Drew Reviews: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
5 Stars - Highly Recommended by Drew / The Next Best Book
Pages: 352
Publisher: Quirk Books
Released: 2011


Guest review by Drew Broussard 

The Short Version: Jacob Portman grew up wanting to believe in the odd stories his grandfather told - and after he finds his grandfather murdered in a vicious fashion by a terrifying creature, he does.  It's just that everyone else now thinks he's crazy.  After he manages to convince his parents & therapist it's a good idea, he goes to visit the Welsh island where his grandfather grew up an orphan - and discovers the truth behind his grandfather's stories.

The Review: There is something marvelous and terrifying about old pictures.  You see it on Tumblr all the time nowadays - but even back when it was just flipping through an old photo album in a dusty attic, there's always that possibility of stumbling across something strange.  It might just be your parents when they were your age (which is weird enough, let's admit) but it could be something more interesting too, like a peculiar item or a vaguely magical/eerie moment caught forever on the emulsion.  That's part of why digital photography can never quite match proper negatives - a lack of that feeling like you caught a single moment through some kind of magic, as opposed to just being able to do it whenever you please.
But I digress. 

Ransom Riggs' strange and peculiar and wonderful debut novel is all about those photos and the moments they can inspire.  The collection here, scattered throughout the novel, of "[unaltered] authentic, vintage found photographs... with the exception of a few that have undergone minimal postprocessing" is enough to stimulate anyone whose imaginations may've been piqued by something like The Mysteries of Harris Burdick in their younger days - and Riggs clearly goes to town, imaginatively.  The titular 'peculiars' are a great twist on mutants/magical individuals and Alma Peregrine's similarities to Charles Xavier should be taken as a compliment and not a brush-off.  Seeing them, though, is perhaps what's most exciting about the book.  You're allowed to imagine them, still, because you're only looking at the image for a moment before flashing on to the next page of text... but that sepia-toned glimpse allows your imagination to color inside the lines, as it were, instead of just going crazy.

Speaking of not going crazy: Riggs doesn't get too carried away in the telling of this story, despite his evident joy in the writing/creation of it. This story is measured and told with... not restraint or stateliness but a proper, steady pace.  I was so impressed that he didn't try to rush any parts of it and instead introduced things all in due time, allowing the reader to get comfortable before adding something new to the mix.  It takes about a third of the book to even introduce the title character - but the mystery and the world that Riggs presents in that first third are fine in and of themselves.  We're in America, we see an 'ordinary' (ish) family, and there's a real question of whether or not Jacob can be believed.  When we discover (no spoilers, it's pretty obvious just from the jacket copy) that he can be believed, it's like pushing open a door to the outside - the world suddenly expands, in a very natural (albeit frightening and confusing) way.  And as Jacob comes to understand this new world, so does the reader and it all feels very organic and lovely.  Names for the peculiars and their enemies and their abilities - terms like "wights" and "hollows" and "ymbrynes" - are introduced and then defined and then clarified and none of it feels overwhelming.  It's some really exceptional world-building.  

There's also - and I mention this in relation specifically to some of the other things I've read of late and to my BookClub's last discussion (of this book) - a really interesting look at a time in our past that is still so important.  To consider the parallel of the Nazis and these monsters who hunt the peculiars... it's a dangerous trap and Riggs, for the most part, steers clear of it, only explicitly laying it out once or twice.  But I really find that it struck me in a powerful way, whereas these sorts of parallels often don't.  The idea that everyone believed Jacob's grandfather meant the Nazis - and he did, he certainly, to some extent did - when he talked about fleeing from monsters in his childhood... but that he really had this other set of monsters he fled from... there's a psychological depth that can be plumbed here, if you're so inclined.  If I was still in college, I might write a paper about it - that sort of thing.  But I can assure you, I expected nothing of the sort - in terms of intellectual engagement - when I picked this book up.  Bravo.

Rating: 5 out of 5. There are some lags in the plot and the initial arrival in Wales takes a little long to gear up (the introduction, for example, of the delinquents on the island... kind of unnecessary) but they were little bumps in the road.  The story is magnificent and the design of the book, right down to the marvelous red hardcover with Ms. Peregrine's name on the cover and including every single picture - it's a delightful object as much as it is a delightful novel.  I'm so thrilled that it's to be a series and I can't wait for book two.  

Drew Broussard reads, a lot. When not doing that, he's writing stories or playing music or acting or producing or coming up with other ways to make trouble.  He also has a day job at The Public Theater in New York City.

Indie Spotlight: Julie Weinberg

We always say hindsight is 20/20. It's only in looking back in time that we can clearly see the poor decisions we made and play the woulda-shoulda-coulda game with ourselves. "I should have spent more time on..."; "Had I known, I would have done x instead of y"...

