As if I weren't wonderful enough already...

A new study from the University of Toronto suggests readers of fiction can better socialize and better empathize with others.  

You can read more here:

http://goo.gl/aaapx

You may now give yourself a little hug and go back to reading your novel. 

The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock

Talk about twisted. This book is chock full of desperation, degradation, and depravity. It is not for the faint of heart. It is repugnant in its violence, shameful in its sexual perversion and almost completely devoid of redeeming qualities in its characters, among whom are serial killers, religious zealots, bent lawmen, dying cancer patients, and preachers of the gospel according to Caligula.

That said, The Devil All the Time is an exceptional book. Pollock, whose first short story collection Knockemstiff was also quite bracing in its portrayals of the residents of a small southern Ohio town, doesn't shy away from anything in this, his first novel. The book begins with a savage beating and never looks back. It is an unflinching portrait of loss, pain and sacrifice bound together by ignorance and blind faith. Together these elements can only lead to doom.

Yet out of all these grotesque characters, there is one, a young man named Arvin Russell whom we follow from beginning to end. He is the only character who might be able to escape the utter ruin that surrounds him and shed his unfortunate birthright, the cycle of violence, poverty and ignorance. It is through Arvin that any of this takes on any humanity at all.

Pollock grew up in Knockemstiff, Ohio, where he worked in a meatpacking plant and a paper mill for years before he took up writing in his 50s. What he writes is the darkest of the dark, tinged with humor so black you can miss it because you just got punched in the face again by the story.  Yet somehow, while we recoil at the acts we read about and the pain all the characters feel, it is through Arvin that Pollock manages to bring to light the smallest sparks of redemption and hope. 

Where the hell I've been

Surprised to hear from me?  Thought I'd chucked it all and gotten a paying gig?  Perhaps a better offer? Goodness no.  I wouldn't leave you though I am apt to disappear from time to time.  Turns out I took the summer off and hadn't even expected to do so.  

You see, for the first time since she began teaching, Mrs. Next allowed herself to relax.  She took no classes, attended no seminars, studied no new theory and simply let her mind alone for the better part of three months.  So I joined her and it was delightful.

We took it easy, worked on our home, enjoyed time with friends, ate entirely too well and traveled a bit.  We read and read and read and I even had a little work done--fingertip implants.  (All the bloggers are doing it but let's keep it between us for now, shall we?  You're a doll).  

So that's why ol' Reed has been out of touch.  However, that's about to change.  As mentioned, lots of reading and therefore, lots to talk about.  In the near future, I'll post on several books worth a look, including:
 
The Rules of Civility, an absolutely marvelous debut that's been out for only two weeks but will be read for years and years to come,

Donald Ray Pollock's disturbing, Ohio Gothic novel, The Devil All the Time,

One Thousand White Women, Jim Fergus' cinematic epistolary novel from 1998,

and the absolutely charming Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman.  Main character Harri will stay with you long after the last page.

There will be more and soon.  Do stay with me.  

88 Lines about 44 Sherwoods

This was far too coincidental to run across the same day Gilligan's Island and Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz passes away.

This marvelous homage to classic TV is by Carolyn Parkhurst, author of The Dogs Of Babel among other fine works.  You should read her or check out her site: 

http://carolynparkhurst.com/site/ 

As for Sherwood, sleep well.  

88 Lines About 44 Sitcoms

Alice worked with Mel and Vera; Flo would let you kiss her grits.

Hogan’s Heroes had dumb Nazis, finding humor in the Blitz.

Eddie Haskell was a suck-up: “You look lovely, Mrs. Cleaver.”

WKRP’s best deejays?  Venus Flytrap, Johnny Fever.

Samantha twitched her nose to summon Agnes Moorehead and Paul Lynde.

Mary Tyler Moore was spunky, tossed her hat up in the wind.

Archie Bunker was a loudmouth, had a good chair and good heart.

Bosom Buddies serves to show us Tom Hanks had a goofy start.

Diff’rent Strokes was cautionary: Don’t let your kid be a star.

Major Nelson was the master of a Jeannie in a jar.

Murphy Brown’s non-wedlock baby made some politicians quail.

