fiction files redux discussion

. . .so, today i'm inhaling hesh kestin's novel, "the iron will of shoeshine cats" which dzanc is releasing in november . . . it's the story of russell newhouse a jewish boy genius who unwittingly becomes a crime boss in 1963 NYC following the death of gangster shusan cats, who has chosen russy as his heir for reasons that russy only comes to understand as the story unfolds (i hope that's enough, ben!) . . . i generally can't stand gangster movies or gangster books (and that includes the godfather saga), but kestin is such a good writer that i'm totally immersed. . .this book reminds me of one of my very favorite novels-- budd schulberg's "what makes sammy run"--same quick, sharp, hard-nosed style . . .the cultural references, from civil rights to fashion to commerce to literature are spot-on and don't feel like window dressing . . . unlike the aforementioned border songs, this writing feels totally authentic, if not a little anachronistic . . . neil and matt (e-monk) are two people in the files who would totally dig this book . . .

Have you read American Tabloid by James Ellroy? It is a huge masterpience of an epic crime novel set against the backdrop of the Kennedy's Assassination. Will check hesh kestin's novel in November...

Patrick wrote: "Have you read American Tabloid by James Ellroy? It is a huge masterpience of an epic crime novel set against the backdrop of the Kennedy's Assassination. Will check hesh kestin's novel in November..."


. . . have not, but my brother probably has . . .you'll probably dig kestin's novel-- the kennedy assassination looms large in this one as well . . . i'll remind you when the book goes live this fall . . . and btw, thanks for the nice lulu review!

I just started 2666 and so far it's pretty fun, though I understand it gets more serious. So far I'm reading about how much everyone loves this mysterious Archimbaldi guy, who is German (?!)...

Also, in my search for the best vintage store in Chicago yesterday (Lenny & Me) I ran across the novel voted best book of 2009 by a Chicago author (by the Chicago Reader) -- which I promptly bought using the extremely dangerous iPhone version of Amazon and added to my to-read list.

It's by Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project -- I found the name odd, since there is already a novel by the same title and a movie, too, but there you have it. The review was interesting and it made me think of West of Here, JE, because it weaves in and out of at least two different eras. Also, the author's story sounds almost as interesting.

Aleksandar Hemon’s backstory is well known by now: he came to Chicago for a visit in the early 1990s, stayed on when his hometown, Sarajevo, fell into chaos, improved his English enough to get a master’s in lit at Northwestern, and started writing books; in 2004 he scored a MacArthur “genius” grant. The best book to come out of Chicago in the last year is his second novel, The Lazarus Project, about one Vladimir Brik, a Bosnian-American writer fortuitously married to a Chicago brain surgeon.

Brik—who’s portrayed as having written a column about the immigrant experience for the Reader—stumbles upon an old Tribune story about Lazarus Averbuch, an eastern European Jewish teenager and suspected anarchist who (in real life as in the book) was gunned down by Chicago’s police chief in 1908. Brik is determined to uncover the truth behind the incident, and his research takes him—along with his earthy Bosnian photographer friend Rora—back to his homeland. As he tells the tale, Hemon alternates between the era of Averbuch’s death, detailing the anarchist insurgency in Chicago just before the 1886 Haymarket Riots, and contemporary Chicago and eastern Europe. The book is provocative and enlightening, a serious yet often funny work by a very gifted dude.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/best_of_...

Shel wrote: "I just started 2666 and so far it's pretty fun, though I understand it gets more serious. So far I'm reading about how much everyone loves this mysterious Archimbaldi guy, who is German (?!)...

Al..."

. . . shel, i've heard good things about hemon's book, which i believe made hudson's top ten along with lulu . . .

Lauren wrote: "I've started Lolita. As good as it is, I'm finding it a slow go. Kinda like only having one bite of dessert because its so rich?"

Great way to describe the novel...at least my reaction to it when I read it.

. . . since we're on the subject of nabokov, i'm currently reading "laughter in the dark," which has a sort of fairy-tailish tone to it . . . very readable, but so far not earth-shattering . . .

