I Love Books: Discussion of post-apocalyptic literature. Submit your choices.
The Book After
– November 10, 2005Posted in: Literary Motifs
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)
Is anyone actually listening to these things? Who uses podcasts for book news?
Futuristic, after-a-collapse novels are seemingly becoming more popular, maybe because reality is probably moving in that direction, IMO at least.
I think the term post-apocalyptic has a religious meaning for some; I used post-industrial in my description of “Remember and Forget” both because I think the term’s more accurate and because I wanted to get far away from the religious shit. Yet one of the LeHaye books used to be listed under R&F’s Barnes and Noble page–in the section that describes “people who bought this book also bought.” Maybe some people just like reading futuristic stories of any kind. I like reading (and viewing) them, but the religious stuff? No thanks! And I wish more futuristic stories were less violent and more believable.