Favorite random line from Cheers?  ”You can really taste the kale.”

Gilligan’s an archetype, the trickster-fool, the dopey mate.

Seinfeld may have been the first to let characters masturbate.

Mork and Mindy gave us Robin Williams and “Nanu Nanu.”

The Golden Girls gabbed over cheesecake: “Picture it, Sicily, ’22.”

Lucy had some wacky plans, gave her lots of things to ‘splain.

Seattle’s full of caffeine addicts, listening to Frasier Crane.

Ralph Kramden to-the-moon’ed whenever Alice gave him flack.

Sweathogs were unlikely heroes, welcomed Mr. Kotter back.

Raymond’s family lived too close, made his wife a tad uneasy.

Florence was a sharp-tongued gal, moved on up with George and Weezy.

Jed found black gold, Texas tea; Hollywood now welcomes rubes.

Janet, Jack and Chrissy knew a thousand different words for boobs.

Fonzie jumped a shark but still remained the very soul of cool.

The Fresh Prince had a fight while playing b-ball outside of the school.

Maude’s abortion broke new ground; wow, her neighbor sure was snooty.

Mrs. Garrett cracked the whip over Jo and Blair and Tootie.

Rob Petrie worked with Mel and Sally, writing Alan Brady’s jokes.

I’m guessing here: is there a very special Blossom where she smokes?

Green Acres’ couple traded Saks for a podunk country store.

M*A*S*H’s turmoil in Korea lasted longer than the war.

Laverne’s L’s were all-pervasive, maybe even on her bra.

Latka fixed the cars on Taxi, spoke in terms like “Ibi da?”

Benson worked hard for the governor, handled Ms. Kraus with aplomb.

Charles’s charges kept him busy; somehow, he knew Chachi’s mom.

Night Court’s hipster judge did card tricks, was a fan of Mel Torme.

Joey had a brain transplant while playing Dr. Remoray.

Webster was a charming urchin; he was black, his parents white.

Good Times showed that in the projects, you can still be dyn-o-mite.

The Cosby Show was at its best when the kids were acting sneaky.

The Brady Bunch went to Hawaii, met Don Ho and found a tiki.

Roseanne’s last season was nuts; everything is just a twist.

Bob Newhart, here’s a kiss: I chose you to end this list.

 

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

Should one ever decide to buy a book for its cover, this is the one.  Not only is it graphically cool, clever, and terrifically eye-catching but it lets the reader know what to expect: cowboy types with guns, the lure of big money looming over the shoulders of the Brothers, the mysterious fingerprint whorls, and the shade of red reminiscent of blood and violence.


Even better, the story is marvelous and more than lives up to the promise of the cover.

Two brothers, Charlie and Eli Sisters, do dirty work for a man we know only as the Commodore.  Under his orders, they are making their way from Oregon to a gold-mining claim near Sacramento to kill a man named Hermann Warm.  Along the way, Eli, the more introspective of the brothers, considers the possibilities of a "quiet life" after this deed is done.   

I can only describe it as Western Noir and I believe it stays true to both genres.  There are horses and hookers, greenhorns and gunsels, as well as punch-ups, double-crosses and even, dare I say it, redemption. 

Despite their dastardly vocation, the Sisters are surprisingly likable (Eli moreso than Charlie) and Eli is a narrator you quickly come to like and trust.  His sensitivity and insight are unexpected at first but give the story a sense of lonesome honor.  The brotherhood dynamic is also very realistic with each Sister knowing just which buttons to push and knowing when each has gone just too far.

The writing is fast and clean, the dialogue keen and the author's respect for the Western and the hard-boiled is honest with just a hint of the dime-store tawdriness that often accompanied both. His description of a grubby San Francisco restaurant called the Black Skull as "...a charmless garbage chute of a lopsided shack..." had me laughing out loud.

As well, there is insight: "Warm stood before me then, looking into me; his manner conveyed several things at once: Sturdiness, wariness, fatigue, but also an energy or glow--something like the center of a low flame.  Is this what they call charisma? I do not know, exactly, except to say Warm was more there than the average man."  

I think The Sisters Brothers is more there than many, many books I've read. 