In today's Indie Spotlight, author Julie Weinberg looks back at the way she marketed her first book I Wish There Were Baby Factories - a fictional comedic version of her wish to have a baby, leading her on a real life five-year quest through infertility, genetic testing, failed adoption and more. It's a laugh-out-loud compelling debut novel with a voice that has often been compared to Erma Bombeck. This is an essay Juli wrote, detailing her journey to publication and the pitfalls for first time indie authors:

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The inspiration for my book was simple.  Getting inspired to successfully market the book, on the other hand, has proved a much more difficult quest.

My passion to write didn’t come about until I achieved my very first career goal.  When I was in the second grade, a local paper published my first, forty-six word “essay” about what I wanted to be when I grew up:  a stay at home mom.  Back in the 70s that was a pretty polarizing theme so somehow a seven-year-old’s dream became newsworthy.  It wasn’t until many decades later, after my stay at home mom dreams came true, that I switched my focus to writing.

My debut novel chronicles my tumultuous journey to becoming a stay at home mom while trying to balance a stressful, fast paced political job.  Originally, the goal of the book was simply to preserve a part of our family history.  I just wanted to get down on paper the story of all I went through to start a family so my kids would know beyond the shadow of a doubt that they were both loved and wanted from the very beginning. 

So in between soccer practices and homeroom mom duties, I wrote a book.  Well, I thought I wrote a book, but it turns out an impressive sounding fifty thousand words only qualifies as a pamphlet in some literary circles.  When I found that out, I knew I was destined to find even more nefarious secrets lurking about to smother my writing dream.

I didn’t find out until it was too late that publication of the book (which was ten years in the making) occurred about a year too soon.  Among my duties as a self-published author I also would be required to (or hire someone else to) design a website, create a blog, tweet regularly, maintain a “strong presence” on facebook, find out what maintaining a “strong presence” on facebook meant, self-promote, market, self-promote and market some more. 

I should have submitted the book for professional reviews as soon as I finalized the manuscript.  I should have been planned a fabulous “launch party” with food and an open bar so all my friends and family could buy the book on one day, boost sales, and be pressured into writing the all important Amazon reviews on the spot.

While I had a personal Facebook page to reunite with old friends, I never tweeted nor linked up (or in) in my life.  Constantly posting “fun facts” or relevant current event tie-ins about my book seems onerous—both on me to come up with ideas and to my friends who are sick of hearing about the book.  While I now have close to 300 Linkedin business acquaintances, I wonder if they would have accepted my invitation if they had known marketing a book to them motivated the request.

Maybe if I had signed with an agent it might have gone better.  But getting an agent proved just as hard as getting a traditional publisher to look at the manuscript.  Unless I knew someone (which I didn’t) or knew someone who knew someone (ditto) I was officially on my own.

When the goal was simply to record a family history, none of that mattered; but now I find myself becoming the tiger mom to my book that I had tamed for my own children.  I let them choose their own path to happiness.  Success for the book, on the other hand, has morphed from merely getting the words bound onto paper to selling thousands of copies. 

Because I know absolutely nothing about it, stepping into the marketing side of publishing feels overwhelming.  Writing the book never felt like a chore, never felt scary, never kept me up at night wondering if I should give it up because of a bad start.  “If only I had known!” plays through my mind now each time I discover something I should have done eons ago to ensure the success of my book.

But, we live and learn.  Sales have been slow given the zero-percent effort previously afforded to marketing and I’ve accepted that. After all, it took about twenty years to realize my first dream so I can be patient and spend the next twenty working on my second.

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Julie Weinberg left behind the calm of her childhood upbringing in Overland Park, Kansas when she followed her dream to live, work and breathe politics by attending American University in Washington, DC. Never looking back, she worked as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill before jumping ship to state politics with the Maryland General Assembly.  Her K-12 education policy expertise helped her in the political arena and eventually as a mom, too. An avid Baltimore Ravens fan and dedicated soccer mom, Julie and her family live in beautiful Potomac, MD. 

 For more information about Julie Weinberg please visit: http://julieweinbergbooks.com or connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Julie-Weinberg

Lavinia Ludlow's Would You Rather

Bored with the same old fashioned author interviews you see all around the blogosphere? Well, TNBBC's newest series is a fun, new, literary spin on the ole Would You Rather game. Get to know the authors we love to read in ways no other interviewer has. I've asked them to pick sides against the same 20 odd bookish scenarios. And just to spice it up a bit, each author gets to ask their own Would You Rather question to the author who appears after them....

Lavinia Ludlow's 

Would You Rather

Would you rather write an entire book with your feet or with your tongue?

My tongue? Oh god, no. Just thinking of all the paper cuts sends shivers down my back. Is Siri an option? Ha, kidding. I’ll always be an Android at heart.