. . .also reading "in persuasion nation" by george saunders, which, if you can believe it, is the first george saunders i've ever actually read, though a few years back i wrote a series of stories that people kept comparing to george saunders, which i now take a compliment . . . ben, you would like this collection, it reminds of something brautigan might write if he were around today . . .saunders has an offbeat sensibility all his own . . .

I'm bringing this over from my currently reading status to ask if anyone thinks this is as ridiculous as I see it to be.

I'm reading Pamuk, an early one called The New Life and I have a gripe with the cover... not the artwork which is superb, but with the blurbs, the accolades.

"Think Kafka with a light touch" Chicago Tribune

"...lyricism reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez" Wall Street Journal

"...fusion literary elegance and incisive political commentary... comparisons to Salman Rushdie and Don DiLillo..." Publishers Weekly

"...slight of hand of a Borges" Newsday

"...suggests Proust" John Updike, The New Yorker

"...as erudite as Nabokov and as chillingly prophetic as J. G. Ballard." general blurb on back cover.

"...romance reminiscent of Leeanne Marie Stephenson" Brian Dork

I'm disappointed that no connection to Albert Camus has been drawn. In world lit, every writer is a country's Camus.

Pamuk is a great writer and needs none of the above accolades. I think they were said before he won the Nobel sticker and he was still relatively unknown, but still... I do find these kinds (and quantities) of comparisons just stupid. Compare a writer to one, maybe two greats and leave it at that. But to mention all of the great modern writers? If I didn't know Pamuk's style I would have probably passed on this book.

. . . yeah, no doubt, sort of all over the map with the blurbs . . .

Anne McCaffrey should have had her blurb license revoked when she praised Lois McMaster Bujold by chirping: "She writes good, gooder, goodest!"

Brian wrote: "I'm bringing this over from my currently reading status to ask if anyone thinks this is as ridiculous as I see it to be.

I'm reading Pamuk, an early one called [b:The New Life|861981|The New Life|..."

Does the dude have multiple personality disorder or something?

Esther wrote: "Brian wrote: "I'm bringing this over from my currently reading status to ask if anyone thinks this is as ridiculous as I see it to be.

I'm reading Pamuk, an early one called [b:The New Life|861981..."

nah... he's just a good writer and father. the reviewers just can't find the right hole to peg him into.

I'm reading spiritual stuff.

Aw Adrian, there's a sweet little Jesus Fish nestled into the G!

Jonathan wrote: " george saunders. . . ben, you would like this collection
..."

i totally thought so, too! but no, ben hates george saunders! but at least now i'm not alone in having misjudged! :) thanks je!

. . . weird . . . ben have you read in persuasion nation?

i read Civilwarland in Bad Decline and The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. he just seems so fucking smug, i hate it. it's almost as bad as that horrible Miranda July lady. richard brautigan was always for real. he meant it all, felt it all, every word of it. especially when he was joking. and he was a poet. saunders just seemed to be talkin a bunch of shit, and ugly shit besides. it was like hanging out with a guy who thinks he's a genius but is really just really judgmental and fully of "wacky" ideas and wants you to give him a medal for social conscience or something. and it wasn't even funny! none of it, not a single line... i was just so incredibly bored.

i'm sorry... i just really hated those books.

but i love both of you!!!

I'm reading the friends of eddie coyle right now -- largely because elmore leonard recommended it as the best crime book ever written.

i've arrived at a stage in my career where if elmore leonard says to do it, i do it.

I'm reading Patrick Kilgallon's gather the weeds. Dystopian Horror. There is one horrific scene Michael witnesses but doesn't quite comprehend but I do and it's spine chilling. Horrifying, sad, frustrating, funny and inspiring. You guys should buy a couple of copies and circulate them. Michael, Ben and Mo would probably really like it.

I think I should learn crafting so I can build a shrine to appreciate such a supportive reader like you, Margaret!

may need two shrines patrick. i've added it to my 'purchase' category and i'm looking forward to reading it. i just need to know what michael witnesses and doesn't quite comprehend.

Brian wrote: "may need two shrines patrick. i've added it to my 'purchase' category and i'm looking forward to reading it. i just need to know what michael witnesses and doesn't quite comprehend."

Maybe we should move this over to the 'Reading Our Own" group of threads. I'm intrigued now too and will be adding this to my must purchase/read pile shortly.