As if I didn't love John Waters already...

Here is some sound advice from the Prince of Trash (with a tip of the hat to Jeremiah's Vanishing New York and The Strand bookstore in NYC).

In Memoriam: Madelyn Pugh Davis

Over the years, I worked with hundreds of authors but the
news that Madelyn Pugh Davis has passed away brought me to tears.  I had the distinct privilege to work with her to promote her 2005 memoir, Laughing With Lucy: My Life With America's Leading Lady of Comedy.  A proper obituary can be read here: http://goo.gl/i5jw0

She was one of the great television comedy writers, penning over 100 episodes of I Love Lucy and a genuine pioneer in her field.  Madelyn liked to say, when she started out, "you could have held a meeting of all the women television comedy writers in a booth at McDonalds".   All these years later, she marveled at the amount of fan mail she continued to receive and the unbridled enthusiasm people had for shows she'd written 50 years earlier.
 
We spoke often enough that she would ask after Mrs. Next.  Often enough that I knew she got her hair 'done' every Thursday morning and when I decided to leave publishing, she was among the first authors I called even though we hadn't been actively promoting the book for a few years and she and I were out of touch.   

Oddly, I never met her face-to-face but the photo above is how I like to think of her. She was a woman of class and gentility, of charm and kindness, of warmth and humor.  I will miss her.

Bullfighting by Roddy Doyle

I received a wonderful gift from my dear friend, Ms. Chicken Lips: an advance copy of Roddy Doyle's forthcoming short story collection, Bullfighting.

It is a book about men.  Empty-nesters still in love with their wives, guys who are no longer 'lads' but aren’t yet ‘oul ones’, all of whom remember the Ireland before the economic boom of the Celtic Tiger and its more recent aftermath.  It is a collection of mid-life crises, of decline, of having the scent of death grow stronger and come nearer than it ever has before.  

Moreso, it is a book about men who, having reached the middle, find themselves uncertain of both their pasts and their futures and torn by questions: When did the fun end? Why did I lose interest?  Why do I feel so useless? When did I change? Thankfully, these are not broken men.  They know full well they are capable of answering these questions with actions and answers that will right their own ships.  Still, the questions linger and hover and persist.  Some find resolution in small places; in a conversation with a school-age girl awaiting her Mum at a bus stop.  Others find solace in doing their jobs well or in the company of friends and family.  Still, some remain at sea.

This is not the Doyle of The Commitments or Paddy Clarke, nor, thankfully, of the Henry Smart trilogy.  This is an author in autumn, approaching winter.  In the hands of another writer, Bullfighting could easily be a dreary affair but, as ever, Doyle is deft, sprinkling humor and pathos across the pages.  Throughout his career, Doyle has always allowed us, entreated us to join him for the ride but now, as the ride gets closer to the station, what is important has changed and he asks us to stay strong and stay true to ourselves.  In The End, it will all work out. 

A Long Story Short

Our short story club will meet soon and it is my wife's turn to make the next selection.  When it is my turn, I take to it with glee and abandon and read and read and read but, bless her heart, having to choose a story makes Mrs. Next rather anxious.  In an effort to calm her nervous heart, I bought a few collections and pulled out a few other suggestions from the bookshelves.

She is enjoying A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler and Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (who I once saw in person and couldn't believe an actual human could be so strikingly beautiful).  

In an effort to help her cover more ground, I'm reading Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by the wonderfully-named Wells Tower and revisiting Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine by Tom Jones (no, not that Tom Jones).  Tower has the goods and it is a wild ride of a read.  Jones' third collection isn't holding up as well as I'd remembered but he can still stop me in my tracks.

Esquire recently ran Twin Forks by Daniel Woodrell, which I found quite powerful.  My beloved One Story recently published Surprise Party by the marvelous Etgar Keret.  I found it hilarious and sad though I must admit it's not likely to be Mrs. Next's cup of tea.  

I also suggested two from recent issues of the New Yorker, the confounding Going For a Beer by Robert Coover and The Other Place, a dark and frightening story by Mary Gaitskill.  

She will make her choice soon but it's been such fun to "cram" all these short stories.