Would you rather have one giant bestseller or a long string of moderate sellers?

Neither. I don’t feel my “narrative voice” will ever belong in the giant, moderate, or bigger-than-a-micropress industry. There’s something very comforting about that because there are so many amazing micropress writers out there doing pumping out amazing work. I’m proud to be a part of the community.

Would you rather be a well-known author now or be considered a literary genius after you’re dead?

           

See previous answer. Besides, I often use Bay Area lingo in my writing and my stories contain unconventional non-mainstream content. I don’t believe anyone will ever see work containing my language or choice content as “literary genius.”

Would you rather write a book without using conjunctions or have every sentence of your book begin with one?

           

I don’t already do both gratuitously?

Would you rather have every word of your favorite novel tattooed on your skin or always playing as an audio in the background for the rest of your life?

Neither. I’d still want to adore and hold it on a pedestal (Arthur Nersesian’s Chinese Takeout).

Would you rather write a book you truly believe in and have no one read it or write a crappy book that comprises everything you believe in and have it become an overnight success?

I’ve written and am currently writing content that will never see the public eye. In the past, I’ve just been lucky to have had a small press (Casperian Books) that has believed in my first two works, and given me the opportunity to publish in the indie market. As for overnight success, see answers to questions #2 and #3.

Would you rather write a plot twist you hated or write a character you hated?

I hate characters that I write constantly. Don’t we all? Plot twists are harder because I would feel as if I had little control over the situation; however, I would still have complete control over how the characters would respond so I think I could spin both a despised character and plot twist.

Would you rather use your skin as paper or your blood as ink?

It’s not normal for people to do both?

Would you rather become a character in your novel or have your characters escape the page and reenact the novel in real life?

Going to sidestep directly answering this question because I’ve always thought (and maybe this is narcissistic), it would be so cool to sit down and have a conversation with some of my most intense antagonists. As writers, we give these characters life, but they pretty much run the show after that, so I feel I could gain a lot of insight in just sitting down and having a cup of coffee with a few of them. Scary thing is they’d probably spend a lot of time criticizing my choices and grammar in my writing so I think it could make for a hilarious situation.

Would you rather write without using punctuation and capitalization or without using words that contained the letter E?

imagine all the time and headache we could save without punctuation as a necessity i already dont dot my is or cross my ts when handwriting stuff that letter e is super important although i suppose im off the hook when it comes to esigning my name

Would you rather have schools teach your book or ban your book?

Both. I had some amazing teachers in middle and high school who still taught books on the banned list.

Would you rather be forced to listen to Ayn Rand bloviate for an hour or be hit on by an angry Dylan Thomas?

Anything but the bloviating.

Would you rather be reduced to speaking only in haiku or be capable of only writing in haiku?

Not a fan of haiku. I detest it actually. Too restrictive.

Would you rather be stuck on an island with only the 50 Shades Series or a series in a language you couldn’t read?

Not a fan of 50 Shades or any book series, really. I think I’d rather be stuck on an island with Pabst Blue Ribbon. And that says something.

Would you rather critics rip your book apart publically or never talk about it at all?

Rip me apart. I have no “safe word.” Tell me I’ve been bad, and what I’ve done or am doing wrong. I want my writing to grow, not live in my own stunted universe. I feel I’ve learned a lot from the criticisms of my debut novel, alt.punk, and I have been applying that to my new works, especially Single Stroke Seven.

Would you rather have everything you think automatically appear on your Twitter feed or have a voice in your head narrate your every move?

Since I already have the voice in my head blaring at all seconds of the day, the Twitter thing could prove to be a little interesting. It’d raise a lot of eyebrows, that’s for sure.

Would you rather give up your computer or pens and paper?

Easy. Computer. I still draft everything with college rule lined paper and a mechanical accounting pencil. This makes for a nightmare when I have to transition everything to a word doc but I feel handwriting my drafts forces me to commit and worry about revisions later. It’s just so easy to take things back when they’re on a computer screen.

Would you rather write an entire novel standing on your tippy-toes or laying down flat on your back?

The latter. Writing in bed while passing in and out of sleep produces some of the most interesting results.

Would you rather read naked in front of a packed room or have no one show up to your reading?

Would everyone at this reading be naked as well?

Would you rather read a book that is written poorly but has an excellent story, or read one with weak content but is written well? 

Best question ever to close out this series. There are such amazing narrative voices out there and I am drawn to great similes, metaphors, and presentation of such simplistic scenes and plots, so definitely the weak content but written well. And “written well” does not mean the narration is grammatically correct and all the moving pieces make sense. The most hard-hitting and impactful writing, I’ve found, is the stream-of-consciousness writing when a character/narrator just goes off in the heart of his/her conflict, and does not worry about making perfect sense or being appropriate. To me, that’s great writing. 

and here is Lavina's response to Andrew F Sullivan's question from last week:

Would you rather write YA books or experimental poetry for the rest of your life? 