. . . i'm almost finished with the adventures of huckleberry finn, and i like it even more this time around . . . i love me a good outdoor adventure . . . and man, could twain write a voice novel or what? . . .there is so much of dickens in this book . . . some little dorrit, some copperfield, some great expectations . . . the brand of humor, the characterizations, the very segments of society which twain writes about . . .

. . .i'm going to the library tomorrow in hopes of finding the big sleep, as i fully intend to be a part of the group read . . .

I am just starting The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's good so far.

Currently reading Land of a Hundred Wonders and I'm really enjoying the richness of the lead character...a young woman left brain-damaged after a horrible car accident...but I made the mistake of reading someone's review, someone who felt it necessary to reveal too much and now I'm bugged. Argh!

I just finished Patricia Highsmith's, "People Who Knock On Doors." The funny thing was while the book was revelant in the Silent Moral Majority period of the eighties, I kept thinking of those people as Fifties sitcom like Leave it to the Beaver except Wally, in the form of Arthur, constantly gets laid.

I find it almost an interesting kind of language, though, if nearly meaningless.

My parents used to talk almost completely in acronyms (about work) - when you don't know the acronyms, nothing makes sense. I had no idea what they were talking about roughly half the time during family dinners.

"How was your day, dear?"

"Oh, the S&T called about this RFP for SOVA, which has to go through OMB first, you know how it is, then OGC called about SSA, and then the Wang crapped out and I had to call..."

A sort of common parlance - "I'm going to show you that I know this great writer and that great writer, and then I'm going to mush them together like this (spread Silly Putty on comics page or mix neon green and fuschia Play-doh together) and look what you get! Only I know what you get because I'm just that witty!"

Also reminds me of the film The Player... or Curb Your Enthusiasm, where you see these funny pitch meetings...

It's Terminator meets Steel Magnolias. Easy Rider meets Star Trek. Grease meets Schindler's List.

Kris wrote: "If Herman Melville and Jane Austen dropped acid together, the result would surely result in something like this! Blech!"

wow, the idea of jane austen on acid is pretty horrifying... i mean, really... that whole zombie mash-up thing actually seems like a pretty natural fit all of a sudden, no? almost unavoidable... the logical extension, playing out to infinity... it's undeniable!

hope that doesn't mean i have to read it.

Ben wrote: "Kris wrote: "If Herman Melville and Jane Austen dropped acid together, the result would surely result in something like this! Blech!"

wow, the idea of jane austen on acid is pretty horrifying... i..."

A while back I read a paperback novel by cult author Rex Miller featuring his grotesque serial killer, Chaingang. Terse, graphic descriptions of human slaughter ... and then the tone would abruptly shift to earnest sermonettes about how society must endeavor to stop cruelty to children or, lo, we shall reap what we sow by producing such monsters as this Chaingang character ... and then back to the violence. It was a herky-jerky ride. At the time I thought: well, if Mickey Spillane and Harriet Beecher Stowe got drunk and collaborated on a pulp novel, I guess it would be a freakish thing like this, God help us.

guilty here. i still enjoy the mashup love child game.
Mickey Spillane and Harriet Beecher Stowe... that's hilarious.

but if i'm looking for serious reviews of something i wouldn't look here or on amazon. for that, i go to the book reviews in people magazine.

Slowrabbit wrote: "guilty here. i still enjoy the mashup love child game.
Mickey Spillane and Harriet Beecher Stowe... that's hilarious.

but if i'm looking for serious reviews of something i wouldn't look here or..."

i love you patrick. :)

Kind of a weird question- how do you decide when you've had it with a book?

I usually give something 50 pages to hook me. But sometimes you come upon a book that's highly touted but it's just not grabbing you. You keep thinking, "I should like this book, I should read this, but it just isn't quite there..."

When do you give up on a literary prize winner or the one everyone else just raved about???

I'm currently reading Dreams of My Russian Summers, winner of both the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Medicis.

But while reading, all I keep thinking is, "Eh."

Karen wrote: "Kind of a weird question- how do you decide when you've had it with a book?

I usually give something 50 pages to hook me. But sometimes you come upon a book that's highly touted but it's just n..."

