Drew Reviews: Hill William

HILL WILLIAM by Scott McClanahan 
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended
224 Pages

Publisher: Tyrant Books 2013

Guest review by Drew Broussard 

The Short Version: Scott, in the present, is having some trouble - something's off, in his head.  He reflects back on his childhood - a typically misspent youth - and wonders if perhaps something that happened back then, in the hills of West Virginian Appalachia, something might've happened to mess him up in the present.  These reflections sort of take over, showing the reader just how Scott got to the place he is now. 

The Review: Part of the reason I look forward to the Tournament of Books every year is that, inevitably, I will discover an author I might've otherwise never heard about - or at least never gotten around to.  Last year, to my enduring entertainment (and hope that we will one day become actual friends), it was Miles Klee and his excellent debut novel Ivyland.  This year, I think it's Scott McClanahan's Hill William that takes the "never would've gotten around to this otherwise" prize - and I'm damned glad I made the time.

Firstly, let's note the book itself.  It's a tiny little thing, clocking in at a smidge over 200 pages but the pages are short and stout - the book fits into a jacket pocket, but not a back pocket.  It stands out on a shelf almost purely because of its odd size.
Then you pick it up - and what should, by all rights, be some kind of crazy wild writing (judging from the vibe of the Goodreads & critical reviews out there) ends up being a really wonderful evocation of a well-spent/misspent youth.  And the lasting effects that such a youth can have on a 'grownup'.

I won't deny that there's some truly weird stuff in this book.  Awkward sexual encounters, mostly - kids experimenting, doing things that undoubtedly seem strange or horrible to the grown-up reader but that probably didn't seem like much else other than exploration as a kid.  And for the first time I can think of, at least in recent memory, McClanahan pulls off the narrative 'voice' of this kind of kid - by not seeming at all like he's trying to write like a kid.  The book doesn't evoke childhood so much as it evokes what we remember childhood to be - or at least what I remember it to be, even though my suburban PA childhood was pretty far removed from the West Virginian childhood of our main character (Scott, whose might also possibly be Scott McClanahan - it's unclear and I'm okay with that (although, whoa, two books in a row for ToB X with versions-of-author-as-narrator)).  McClanahan introduces, in an early chapter, an image of the mountains surrounding Rainelle, WV - and the image that leaps into your mind is one of mountains and trees and wilderness and the sun lighting up the sky as it sets and it's taking forever to set and the kids are all out playing some game while the parents are - oh, who the hell knows what the parents are doing, who cares?  Because we kids are out running around until it gets too dark to see.  
And it's a time before concerns over locking doors, it's a time before concerns over kids doing stupid things - because kids always do stupid things and always have done stupid things, why the sudden increase in helicopter-parenting? - and while that's a good thing, I think, it's also... that lack of complication can be a bad thing, too.  McClanahan almost lets you forget that the novel opened up with a nearly-thirty Scott in a fight with his wife where he punched himself in the face a few times.  It's a jarring opening and yet he lulls you into this security of memory (Tennessee Williams, eat your heart out) before bringing us full-circle to the present and seeing Scott try to understand the man he has become based on the things that happened to him as a kid.  

The writing itself is compact but clear as crystal and completely comprehensible.  This is not the sort of novel that (nor, as it would seem, is McClanahan the sort of writer who) needs to try and deploy linguistic overachievement in order to "tell the story" - instead, McClanahan just speaks plainly and humanly and, what do you know, his form of tough gritty writing ends up reading like a refreshing glass of spring water.  ...That was a terrible metaphor but hopefully, if you get a chance to even skim a few pages of this book, you'll see what I mean.  There's something that cuts right to the heart of American adolescence in this book - but adolescence in a time now past, a time before computers and iPhones and the ennui of the modern teen.  A scene where Scott debuts as quarterback plays out like the sort of late summer memory I have from watching my neighbor debut as QB when he was maybe 15 and I was maybe 7 or 8.  Today, that pass Scott threw would've been up on YouTube in moments - not because it was exceptional necessarily but because that's how these things happen now.  McClanahan is writing about a time that I can still associate with, in terms of my childhood.  I wonder if future generations, or even people only a few years younger than me, will understand this book in the same way as I did - or if they'll approach it from a more clinical, less elemental standpoint.

Rating: 4 out of 5.  I have to say, I really didn't like the ending.  The twist on adolescent America is great but once the story comes back to the present - especially once present-Scott goes back to Rainelle - it sort of sputtered to the finish line for me.  The discomfort I could brush aside when seeing the kids doing stupid things was now actually very real when nearly-30-year-old Scott did a stupid thing.  But I see why McClanahan did it and, hey, that's the story he means to tell.  But for me, the reason the book is worth reading is that sense of captured old-school summers.  The simplicity of growing up, before everything happened.  This book made me want to go run through a field or play hide-and-seek under the streetlights on a quiet suburban road.  So, thanks, Scott. 

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.

The Audio Series: Scott Navicky's HUMBOLDT

Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.