Look for upcoming posts on Emma Donoghue's ROOM and Stephen Kelman's forthcoming novel, Pigeon English.

So much for keeping it short.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

My how the month has flown.  Reading and writing have taken a back seat recently to a marvelous trip to New Orleans with Mrs. Next.  It was my first visit and I admit to having a rather serious crush on the Crescent City.  

At last I finished Karen Russell's Swamplandia! and I must say I wholeheartedly agree with Joseph O'Neill's backcover blurb:

"A wonderfully fertile novel by an unfairly talented writer."  Russell is only 29 years old and her writing makes my head spin like a radar dish.  In a good way. 

Swamplandia! itself is a down-at-the-heels theme park (the theme is alligator wrestling) on an isolated island in the Florida Everglades.  The story begins with the death by cancer of Hilola Bigtree, the park's main attraction and matriarch of the Bigtree clan.  Told alternately by Ava, the youngest of the three children, and her older brother, the fussy Kiwi, the novel Swamplandia! is a moving story of family, of deep love and crushing loss, of gators and ghosts.  

As Janet Maslin suggested in her NYT review, some readers might be turned off by the offbeat family and their strange exploits but I found them charming, maddening, upsetting, and lost in their own worlds.  Much like real families. 

The novel isn't without a few faults.  Without spoiling anything, I can't quite understand the need to put Ava through a terrible ordeal within an already painful ordeal.  As for the ending, I suspected there might be problems but the author pulled it off well enough that I was satisfied. 

Karen Russell is an immensely gifted writer and one deserving of a readers' time and full attention. She has the ability to make the mundane fascinating and the arcane seem like common, though worthwhile, knowledge. Because of her youth, there is also the promise of so much more to come.

And The Nominees Are...

Two awards that really matter to me as a reader have just been announced: the 2011 Indies Choice awards and the 2011 PEN/Faulkner award for fiction.  (Many thanks to Shelf Awareness for the heads-up)

The shortlist for the 2011 PEN/Faulkner Award includes:

• A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Knopf)
• The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg by Deborah Eisenberg (Picador)
• Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (McPherson & Co.)
• Model Home by Eric Puchner (Scribner)
• Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives by Brad Watson (Norton)

The adult fiction nominees for the Indies Choice Awards: 

• Great House, by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton)
• How to Read the Air, by Dinaw Mengestu (Riverhead)
• Room, by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown)
• The Surrendered, by Chang-rae Lee (Riverhead)
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell (Random House)
• A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan (Knopf)

The nominees in other categories can be found here: 

http://news.bookweb.org/news/voting-now-open-2011-indies-choice-and-eb-white-awards

I have read a few of the titles and am happy to see them included.  Though I have yet to post about Donoghue's Room or Krauss' Great House (I will), both are startlingly original novels.  An excerpt from How To Read the Air ran in the New Yorker and my short story club chose it a few months back.  It was the subject of some lively debate and we all agreed Mengestu shows remarkable ability as a storyteller.  My friend Peter thinks Jacob de Zoet is the best David Mitchell yet.

I keep hearing about Goon Squad, the only title up for both awards, and have added it to my list of titles to read.  Aside from the accolades it has already received, I find I MUST read a book that recalls track 1, side 2 of Elvis Costello's third record, which the nascent Reed Next received as a bar mitzvah present all those years ago.

Finally, while I'm discussing accolades, I got the kindest shout-out in ages from ThisIsMyBasic.com. Wendy writes a daily blog about matters that matter--health, happiness, exercise, diet and a healthy dollop of opinion (okay, more than a dollop).  

In the post below, she plugs Eggers Best Non-Required Reading, discusses her love of books and makes her case for having so many in her home.  She also threw us a most beneficent blog bone.  (Quite honestly, there was considerable blushing going on here at Chez Next.)  
Check her out. 
http://www.thisismybasic.com/2011/03/nonrequired-but-essential.html 

West of Here by Jonathan Evison

In days of yore, and before the new austerity in which publishing finds itself, it was not uncommon for publishers to create clever ways to promote their books, among them by providing swag.  The good folks at Algonquin were always particularly adept at this, even sending salamis to accompany the publication of one of their titles (anyone remember Laurie Gwen Shapiro's charming first novel?).