YA Books. I think they have a stigma that they're Goosebumps books or Babysitter Club books, but I believe writers have a lot of space to explore in that genre, and can definitely introduce great works into the world through that medium.  

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Check back next week to see what Jayme K would rather

and see his answer to Lavinia's question:

Would you rather draft work in a busy bustling cafe with lots of chaos to draw inspiration from or would you rather be isolated in a log cabin with no interruptions at all?

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Lavinia Ludlow is a musician, writer, and occasional contortionist. Her debut novel alt.punk can be purchased through major online retailers as well as Casperian Books’ website. Recently, her sophomore novel Single Stroke Seven was signed to Casperian Books as well. In her free time, she reviews independent literature over at places such as Small Press Reviews, The Nervous Breakdown, American Book Review, and Plumb Blog. She hearts all indie writers, musicians, and artists and hopes you do too.

Eat Like an Author: Nick Antosca's Avocado Egg Thing

When most people get bored, they eat. When I get bored, I brainstorm new series and features for the blog, and THEN eat. And not too long ago, as I was brainstorming and contemplating what I wanted to eat, I thought how cool it would be to have a mini-foodie series where authors share the things they like to eat. Photos and recipes and all. And so I asked them, and amazingly they responded, and I dubbed it EAT LIKE AN AUTHOR. 

Our debut recipe comes from Nick Antosca and it's a mean green healthy fat kind of thing. I'd love to know if any of you are brave enough to give this recipe a try. Drop a comment here if you do!

NICK ANTOSCA’S AVOCADO EGG THING

This is what I eat for lunch on any weekend when I’m eating at home.  I ate it yesterday.  I like it because it combines one of my favorite combinations of foods – avocado and feta cheese.  It’s also pretty high-fat, I think, but the good kind of fat? 

All you need are three things – an avocado, a couple of eggs, and some feta cheese.

The first thing I do is peel the avocado and put it in a bowl, then mash it up like you’re making guacamole.  (You could also throw some guacamole ingredients in there if you want, but I don’t.)

Look at this avocado.  Avocado is one of my favorite foods of all time.  I’m grateful to nature for making something so rich and buttery.  I’ve probably eaten an average of one whole avocado a day every day for the last two years.

Then I add feta cheese to it.  As I said, this is one of my favorite combinations of foods.  When I was a kid, my mother used to get me to eat salad by putting avocado and feta cheese in the salad. Then I would just throw away the rest of the salad and eat only the avocado and feta cheese.  To this day I don’t understand why anyone puts lettuce in salads.  Lettuce is nothing!  Vaguely bitter-tasting, insubstantial, stringy.  Spinach, arugula, fine.  But lettuce makes everything worse.  It’s the filler on the album.  Now we don’t listen to albums anymore, we just download the good songs.  We should stop putting lettuce in salads.

After the feta cheese, I add two eggs.  Then I mix it all together.  It becomes a high-protein (right?) green slop.

Then I pour it into a pan and cook it with a RED SPATULA.

I cook it like scrambled eggs, which is all it is, basically, except with a somewhat more creamy consistency because it’s primarily avocado, not egg.  The clumps get a nice delicate golden-brown crust, and they’re warm and creamy/buttery inside.  The  crumbles of feta cheese melt and become little salt-bombs.

When it’s done, I put it on a plate and it becomes this gross-looking but delicious situation that I eat standing up at my kitchen counter, which is how I would eat all meals if I could.

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Nick Antosca is a novelist and screenwriter.  His short story collection, The Girlfriend Game, is out now, and he also writes for JJ Abrams and Alfonso Cuarón's new show Believe, coming to NBC next March.

Andrew F Sullivan's Would You Rather

Bored with the same old fashioned author interviews you see all around the blogosphere? Well, TNBBC's newest series is a fun, new, literary spin on the ole Would You Rather game. Get to know the authors we love to read in ways no other interviewer has. I've asked them to pick sides against the same 20 odd bookish scenarios. And just to spice it up a bit, each author gets to ask their own Would You Rather question to the author who appears after them....

Andrew F Sullivan's 

Would You Rather

Would you rather write an entire book with your feet or with your tongue?

Feet. I want that dexterity. I want to be able to talk to myself while I write and read the dialogue out loud. My feet will only grow stronger and wiser through writing. I will run forever and no one will be able to catch me when climb a tree using all four limbs.

Would you rather have one giant bestseller or a long string of moderate sellers?

A long string of moderate sellers. A huge back catalogue for readers to discover like busted artifacts buried in the sand. Stories that keep popping up in different places, old libraries, abandoned attics. A name more like a whisper than a shout, a reminder someone never took off the fridge. Something that creeps along the periphery until you realize it’s always been there, lurking, waiting, watching. Something you can’t swallow in one sitting.

