Infrequent Posting
Written by Edward ChampionPosted on May 12, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized
Due to many pleasant events over the next few weeks, posting will be less regular, less frequent, with a possibility of intermittent showers and random madness here as the monsters use my brain. There is considerable output right now on the novel. (Somehow, a great anger in relation to current events has created an unanticipated rush.) But the energies I’m now committing to fiction have forced me to slow down a bit on other fronts.
I’m not attending BEA this year because I’m moving that weekend (within New York: same mailing address applicable). Bat Segundo interviews will continue, but at a somewhat reduced rate of production. (May is booked. June and July pitches are welcome.)
There are a number of pieces I’ve written that are floating around out there and I will link to them when they are made available. In the meantime, you can check out a podcast interview with David Hajdu, a podcast interview with Sarah Hall (the 70 minute conversation covers all three books and a lengthy article on Hall’s three books is forthcoming), a review of Stephen Greenhouse’s The Big Squeeze, a review of Martin Millar’s Lonely Werewolf Girl, and some hasty thoughts on Act II in Hamlet.
More very soon, I hope!
In the interim, here’s a running list of links of interest:
5/12/08:
- MP3: John P. Marquand’s Wickford Point adapted by Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater.
- Comic book scripts from Vaughan, Millar, Moore, and more. (via MeFi)
- Due to circumstances beyond my control (and I still haven’t been sent the book), I was unable to speak with the great Aleksandar Hemon when he came through New York. But Chicagoist caught up with him recently. (via Mark Athitakis)
- Steven Gillis guests at The Syntax of Things.
- Tom Bissell’s interview with the Avenger. (via Eric)
- Three Guys, One Book.
- Callie on ridiculous paperback reissue covers.
- The OED is going all digital. Nothing Luddite about it. This is utterly depressing news for those of us who like to hole up on the couch with a thick dictionary on one side and a thick tome on the other. What next? An imposed limit on reference book page counts? (via CAAF)
- GoodReads! Golly! The overwhelming message: We Take No Chances.
- Fashion predictions from 1930s designers. (via Linda Richards)
- I had a post tying together China, Myanmar, and Jenna Bush, but I have decided to abandon it for now. It may resurface.
- Ezra Klein on the Kindle.
- David Ulin: not a fan of the new Frey book.
5/14/08:
- It’s good to know that the President is making a true sacrifice.
- RIP Oakley Hall.
- Things younger than McCain.
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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.)
Contact Ed by email.
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
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