Last week, I had the good luck to be chosen among five winners for a "boxed" version of the new novel from Algonquin, West of Here.  Expecting a slipcased edition of the book, you can imagine my absolute delight when the package arrived in yesterday's mail, containing:

• A sturdy wooden box with a sliding lid revealing a hardcover copy of the book with a signed bookplate.  Is the dust jacket Tyvek?  What a wise move.
• A note on High Tide Seafood Company letterhead from executive editor Chuck Adams extolling his love of the book. (It was addressed to Dear Reader but I'll forgive him for getting my name wrong.  It's 'Reed', Chuck)
• Five old-timey postcards depicting people and places from the era in which the book is set
• A map of the Washington Territory from 1879
• A reproduction of a newspaper piece decrying how land barons and railroad magnates were carving up the Territory for their own needs instead of use by "settlers and homebuilders" per the original land grant
• A one-sheet with bookseller blurbs and news that West of Here is a #1 Indie Next Pick

The book, published February 15, was well-hyped and has been well-reviewed and it's obvious the publisher is behind it, going to some considerable expense to create this fine package.  More importantly, the goodwill this generates and the obvious love and care, thought and planning, makes me think the financial outlay will be well-justified soon enough.  Bravo, Algonquin. 

Once my travels in Swamplandia! conclude, I will travel West of Here happily.

A free Roddy Doyle story

Regular Reed readers know how I respect and relish Roddy.  Here is a new short story he was asked to write for the upcoming St. Patrick's festival in Dublin.  

http://goo.gl/jzdmu

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Talk about your dark horses.  Patti Smith writes her first non-fiction book and she succeeds beyond expectation, ultimately winning the National Book Award.  As you may know, Just Kids is a love letter to Robert Mapplethorpe, her dearest friend, lover, and constant companion.  Knowing Mapplethorpe primarily for his work and the controversy it created two decades ago here in CinciTucky, I was happy to learn more about the man.  Patti humanized him and was honest about his faults.  How she described their lives, together and apart, was constantly touching.


More than just the Patti-and-Robert show, Just Kids is also a love letter to her art.  Admittedly, I couldn't always follow her when she talked about art--hers, that of others, and art as a philosophy--but it was obvious to me how much it means to her and how much faith she has in its power.  

The other recipient of a Patti-penned mash note is New York City.  As in good fiction, she portrays the City as its own character throughout the book.  Were I to happen across a time machine, one of the first places I would travel would be to New York when you could be poor and still live there, a condition that is almost unthinkable now.  Clearly, the City and the ability to live in it while struggling to make a living, to make art, to make a life, had long, lasting effects on for Patti who has continued to succeed on her own terms for the last 40 years.

I was terribly pleased to receive my copy of Just Kids from my dear friend Rocky who had Patti inscribe it to me "with all good wishes".  Many thanks and many happy returns.

Life by Keith Richards

Considering the, ahem, life Keef has lived, you wouldn't expect him to remember anything from the last half century of being "Keef".  Remarkably, he remembers damn near everything and recounts his colorful life as rock 'n' roll icon/'this-is-your-brain-on-drugs' posterboy in very lively detail.   

Ultimately, Keith is Keith.  There are no apologies and few regrets.  He is true to himself and fuck off if you don't like it.  Amazing as it is that he's lived at least nine lives, Keith really isn't all that surprised.  He maintains he has been blessed with a "strong constitution" and a "high tolerance".

As for the Stones, Keith dismisses Brian, loves and respects Charlie, has surprisingly little to say about Bill, and feels kind of sorry for Ronnie.  He misses Ian Stewart, adores Bobby Keys, and was happy to be done with Billy Preston.  He lets Mick have it pretty good.  Despite the long road, Keith understands how they have grown together and grown apart.  He refers to them as brothers though no longer friends.  Where Keith believes he has stayed true to himself, he paints Mick as a control freak and a social climber. Despite all this, he considers Mick the greatest singer, greatest dancer, and greatest front man in rock 'n' roll.