Interesting question: I just got done with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground" -- the first section, 42 pages of circuitous, self-contradictory philosophizing made me go "Uh Oh"... and then around page 50 (honest) the story kicked in in a way that surprised me and put the rest of the novella (I find it hard to call this a novel)...

I have no clue whether this applies to your Russian novel -- but this was a fantastic book; Dostoevsky paints human beings in the most operatic -- and simultaneously realistic -- colors.

I'm embedded in two books: The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu and Flann O'Brien's The Complete Novels. Chuang Tzu is delightful. Flann O'Brien is both enthralling & exasperating, yet I don't find him quite as clever or amusing as others have claimed him to be. (And often you really need to be familiar with Irish folklore to understand what kind of game he wants to play.)

For diversionary online reading, I've been spying on nun bloggers. Here are some sisters gabbing about their wedding rings: A Nun's Life

I just finished Story of O by Pauline Reage (which oddly is not findable using the add/book author link).

Graham Greene said: "A rare thing, a pornographic book well written and without a trace of obscenity."

It's an interesting book, somewhat similar to The Story of the Eye in how it draws the reader into a world most of us don't know exists, but also at times numbing -- "and then he gestured at me to pull my dress up and drop to my knees so that he could see the welts from last night..."

You're reading along, thinking OK, I might be able to see that. OK, I can see that being a turnon, whatever works for you... and then you turn this corner and you're like, whoa. Wait just a minute.

I started out the book knowing that the woman, O, had already asked for everything that was done to her (there is some fairly extreme stuff), although the book makes no mention of this at the outset - I think to maintain the illusion that perhaps she is being forced, which holds a lot of erotic tension for her.

The general consensus about the book, according to what I've read online, is that it's autobiographical (if it was, this woman must have had a ton of vacation time saved up). It's considered an erotic classic, and a classic of BDSM literature. The writing itself is - well - very French. Sensory, but also philosophical in that sort of know thyself way. It was recommended to me because it delves into the psychology of these relationships, upping the ante by setting the book in an environment totally isolated from society.

So, yeah, if you're up for a book that's kind of like Story of the Eye without the bull testicles but lots of whipping instead, I recommend it.

I just finished a book of Dostoyevski's novellas. Poor Folk, White Nights, The Village of Stepanchikovo... , and Netochka Nezvanova. In Russian! It was fucking rapturous. I brought a bunch of other books in russian too, so no bookstores for me for a couple of months at least.

Poor Folk is experimental, amateurish. But it's brilliant. You can't help thinking, this was Dostoyevsky's debut. He was 23 when he wrote this.

so i'm about to read that book smashed, squashed, splattered, chewed, chunked, and spewed... that book that mysteriously appears and disappears from the group bookshelf. first page, first paragraph... the author told me, the reader, to fuck myself. i like that. kind of makes me think he knows me. it's one of those moments where i feel like the author and reader connected.

thumbing through the book i notice he likes to use footnotes... a recent fad? his footnotes are crazy and informative in crazy ways.

i'm not sure why i'm reading it but i would like to just take this opportunity to say to the author, lance carbuncle, fuck you.

now we, the reader and the author, each know where we stand and i'm interested to see where we go together. i see beers and a dark bar in the future...

I finished the Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith. I checked out her younger photo; a very severe looking woman who looks like a regular balls-breaker.

It is like the question that T.S. Eliot asked. 'Dare I Disturb the Universe?' But in this case, the universe is seriously 'ef' up beforehand.

I am looking forward to reading Emily's Diary and already read the section on about the book. It's like this woman who write in her diary while her life is falling apart but she kept denying it so she writes it as if everything in her life is going perfectly.

Damn, it looks like we have a Flannery O Conner recarnination thing happening here, folks. I bet it would be like 'August Heat' or 'Address Unknown' but in a novel length. How cool is that!

Brian wrote: "I'm bringing this over from my currently reading status to ask if anyone thinks this is as ridiculous as I see it to be.

I'm reading Pamuk, an early one called The New Life and I hav..."

I always felt the reviewers, the "real" reviewers are just showing off what books they have read. It's like Mark Twain said. (Well to paraphrase him) "A classic is a book that you wish you have read."

