I’ve confirmed with multiple sources that editor Kris Lindgren has indeed been laid off from the Los Angeles Times. Her last day is Friday. This is a terrible loss for the books section. I worked with Kris on a few reviews, and she was a fantastic editor, often forcing me to come up with some taut sentences in a very small window of time. (That’s part of the fun of journalism.) She was also one of the few editors who not only knew many of my esoteric references, but was very curious about many of the literary precedents that I cited. I certainly hope that her great talents will land her somewhere safe.
For those keeping score, that leaves books coverage duties at the Los Angeles Times down to three people. Sara Lippincott and Josh Getlin have also been laid off.
[RELATED: A remarkable exchange between Lee Abrams and a young Chicago Tribune reader.]
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. (
This fucking sucks. Kris edited my very first piece for the Book Review and my most recent one, so I feel like there’s a weird sort of bookending thing going on. But from the getgo, she always understood what I was trying to do and what I wanted to say and brought out my voice and my intentions, even as she trimmed and pruned and honed with careful precision and attention I’d hardly seen before. Her work was a mark of the Book Review’s high editing standards, and letting her go is just another sad example of how out of touch, and how willfully destructive, Zell & co. are about the newspapers they “claim” they are trying to revitalize for the 21st century.
The remarkable exchange link isn’t working. This one does, though: http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:RYg1yrwunaoJ:www.tellzell.com/+tellzell&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=safari
Thanks, Google cache.