As expected, Life is rife with dirt and drugs and guns and girls, silly scrapes and narrow escapes, love and hope and sex and dreams.  As Keith tells it, he wouldn't have it any other way.
 

Book mix

The only thing I love as much as reading is music so I've been toying with making this music mix for some time.  

Every Day I Write the Book – Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Obvious?  Sure but I have loved EC's music and wordplay for more than thirty years.  And because he writes every day and that's something I can't seem to manage.

Book of Poems - Old 97s

I don't usually get poetry but I think Rhett and the boys could persuade me.

Paperback Writer - The Beatles

A young writer without delusions of hardcover grandeur?  Bullshit.  Still, if the first one does well, another house will pick you up and offer you a three book deal.

 

Poets - The Tragically Hip

Don't tell ME what the poets are doing because I can't figure out what they're doing. Do YOU know what they're doing?  (Did I mention I don't usually get poetry)

Read About It - Midnight Oil

Actually I think he's talking about newspapers but it's a powerful song by a powerful band.

Miss Teen Wordpower - New Pornographers

I'm not one for pageants but were I crowned Miss Teen Wordpower, I'd wear the sash and tiara with great pride and carry out the requisite duties most dutifully.

Book I Read - Talking Heads

David Byrne is embarassed to admit it but there's a soft spot in his heart.  I just love that.

Books Are Burning - XTC

The worst-case scenario made only slightly less terrible-sounding when sung by the pop-py deliciousness of Andy Partridge.

When I Write the Book - Nick Lowe

A tale told by Nick is always a good story.  Imagine a whole book.

Amsterdam - Guster

They're "gonna write you a letter". They're "gonna write you a book".  That's all I need to hear.  Plus Mrs. Next has a mad crush on the drummer. 

Jacqueline Susann - Pernice Brothers

The perpetually literate Joe Pernice-penned paean to the girl on the train and the books in her lap. Any song that name-checks Ford Madox Ford AND Jacqueline Susann has to make the list.  Plus, Joe pubbed a novel called It Feels So Good When I Stop I quite enjoyed.

Here Is Where the Story Ends - The Sundays

Pretty much a perfect pop song and a good closer.

Any suggestions or additions are welcome.

Selected Shorts

I listen to Selected Shorts from WNYC and thought I'd pass along the link.  
http://www.symphonyspace.org/shorts 

They always do interesting works read by talented actors.  The website isn't great and it's kind of hard to actually get to the downloadable part but have patience because the payoff is well worth it. 







The most recent show has a marvelous version of 'Boys' by Rick Moody, performed by actor B. D. Wong.  
 
To make a good thing even better, Selected Shorts partners with my beloved One Story and with the good folks at Houghton Mifflin and their Best American Short Stories series, which is also quite beloved by me.  (There is much beloving going on here at Chez Next.)  Indulge yourself and enjoy.

Happy Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year? Already?  I just took down the tree.  So it goes.  The Year of the Rabbit is upon us.  With that in mind, here are a few books by Chinese authors or about China.

First, the slim novel, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie.  Sijie is a filmmaker who was 're-educated' by the Mao regime and this tale of love and books will move you.

Next, two memoirs of growing up during the Cultural Revolution both by Da Chen.  Colors of the Mountain is the story of how Chen went from rural farmboy to being the first from his village to attend university.  Sounds of the River picks up as he arrives at the Beijing Language Institute.  Expecting a new and easier life, he encounters hardships of a far different kind.  His strength, wisdom and belief in himself allowed him to succeed.  He went on to study at Columbia University and lives here in the States.  These are great rags-to-riches stories and Chen writes with a beautiful voice. 

Daniel Levy's Two-Gun Cohen was my kind of guy.  A Cockney pickpocket and con artist, he fled England for Western Canada where he was appalled by the treatment of the Chinese hired to build the railroads.  He became such a friend and advocate, it led to Cohen becoming no less than the bodyguard of Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of the Chinese Republic.  Morris Cohen's later life turned for the worst but Levy has written a fascinating book about an unlikely hero.  

Matthew Polly's American Shaolin was great fun when I read it in 2007.  You can read my post about it here: http://goo.gl/qESVN

And since it is the Year of the Rabbit, perhaps it's time to re-read Watership Down and watch a few Bugs Bunny cartoons.  