Brian wrote: "now we, the reader and the author, each know where we stand and i'm interested to see where we go together. i see beers and a dark bar in the future..."

Well, a dark bar without beers would just be awkward!

You crack me up, Brian.

I am almost finished with Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith...It did not really meet my expectations because most of the things Edith had done was really successful, including having her article published in Rolling Stone.

The only thing that she was not really successful at was the family, even though she works 24 hours a day at it. It would have been scarier and enjoyable if Edith was less successful with less things. At least it would have given me a chance to experience that German's expression in German, not sure how it's spelled, that means taking pleasure in others' misfortune.

Schadenfreude is the word I was looking for, although throughout life I have often been grossly cheated out of that kind of a feeling. For example, one of my friends complained to me that "my mountain bike fell off the wall in the garage and onto my BMW." I was like, "Ha-ha-ha! Douchebag-wait a minute...you own a BMW?"

I finished Mr. Yates’ novel Disturbing the Peace last week. How he keeps from dipping into melodrama I cannot tell. The characters again all in a hot bother about maintaining their sanity and not worth knowing as friends - evil, intemperate, and self-serving all – but he pulls it off nonetheless. The writing is almost as crisp as RevRo, and the plot line takes you for a steady ride through the couple hundred pages or so. I’m particularly impressed that the opening episodes in Bellevue are later turned into a play and acted out in a barn in Vermont; a play which is in turn expanded into a movie of 3 acts by the screenwriters we meet in Act 3, neatly describing what we have just seen in Act 2, and more than predicting the final act.

I have to tell you, reading Yates while getting caught up on the past couple seasons of Madmen has been quite the combination. Add to that, I’ve gotten hooked on reading Dave Trott’s blog (found here: Dave Trott) and I’ve stumbled into a serious lead up to James P.'s new release, Adworld. Anything with the title “Creative Director” has got my attention these days.

I am certain Yates is on the must-read list for the writers of Madmen. The pathos under-skirting the show is pure 100% Yates.

Madmen aside, I actually prefer Distrubing the Peace after the action shifts to L.A.; this is Film Noir plus an extra unkind decade; kind of like Judy Garland by the time of her own TV show; Film Noir that should have left the party and gone home 10 years earlier:

“He sat on the living-room sofa, tapering off on beer, waiting for sleep. He was still there, awake and whispering to himself, when daylight crept through the Venetian blinds.”

mm

I'm reading "Bleak House" for the first time, on a Kindle I just got from work. 19th century meets the 21st. I remember suffering through "Great Expectations" in high school (I know, I'm a heretic, but I read it for summer reading, which is where books that teachers don't want to teach go, and I just couldn't get into it). I would find a few scenes to be good but mostly just staring at the page count and thinking "Oh, dear God, when will it be done?" I don't think I read a single Dickens novel in college. Then I had to teach "Hard Times" in my second teaching job and, while it's not one of Dickens' best novels, the language and voice just blew me away. In grad school I had to read "Oliver Twist" and "Our Mutual Friend" and I was hooked.

"Bleak House" so far may be the best of the pitifully small number of Dickens I've read. Characters that come across as slightly over-the-top and yet completely believable. Descriptions that verge on a kind of magic realism, the product of a rapturous imagination--at one point Dickens imagines the thoughts of animals with regards to the weather. The everlasting legal case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. (And his names--Esther Summerson, Guppy, Tulkinghorn, Horace Skimpole, Mrs. Jellyby. He mixes humor with horror, the personal with the social, hyperbole with realism. If Shakespeare and Stephen King...but I digress.

Reading on the Kindle is odd and yet sort of liberating. No thick wad of pages left to read that sometimes threatens to defeat me. The font is very readable (although every book on a Kindle is in the same font, which was slightly disconcerting at first). I like gadgets so clicking a button to turn a page isn't a big deal. More on this later...

Chris wrote: "And his names--Esther Summerson ..."

No one ever agrees with me, but I think Esther is a passive-aggressive vampire who attempts to drain the life out of this novel. And I think it was bizarre for Dickens to have her narrate the chapters in which she appears: she's always insinuating how poor, meek, and humble she is!

I won't spoil the book, but something terrible happens to her. At that point in the narrative, I can always relax and think: "Good show, Dickens. Give the little ghoul what she deserves."