Would you rather be a well known author now or be considered a literary genius after you’re dead?

When we die, we die. We are worms, we are loam, we are earth, we are not. But we do it for ourselves, we do it because we have to do it, because if we don’t, we feel sick. Give me the glory when I’m long dead and gone so it does not go to my already inflated head.

Would you rather write a book without using conjunctions or have every sentence of your book begin with one?

Without conjunctions. Set them all aflame. Sweep the ashes. Decorate your bedroom.

Would you rather have every word of your favorite novel tattooed on your skin or always playing as an audio in the background for the rest of your life?

Tattooed. I like music too much—I need a soundtrack that varies, that keeps me on my toes. I want to see how the words change over time, how the ink bends with age, obscuring old meanings to inflate others with a wrinkle or a scar. Blood blisters and calluses might develop to create something no one intended, to expose some truth momentarily before they burst or slough away. The skin will change the story.

Would you rather write a book you truly believe in and have no one read it or write a crappy book that comprises everything you believe in and have it become an overnight success?

The one book I believe in and then another one after that and another one after that. I have had enough day jobs that compromised me, showed me what I was worth to the supervisor, the boss, the pace of the line. Keep your fingers out of the gears. The story remains yours, remains a bond with the reader. You own its end. Writing is work or labour, whatever you want to call it. But it’s yours. Just remember your hands are not clean. They never were in the first place.

Would you rather write a plot twist you hated or write a character you hated?

Character all the way—you love to loathe, to explore the people who despise you and find little pieces of yourself embedded in their skulls, little mirrors to remind you most monsters look like us, just with harsher lighting. The plot twist will come from that character if it has to—they leak pus all over the place.

Would you rather use your skin as paper or your blood as ink?

Blood. I need to be practical. If I pace myself, it’s an endless supply. You will smell my work from miles away and stray dogs will linger at my door until I die.

Would you rather become a character in your novel or have your characters escape the page and reenact the novel in real life?

Let them escape. Bar the windows. Lock the doors. Call the police and ask to remain anonymous. Maybe start writing about dinosaurs, demonic knights and the first woman who ever walked the earth, 50 feet tall. Maybe even start writing Pokémon fan fiction. Wait and see what happens. Plan to be the very best.

Would you rather write without using punctuation and capitalization or without using words that contained the letter E?

Everyone needs the letter E. i will suffer without the unnecessary accoutrement writing each sentence like a text at two am because that s when all the meaning happens anyway

Would you rather have schools teach your book or ban your book?

Ban it. Steal it from your libraries. Tell your kids it is dangerous to read, dangerous to write, dangerous to consume someone else’s words. And it is. And it should be.

Would you rather be forced to listen to Ayn Rand bloviate for an hour or be hit on by an angry Dylan Thomas?

The punch. Always the punch. Ayn Rand is an old altar with a lot of stale offerings.

Would you rather be reduced to speaking only in haiku or be capable of only writing in haiku?

Speaking in haiku, counting syllables like breathing or a pulse. I can always write out notes for longer requests. I can always cut out my voice box if things get out of hand.

Would you rather be stuck on an island with only the 50 Shades Series or a series in a language you couldn’t read?

A series in a language I can’t read, just so I can pass the time. 50 Shades is already a pretty convenient whipping boy. I’d like to be rescued speaking a new language, uncovering each sentence as I waited for a boat or death or another seagull to get snared in one of my traps made from coconuts and human hair. Japanese or Portuguese, please. Something my throat might struggle to say out loud.

Would you rather critics rip your book apart publically or never talk about it at all?

Tear it up on a live news stream, let everyone know. At least you provoked a reaction, something visceral in the gut. If they hate you that much, they won’t forget you. They’ll let you fester, scratch at you, pluck away new scabs from the wounds. When you die, they’ll build a statue for you. Everyone likes their heroes better when they’re dead.

Would you rather have everything you think automatically appear on your Twitter feed or have a voice in your head narrate your every move?

Keep it all in my head. Narrate each embarrassment, each faltering conversation, each bathroom disaster. Just don’t let the world know what I am thinking at a reading when the poet has gone on for twenty minutes and the wine has run out.

Would you rather give up your computer or pens and paper?

For practicality, I would have to give up the computer. Just in case the world falls down into flame and ash and there are no more sockets for our devices to suckle from anymore. I would, however, also like to give up any and all essays about why writing with pen and paper is so great, how it helps you get in touch with some inner creative self. I have seen enough dead horses beaten raw in my life.

Would you rather write an entire novel standing on your tippy-toes or laying down flat on your back?

Tip toes, stretch out those legs, make it all ache. Put the hurt on the page each day. Throw suffering at the work until its finished and then go see a doctor for some tendon surgery.