Gong xi fa cai

As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto

Yesterday I received a care package from a dear friend at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt filled with some magnificent books. Today I began As Always, Julia and can only marvel at what a gift I've been presented.

Merely twenty pages in and I've already welled up with tears at seeing a friendship blossom, initially over kitchen knives. In just a few letters, the stilted civility of the 1950's quickly gave way to warmth and mutual admiration and became a deep, lifelong friendship.

In a wonderfully prescient letter, Julia describes the French cooking school she founded as "...a real and satisfying profession which will keep me busy well into the year 2000". Just wait, Julia.

More to come. Go buy the book.

Swamplandia! approaches

Just a heads-up on a title I'm more than a little excited to get my hands on. Swamplandia!, by the frighteningly talented Karen Russell, hits bookstore shelves February 1.

Here's an author who demands your attention. A few years ago, The National Book Foundation named Russell one of their '5 under 35' authors to watch and the New Yorker included her in their '20 under 40' list this past year.

I was bowled over by her marvelous first collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and one of the stories from that collection, Ava Wrestles the Alligator, is the starting point for the new book.

Here is what I wrote about St Lucy's: http://reednext.blogspot.com/2008/01/st-lucys-home-for-girls-raised-by.html

You can also read a recent interview with Russell from Powells.com here: http://goo.gl/osI61

Put down the Girl Who Ate My Lunch books. Cast aside the graying Grisham, the predictable Patterson and the insipid Sparks. All hail Karen Russell. All hail Swamplandia!

Should I stay or should I go?

          I am at a crossroads with this blog. One brief visit can tell you I don't spend enough time on it or write well enough to make this a site people return to repeatedly. It's nice to believe people come here and learn about a book or two but it's never been my intention for this to become anything more than my opinion about what I read. This has always been for me.

So I'm thinking I've had enough of this. It has become a tiny drudgery. There are days when I finish a book and feel obligated to do a book report. It hangs over me and I procrastinate and then I finally write something and post it and then I pat myself on the back. For what? To write something few people but me read? Vicious circle so what's the use, right?

Yet every time I come here to write my farewell post something stops me and so I am trying to make a decision about what to do. Keep at it or let it go? Change the format? Enlist others? As yet, I'm not sure. I'll never be a great writer or a great critic but I'm a good reader and perhaps that's what this blog should be about. Me reading and then writing. As simple as that.

A decision is forthcoming. Should you choose to come along, you're most welcome.

An old friend visits

The work of James Thurber has meant a great deal to me since I paid a quarter for a copy of The Thurber Carnival at a thrift store almost 25 years ago. Most people had to read "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" or "The Catbird Seat" as part of a college collection or as an assignment in high school. Maybe that's all the Thurber most people need but his work spoke to me immediately and with immediacy. It was smart and funny and literate and snobby and drunken and sad--all qualities to which I aspired. For many years, I would bore most anyone who would listen to me go on (and on and on) about James Thurber. His work turned me on to Perelman, Runyon, Benchley and the rest of the Harold Ross/New Yorker set and changed how I read.

The other night, for the first time in several years, I picked up The Thurber Carnival and am delighted to report it is STILL smart and funny and literate and snobby and drunken and sad. Certainly it is dated and some of the pieces have little in common with our present world nor how humor has evolved since but the writing holds up as truly classic American literature.


The selections, especially those from The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, knocked me out all over again: Elliot Vereker from "Something To Say", Barney Haller's accented speech and Thurber's fear of 'grotches' from "The Black Magic of Barney Haller", Charlie Deshler 'coming out of the anesthetic' of his wife's charms from "The Curb In the Sky". Still funny, still clever, still beautifully written. I was also quite moved by the longing and loneliness in both The Evening's At Seven and One Is A Wanderer. Thurber is remembered as a writer of humor but he was a hell of a writer, period.

I could go on (and usually do) but instead suggest you, too, dig out your old copy of The Thurber Carnival and give it a read. Or should you come across a copy in a thrift store, spend the quarter. My guess is you will be rewarded and delighted.