN THE BLUME GENRE !
Ed, you need a woman in your life.
Also, re: Max Barry: I’d totally fuck him. In fact, I think I have. He sucked, though.
Hag: Is that a proposition? Goodness me, what would BOOG say?
Not THIS woman. Just someone to tell you about JUDY BLUME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually, Judy Blume herself is probably available — she’s hot.
Oh don’t worry about me. I’m setting up Judy Blume and Mary Rodgers in a three-way. I was talking about you and Max.
If they think Blume’s books are bad, they should read the “Gossip Girl” books. Which, I must say, I adore for no good reason.
As for Blume, the YA books=good, but the ones for adults? I despised Wifey and the other one whose name I’ve mercifully forgotten. Unpleasant people and just a general ick factor about everything.
I love WIFEY and I love FOREVER, and you can’t take that away from me.
I just have an unfortunate thing for intense, bald and Irish. Also digging the arm hair. I think I’ve personally finally learned that they are only good for drunken fucking though — DEFINITELY not for sober fucking and certainly not for sober company.
Ed, I’ll expect some sort of thanks for how I’m classing up your web site, you know.
Barry’s Australian, but I think the same rules pretty much apply. Certainly to me. Intense Irish men…danger alert, code red.
I see both of your points. But intense? Look at Barry’s lip and tell me that it doesn’t scream out “dweeb.”
Oh, yeah, he’s clearly a fuckhead. But that’s why I’ve probably already slept with him.
Wait, so let me get this straight. Everyone you’ve slept with is a fuckhead. But not all fuckheads you’ve slept with? Or is it that the state of “fuckhead” is achieved post coitus?
Btw Ed, Max Barry resembles every other skinhead from our old high school romping grounds. But I’m sure Max is a fine, overly tolerant wordsmith.
Jennifer Government, I actually read the whole thing. Well, it wasn’t hard to read, it took me all of four hours, that was probably half the damned problem. Interesting idea, which is used up by the second chapter.