Would you rather read naked in front of a packed room or have no one show up to your reading?

Naked and aroused in full view of the packed house. Let them see it all since they’ve come to see you spill some of yourself on the floor anyway. Leave some blood on the floor. Don’t offer to clean it up.

Would you rather read a book that is written poorly but has an excellent story, or read one with weak content but is written well? 

Written poorly with an excellent story. I can’t stare at a plastic bag in the wind all day. Eventually I am going to fall asleep, no matter how the wind moves it. Eventually I am going to die and I won’t remember the structure of your sentence or the syntax. I will remember the king died though—and I will remember the king died from his sorrow.

And here's his answer to David Maine's question from last week:

Would you rather have your novel turned into a comic book aimed at 12-year-olds, or turned into a Starz “adults only” miniseries with lots of gratuitous nudity and violence?

12 year olds because they will get something out of it. They will learn to tell their own stories. They are the ones who still have imaginations without boundaries and they are more likely to forgive you if the adaptation goes astray. 12 year olds will remember you long after Starz ends up as a hologram projection inside the eyes of their parents. They will tear down everything you built, but use all the pieces you left behind.  

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Check back next week to see what Lavinia Ludlow would rather

and see her answer to Andrew's question:

Would you rather write YA books or experimental poetry 

for the rest of your life? 

   

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Andrew F Sullivan is from Oshawa, ON. His stories have appeared in places likes Joyland, The New Quarterly, Grain, and EVENT. Sullivan is the author of All We Want is Everything (ARP Books, 2013). He edits fiction for The Puritan and sprouts novels like limbs. Sullivan no longer works in a warehouse.

Where Writers Write: D. Foy

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is D. Foy. 

A denizen of Brooklyn by way of Oakland, D. Foy has had work published in Bomb, Frequencies, Post Road, The Literary Review, and The Georgia Review, among others, and included in the books Laundromat and Forty Stories: New Writing from Harper Perennial. His novel, Made to Break, is forthcoming March 2014 from Two Dollar Radio.

Where D. Foy Writes

For a writer living in Brooklyn, or anywhere in NYC, for that matter, I feel pretty darned lucky to have my little study, what some friends who’ve seen it call my “man cave” (though I have to say I don’t care much for that expression). Spaces like this for schlubs like me aren’t typically available, and when they are, here anyway, the premium runs absurdly high. When I moved into this apartment with Jeanine about six years back, she’d already lived here for eight or so years and was using the walk-in closet off the bedroom not so much as an office as a sort of catch-all for stuff that didn’t belong elsewhere. I can write wherever I need to write, as long as the work’s on the small side. But to get into a big project, I really do need a space that’s both stable and my own, with a desk and good light and a place for the many books and notes and other reference materials I invariably gather about me. This is as ritualistic as I get, I think. I’ve done serious work away from my pad, on residencies and abroad, for instance, but wherever I am, I won’t attempt the nitty-gritty until I’ve first arranged the room I work in to suit me, even if that requires a militant, wholesale shuffling of everything in it. The space, too, has got to have a window. Without one, it’s for all intents and purposes useless. If there’s a couch or side table or wardrobe or what-have-you blocking the window, that is, I’ll do whatever it takes to open space for my desk. All of this is a long way of saying I’d soon appropriated Jeanine’s office (she’s a choreographer who, unlike her OCD hubby, can work on her computer most anywhere) with only a tease of resistance from her and in short order set it up to please me.

            And I have to say I’m pleased. My desk is the centerpiece and focal point of the space, of course. Not too long after I’d moved to NYC, in 2004, I found an old door on a farm upstate and brought it home knowing I wanted to build a desk around it. Fortunately, my friend, the painter James T. Greco (whose work is in my opinion off the freaking chart), is also a wizard with all things material. I gave him the door and a few days later entered his studio to this gorgeous piece of furniture, at once immovable as a mountain and, with a ratchet and socket, collapsible as any piece of junk from Ikea. That’s the genius of the thing. James had taken the legs from an antique he’d found on the street and implanted a monster bolt into the top of each. Then he built a frame into which I could connect the legs from the bottom and drop the door from the top, hiding the mechanics beneath it. All told, the piece comprises six parts I can take anywhere I like. The door, by the way, James covered with layers of clear resin, which has assumed a patina I think awful spanky and which, as if it needed improvement, enhances the old-timey quality of the door as I found it, painted with at least three different colors across the years, all of them now in various stages of corrosion.

To the left of my machine I’ve got a small painting, also by James (it’s called “Yamamoto,” after the great Yamamoto Tsunetomo, the seventeenth-and-eighteenth century samurai-turned-monk who wrote Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai).

