Books To Jump Up and Down Over
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
Literary Motifs Archive
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Time Travel Readers, Start Here
Posted on March 21, 2007 | 2 CommentsAndy’s Anachronisms: “Exploring the Themes of Time Travel and Alternate Universes in Literature and Entertainment.” However, the exclusion of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow... -
The Case for Brand Names
Posted on October 17, 2006 | 1 Comment“Though I’m usually put off by any use of brand names in fiction (it’s a lazy writer’s way of ‘placing’ a character, and nothing can be date a work more... -
Fiction + Math = 5
Posted on August 9, 2006 | No CommentsMathematical Fiction: a list of fiction titles that involve math. (My own personal favorite is Edwin Abbott’s Flatland.) (via Books, Words, and Writing) -
Statement of Intentions
Posted on July 28, 2006 | 3 CommentsScott did it. And I’m going to do it right now. In fact, I’d like to see anyone with a passion for books set down precisely what it is about... -
The Case for Human Aestheticism
Posted on June 12, 2006 | 1 CommentDan Green riffing from David Ulin’s review of Faulkner’s early novels: “That some modernists/postmodernists are preoccupied with aesthetic questions is true enough, but why are these kinds of questions not... -
A War on Contemporary Bildungsromans?
Posted on May 25, 2006 | 3 CommentsThe Chronicle of Higher Education offers an overview of “lad lit,” noting, “Virtually every writer of guy lit is an almost-thirtysomething graduate of an elite college or university.” This is... -
Newsflash: Authors Influenced by Personal Experience. Next Major Discovery: Shakespeare Wrote in Iambic Pentameter!
Posted on May 4, 2006 | No CommentsThe Independent: “But there are inescapable similarities between the book and Carey’s own life. Its central character, Butcher Bones, is an artist born the same year and in the same... -
Julia Scheeres: Freygate II or Troubling Trend?
Posted on March 10, 2006 | 3 CommentsSherry Early over at Semicolon notes of Julia Scheeres’ Jesus Land: The most appalling abuse that Ms. Scheeres documents in her book is spiritual abuse. Counselors and house parents force... -
The Best First Sentence in Fiction
Posted on January 30, 2006 | 51 CommentsScott and I recently had a conversation about how important opening sentences are to narrative. But I’d like to take this one step further and dare you all to come... -
Fantastical, My Ass
Posted on January 19, 2006 | 6 CommentsI must protest against Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl. From today, NPR’s Morning Edition: “Because while these stories do have a touch of the fantastical, in Maureen McHugh’s hands, you start... -
Now Here’s an Anthology Concept We Can Get Behind (No Pun Intended)
Posted on January 10, 2006 | No CommentsFuck Noir (via Sarah) -
Also, Rod Serling’s Obsession With the Word “Perfunctory” — Statement Against Autodidact Television Writers?
Posted on January 4, 2006 | No CommentsJerome Bixby’s “It’s A Good Life” (later turned into a famous Twilight Zone episode) — the ultimate literary expression of brutal totalitarian dictatorship? (via The Little Professor) -
Write Ghettoized Fiction or Die Tryin’
Posted on December 29, 2005 | 5 CommentsIn the latest edition of Emerald City, Matthew Cheney offers us “Literary Fiction for People Who Hate Literary Fiction.” Cheney writes, “A reader only interested in a narrow type of... -
The War on Lists
Posted on December 20, 2005 | 4 CommentsChances are that if you start reading any quasi-postmodern title, you’ll eventually find yourself at what I call “the list moment.” No, I’m not referring to that inevitable moment in... -
Moody/Experimental Fiction Update
Posted on December 8, 2005 | 2 CommentsIf you’re not reading this site through an RSS feed, then be alerted that the experimental author referenced by Rick Moody has personally responded on these pages. His name is... -
Is It So Wrong to Read C.S. Lewis?
Posted on December 6, 2005 | 4 CommentsI’m interrupting my hiatus to comment upon this Polly Toynbee article on C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, largely because (a) I can report, like Mojoey, that... -
Vice Squad Redux
Posted on December 1, 2005 | 2 CommentsSeveral readers have been kind enough to email me this New York Press story concerning Brad Vice. Vice, as Return of the Reluctant readers will recall from a few weeks... -
Brevity is the Soul of Litcrit
Posted on November 29, 2005 | No CommentsThe Ten Word Literary Supplement (via Jenny D) [UPDATE: And speaking of helpful abridgements, the immortal Jimmy Beck has digested the Bad Sex nominees.] -
But What Mailer Didn’t Tell You is That He Hasn’t Smiled Since 1977
Posted on November 18, 2005 | No CommentsNorman Mailer: “It’s a shame in the literary world today that passion has withered, producing fiction that is all too unforgettable.” Okay, either that’s a funny typo or Norman Mailer... -
The Book After
Posted on November 10, 2005 | 2 CommentsI Love Books: Discussion of post-apocalyptic literature. Submit your choices. -
Vice Squad
Posted on November 7, 2005 | 15 CommentsBoth Michelle Richmond and Dan Wickett have the scoop on a plagiarism case involving Brad Vice. Vice’s book The Bear Bryant Funeral Train won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short... -
Chick Lit, Feminism and the Double Standard
Posted on October 31, 2005 | 10 CommentsFunny how when it comes to a form like comics being bastardized, Jessa Crispin has no problem broadsiding the critics for declaring a specific genre less than literary. But that... -
Hypertext Fiction: Dead or Alive?
Posted on October 20, 2005 | 5 CommentsI alluded to Robert Coover’s Litquake[1] appearance at Elbo Room in the previous post. But what I failed to mention was Andrew Sean Greer‘s introduction for Coover. Greer, who despite... -
A War on Working Class Fiction?
Posted on October 5, 2005 | 7 CommentsLaila Lalami asks, in a Powell’s essay, why the impoverished are so underrepresented in current literature. I suspect that there might be similar reasons for why the American novel also... -
In Defense of Bret Easton Ellis
Posted on October 3, 2005 | 2 CommentsJust when we thought we had heard the last about Lunar Park, Dan Green has offered this thoughtful post on the book, approaching Ellis’ work from the standpoint of Lunar... -
Barbara Ehrenreich: Stuntwoman or Scholar?
Posted on September 7, 2005 | 7 CommentsOver at Slate this week, there’s been a discussion on Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bait and Switch, the followup to her book Nickled and Dimed. This time around, Ehrenreich has moved up... -
The Novel: Emotional Rhetoric
Posted on August 24, 2005 | 1 CommentReferring to the predictability of the television sensation Lost (a series that, despite repeated urgings from friends, I have not yet seen), Steve of This Space has this to say... -
A Case for the Larger Canvas
Posted on August 23, 2005 | 2 CommentsToday, the New York Times noted the arrival of Paul Anderson’s debut novel, Hunger’s Brides, commenting upon its 1,360 page length rather than a more important attribute to gauge —... -
Watered Down Knowledge, The Slim-Fast Book Diet: What a Concept!
Posted on June 23, 2005 | 1 CommentFor the last 12 years, the wax has accumulated in my ears, preventing me from comprehending any book more than 200 pages. Brain cells have been lost thanks to an... -
Thin-Slicing Fiction
Posted on February 13, 2005 | No CommentsMalcolm Gladwell‘s Blink isn’t as satisfying as The Tipping Point — in part, because Gladwell’s tendency to generalize is more prominent this time around. (Case in point: We’re supposed to...