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.
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. (
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. (