To the right, I’ve got a couple mini cabinets, metal and plastic from the late ’50s, tossed to the street from some old guy’s shop here in my hood of Carroll Gardens and which I use for keys and locks and rubber bands and paper clips and other bureaucratic miscellany. On them is a hunting knife, handmade for my father-in-law who passed away last year (his name’s etched on the blade with acid), a wax figurine from the ’70s by an obscure artist named Edward Y. W. Li, and, from my brother, a very strange bronze statuette, circa 1930, that’s fascinated me all these years for reasons I’ve never tried to say, of a decrepit or deformed minotaur clutching a pair of walking sticks. Between the statuette and figurine, there’s an Indian-head penny from 1906.

Above this stuff Jeanine and I hung some family photos (this is the only place in the apartment family pix see light), along with some cards she’s given me, each of them featuring a pair of different dogs having the kind of fun only dogs seem able to have.

To the right is a bureau, also off the street (a requirement for the home of any New Yorker, I’ve been told), held down with my printer and paper and adorned with Jeanine’s nickname in old tin signage letters I copped from an ephemera boutique in Andes, up in the Catskills. The paperweight is a Buddha statuette, also from my brother, of amber jade.

Above it all are three shelves running the length of the room and loaded down with my collection of keepsakes, notes, pictures, letters, and cards from the significant people and events in my life, which, like a lot of writers, I rely on in a big way when it’s time to conjure up moments long-gone. This stuff has been especially useful for the extended memoir project that’s engaged me for the last few years.

Behind me, on one side, I’ve got bookshelves with more of the same, plus my many dictionaries and reference books, and, on the other side, a wall of postcards and art that speak to me. The “White Owl” piece is from the top of the box of cigars my old man passed around when I was born.

            The biggest and most recent change in my routine has been ergonomic. What with my personal projects and freelance work, I’ve spent so much time in this little room, sometimes fourteen and sixteen hours a day in my chair for weeks on end, that my back can no longer handle the load. The solution, so far at least, has been simply to stand before my work rather than sit. After a considerable search across the internets, I discovered a collapsible platform for my key- and track pads, then fashioned a hoodoo of encyclopedias and art books to raise my monitor.

It’s taken some getting used-to, this standing, but now I have the advantage of seeing everything through my window, including the many traffic jams on the busy but narrow street below, made when some knucklehead double parks and blocks the way for busses and trucks. A time or two out of the many that drivers have forgotten the brownstones to either side are loaded with actual people, I’ve gone fairly native, Jackie Gleason style, and yelled out the window for them shut it already. If you haven’t ever done this, I recommend it, for both the catharsis and the experience itself. It’s the next best thing to shouting at a player in the ballpark that he’s a no good bum.

Drew Reviews: There Are Little Kingdoms

There Are Little Kingdoms by Kevin Barry
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended
Pages: 160
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Released: Sept 2013

Guest review by Drew Broussard 

The Short Version: Kevin Barry's debut collection of short stories - featuring more tales of strange folk, drinking folk, family folk, and that uniquely Irish magic. 

The Review: It's always strange to step back through an author's canon in reverse.  It is only natural that an author's style will mature - for better or for worse, I'll admit.  Chuck Palahniuk's later novels are, we all know, not as good as his earlier ones - but authors like Kevin Barry and Karen Russell have clearly grown and developed from practicing their art.  I loved City of Bohane (like, loved) and Dark Lies the Island is rather exceptional as well - so then is it any surprise that I enjoyed these tales, too?

And is it any surprise that I found them, comparatively, a little lacking?  No.  I shouldn't think either of these points would come as a shock, not really.  For while the signs of Mr. Barry's greatness are here, there are also clear examples of the writer just beginning to hone his blade.  

Don't get me wrong, there are stories that pack as much punch as those of Mr. Barry's more recent collection.  "Breakfast Wine" is a perfect tale and well-told.  The stylistic adventure of "Party at Helen's" shows daring and uncommon raw talent.  And "Atlantic City" captures the rawness of life in a way that foreshadows the young men & women of Bohane.   There's even a bit of the hint of the strange here - "Last Days of the Buffalo", I think it is, features a main character who clearly has a bit of the gift to him, in an unsettling way.  Same with the crazy old lady in "The Wintersongs".  We see the elements of storytelling that are both as-old-as-time and so refreshingly new in Barry's writing coming into bloom here. 

But, for the first time, there are a few dud moments.  The last few stories feel somewhat 'eh' and even some of the stronger concepts ("Burn the Bad Lamp", for example, which hilariously features a genie) don't quite stick the landing.  There's a sense of trying things here.  A sense of seeing what'll work and what won't - and this an important and necessary step in an author's development, for sure.  The aforementioned stylistic innovation of "Party at Helen's" succeeds - we jump from one character's POV to another's seamlessly, several times over - and to my mind, it gives the author the right to try something else... like, say creating a whole new dialect of the English language.  

