In a Spokesman-Review article profiling bloggers who transmuted their twitchy typing into book deals, Amy DeZellar notes, “The bloggers who are giving the rest of us a bad name are those who weren’t really writers in the first place and just sort of became writers by virtue of getting published. A popular blog can get you a book, but not necessarily the talent to write one.”
I’m not certain which bloggers are giving DeZellar and company “a bad name.” And it’s difficult for me to qualify the merits of Dating Amy, seeing as how the book’s only apparent review coverage consists of gushing testimonies from Dating Amy fans on Amazon. But this is the sort of statement one expects not from an emerging author, but from a quarterback fearful of his younger and more robust counterparts — the guys fresh out of college who will inevitably replace him.
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. (
“weren’t really writers in the first place and just sort of became writers by virtue of getting published”
Er, if they got something published, presumably it was something they wrote. Hence, they’re writers–possibly bad writers, but writers nonetheless. And if that quote is any indication of her writing ability, I’m not exactly eager to read her book.
And Dickens was a newspaper serialist who just happened to have his stories collected into book form. And we all know what a freaking hack that guy was. Snort.
My reviews are here.
But this is the sort of statement one expects not from an emerging author, but from a quarterback fearful of his younger and more robust counterparts — the guys fresh out of college who will inevitably replace him.
More like a jockey in the middle of the pack (midlisted?)