I'm currently reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

. . . i am reading two very different debut novels . . . for anyone who has read today's three guys, one book blog, please forgive the redundancy:

I'm midway through reading two novels at present, both of which came as recommendations from editors I greatly admire--one a commercial editor, and the other an indie editor--both of whom are excellent readers. These novels could hardly have less in common; one is a rollicking western adventure set in the 1860s, and the other is a tender-hearted coming-of-age set in New York City in the 1970s. One features a male protagonist, the other a female. One doles out its language in measured helpings, while the other speeds along under its own momentum. But they have this much in common: they're both imminently charming and readable, and they both feel lived-in.

The first book is Chris Hannan's Missy, which came as a recommendation from David Rogers at Picador. I've been obsessed with westerns in recent days. It fascinates me to see how contemporary writers deal with the well-worn tropes of the genre, how they will undermine our expectations of western mythology, from the subversive machinations of McCarthy, to the envelope-pushing of Proulx. “Missy” by the way is a frontier euphemism for laudanum, or liquid opium. While a Scottish playwright may sound like an unlikely candidate to pen a great American western, Hannan is so comfortable with the task that you forget he's even there, taking risks with his language at every turn. Dol McQueen is an unforgettable protagonist. Think Mattie Ross, older, bawdier, and more penetrable. Hannan offers all the hard-scrabble adventure--all the opium, gunplay, and whorehouse splendor-- you'd ever want in a western. And yet, what's really driving this story so far, is the tenderness of Dol McQueen, which is lovely, if not misguided.

As of now, you could say I'm gonged on Missy. I'll let you know how the rest of the novel pans out. For the record, Picador will be handling the trade paper release of Missy in July.

The second book I'm halfway through this week is Peter Selgin's Life Goes to the Movies, which came as a recommendation from Dan Wicket at Dzanc, who has yet to let me down. Much like another recent Dzanc title I covered, Hesh Kestin's The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats, Life Goes to the Movies is a coming of age in which a bigger-than-life supporting character takes our young protagonist on a journey which changes his life. In this case, the protagonist is Nigel DePoli, a rural Italian immigrant's son trying to find his way in the Big Apple in the mid-70s. Enrolled in art school, Nigel is soon waylaid by Dwaine Fitzgibbon, an addled Viet Nam Vet turned auteur. Like Kestin's Shushan Cats, Dwaine is as elusive as he is charismatic, charming as he is contrary. Selgin makes it easy for this reader to share Nigel's fascination. I'm impressed by Selgin's range. His treatments, from the madcap to the vastly uncomfortable, are handled with equal skill, and Selgin writes with a tenderness that is, dare I say, refreshingly feminine?

...also reading "in persuasion nation" by george saunders, which, if you can believe it, is the first george saunders i've ever actually read..."

A buddy of mine was hounding me for years, literally, to give Saunders a shot, and I finally picked up IPN (because it was all my local library had). Hated it. (Rather, hated the first three stories, which was all I could get through.) I've hence dismissed Saunders completely and out-of-hand.

Have I made a mistake? It's been a few months and I can't even remember why I hated it -- I can't, in fact, remember much of it at all (not a good sign) -- but my gut tells me I had good reason. (Of course, my gut also told me to vote for Ralph Nader in 2000.)

-G

P.S. I just finished Revolutionary Road, and agree wholeheartedly with Michael: Matt Weiner and Co. (Mad Men) were definitely inspired by Yates's work. What a disturbingly phenomenal story. Good golly. The read that proceeded that was Franzen's The Corrections, which I thought was one of the best novels I'd read in a long time. RR was better.

P.P.S. Michael, your C's will squeeze by Orlando, but LeBron will OWN them. This is LBJ's 1991. Believe it.

ooo... kris... you're making me want to withdraw my hand from the shelf. i was about to grab that pamuk book down and let it's pages breathe. anna k. soon it looks like.

I am currently reading Brothers by Yu Hua. Really great book about Growing up and moving forward in life. The protagonists are both funny and sad at different moments in their lives. If you are a fan of Foreign authors then definitely give this book a chance. I will post a full review on my Blog http://toblogdotcom.blogspot.com/ Come and check it out