Mostly, it's hard not to enjoy these stories - even the weaker ones.  Barry just has a way with words, a simple magic that feels nonetheless like magic.  Here's a simple example, from the beginning of "Breakfast Wine": 
"They say it takes just three alcoholics to keep a small bar running in a country town and while myself and the cousin, Thomas, were doing what we could, we were a man shy, and these were difficult days for Mr. Kelliher, licensee of The North Star, Pearse Street."

It's colloquial, it's comfortable - it sounds like that Irish guy at the bar 'round the corner who tells such great stories.  It sounds like your friend who always has the deep yet sassy comment.  It sounds like a smile on a summer evening.  

Rating: 4 out of 5.  The weaker stories here make me want to revise my opinion of Dark Lies the Island a little bit higher - there are a few tales here that do, for whatever reason, fall a bit short of the mark.  But that doesn't make this a bad collection.  Far from it; as a debut, it pretty much crushes it and even looking at it retrospectively, you can see the talent that comes to the fore in Barry's more recent works.  I've said this twice now and I'll say it at least once more before the year is out - but you need to read Kevin Barry.  He's an uncommon talent, all the more uncommon for how simple and life-like his insights can be.

I should also note that I read this book with a 'tarot card' (from Mike Daisey's show at The Public right now) as a bookmark - and I couldn't have asked for a more fitting placeholder.  

Drew Broussard reads, a lot. When not doing that, he's writing stories or playing music or acting or producing or coming up with other ways to make trouble.  He also has a day job at The Public Theater in New York City.

Indie Spotlight: Lisa Rosen

I'm no different from every other book blogger on the block. I get pitched requests for reviews daily. More books than I could dream of reading in this lifetime. Hell, more than I could possibly even read in the next one! 

Sometimes the books are a complete mismatch, and other times they are right up my alley. Sometimes the timing is just horribly wrong, and other times the timing is perfect. 

Either way, when I know I can't get to an author's book in a reasonable amount of time, or if I decide to turn it down because it just isn't right for me, I still want to help spread the word. Who knows, maybe the book is perfect for one of you?! 

That was the original idea behind this spotlight series. To draw your attention towards the small press and self published authors who have a book to pitch, a story to tell, and a little insight to share. 

Today's spotlight shines on Lisa Rosen, author of the self published novel Motherline. Motherline is a story about those days in a family--weddings, funerals, births--when everyone comes together, you know those days, where all that history and garbage begins to fester and boil and starts to explode?

Today, Lisa shares a short essay on why she writes:

Why I Write

“I’m not sure how we’ll sell it.” “Sorry, it’s not right for our list.” “Your writing is beautiful, but it’s just not commercial enough.”


I got tired of hearing the refrain, and that’s how I wound up self-publishing. It’s also how I developed a raging chocolate problem—as far as self-medication goes, it’s probably a relatively harmless addiction.
So it’s not surprising that last weekend I dropped by the local chocolate shop to get a fix—sometimes a little square of dark-chocolate-salted-honey-caramel is the only thing standing between me and total shrewishness—and got to chatting with Starr, the owner. Starr knows vaguely who I am, mainly because I always drag her away from her actual work to yak about how much I love chocolate (a fact which makes me exactly like everyone else in the chocolate shop).

Anyway, Starr asked what I had been up to. I mentioned that my novel, Motherline, had come out the weekend before. She knew, but had forgotten, so I gave her my card. The cover art piqued her curiosity, so I gave her the two-sentence summary.

Now, Starr is the mother of a toddler, so mothers and babies and stories of birth and death and family baggage get her attention (she’s not terribly unusual in that respect). And I knew this—I fully acknowledge that I’m targeting that audience particularly. But I was unprepared for her response. By the time I left the chocolate shop, I’d heard her whole birth story—about her mother crawling into the bed and holding her during the contractions, about the panic when they realized the baby was stuck, the emergency C-section, the grief and fear and the life-altering joy of her baby’s birth.   She teared up a little telling me, and we hugged when I left.

Is Motherline commercial enough? Honestly, I don’t know—only time (and my best marketing efforts) will tell. But what I do know is that Starr’s feedback—before she’d even read the novel—is all the encouragement I need. I’ll take Starr’s hugs, or the emails and tweets and Facebook messages I’ve gotten from early readers. When my novel strikes an emotional chord in a reader, and she reaches out to tell how meaningful it is, I think maybe this is a new definition of commercial that I can live with.

Bio:

Lisa Rosen is currently a writer and a stay-at-home mom with a bad case of wanderlust.  As soon as their teenagers leave the nest, she and her husband intend to take their laptops on the road full-time.  In the interim, she lives and writes in North Carolina, where she earned a PhD in literature from the University of North Carolina.