Today, CCLaP author Scott Navicky reads from his debut novel Humboldt, or The Power of Positive Thinking. Scott has an Honors Master’s Degree in art history with a focus on photography theory from the University of Auckland. He has lived in New York City, Auckland, Boston, Brooklyn, and Portland, Maine. He currently lives in Columbus, Ohio. 

Click the soundcloud link below to experience Humboldt, or The Power of Positive Thinking read by Scott Navicky:





The word on Humboldt:

The Iraq War? The housing market collapse? College football's concussion crisis? How can anyone be expected to understand such complexities, especially a "horticulturally dyslexic" farmboy with an eighth-grade education and a penchant for perpetually misunderstanding, misreading, and misinterpreting the world? Born on a farm in Ohio, Humboldt is content to spend his life "outside amongst the oxygen and unhurried hydrocarbons." But when his father's farm is threatened with foreclosure, Humboldt is forced to save it by enrolling in college, leading him on an epic absurdist adventure through Washington politics, New York performance art, Boston blue-bloods, post-Katrina New Orleans, multiple murders, and holy resurrections. Mixing the speed and structure of Voltaire's Candide with a heavy dose of Joycean wordplay, and a love of literary acrobatics worthy of David Foster Wallace, Scott Navicky's debut novel assails some of modern America's most cherished beliefs and institutions with the battle cry: "Ticklez l'infame!"
*lifted with love from goodreads


If Humboldt sounds like the kind of thing you'd like to review, we've got digital ARC's available in Mobi, ePub, and PDF. Just comment here with your email address and I'll be happy to send one your way!

A Deep and Gorgeous Book Trailer for our Discussion

This is really cool. 

The first ever TNBBC Author/Reader Discussion book trailer! Created by none other than author Hosho McCreesh himself! Check it out, then come join our discussion in the TNBBC thread on Goodreads in February. We look forward to seeing you there!

Madeleine Reviews: Mastodon Farm

Read: 21 October 2013

4 stars - Strongly recommended, especially to those seeking a quick read that leaves a lasting impression
126 pages
Publisher: Atlatl Press
Released: 18 September 2012


By guest reviewer Madeleine Maccar

Sometimes a book so thoroughly defies its reader's expectations, is such a departure from more conventional fare and is still utterly enjoyable that it's a difficult entity to write about. Sometimes it takes a person three months to find the words to describe such a uniquely entertaining read when a few paragraphs of casually punctuated chuckles would be the most appropriate reaction. And sometimes, you just have to exclaim that a book was a damn good way to spend an hour or so and not give three flying figs that many, many people would disagree. Because those sounding alarms of dissent probably did not give this odd little book the chance it deserves..

Mastodon Farm, much in the tradition of American Psycho and The Stranger before it, demands to be read as an allegory almost from its first word. Otherwise, it's no easy task trying to impose much sense on its page-long lists, restlessly leaping gambols both across state lines and from celebrity crib to celebrity crib, name- and brand-dropping like there's an endorsement deal on the line, and endless parade of circuitous conversations.

A novella told in the second person, Mastodon Farm follows you with a stalker-like attention to details as you deal with broken African masks at James Franco's house (yes, really), measure the passage of time in songs listened to and movies watched, drive to Dean Cain's apartment only to stare at his bookshelves, lie to your parents about your imaginary relationships and just wish for things to return to normal. 

And what is this normalcy for which you're striving, exactly? Good question. Because you seem to be taking your celebrity-populated, party-hopping, crashed-your-Ferrari-so-you'll-just-buy-a-Bentley-rather-than-wait-for-the-shop-to-fix-it existence in admirably nonchalant (though some might say suspiciously numb) stride. Scenes and chapters flicker by as if someone is impatiently flipping through the hundreds of channels comprising the made-for-TV movie of your life. One minute you're hopping on the company jet and heading to Libson; the next, you're casually doing drugs with Kirsten Dunst and talking about living on the moon before she gets up to make chili for you and James Franco (to whom you seem rather close, as he will later accompany you to, among other things, your grandmother's funeral--your grandmother's death, of course, will occupy not even two pages of your attention and absolutely no further mention).

The adage about what's discussed among simple minds (people), average minds (events) and great minds (ideas) is turned on its head here, thanks to the aforementioned metaphorical approach to this fidgety, quirky book. Because the things mostly addressed herein are people more famous than you--wealthy as you apparently are--and the things they either consume for pleasure or create for a living, a superficial read would reduce Mastodon Farm (which derives its name, presumably, from that of a nonexistent apocalyptic film rather than the similarly titled Cake song) to roll-call of digestible entertainments rather than appreciate it for what it symbolizes.

Applying a dollop of whatever cynicism the reader can bring to the experience of Mastodon Farm greatly adds to the enjoyment one can derive from it--not for the mean-spirited sake of belittling the topics at hand but rather to scratch through the story’s opaquely artificial sheen of mindless, disposable superficiality coating to arrive at its true intent. We live in a time of easy digestion, fleeting obsessions and diminishing attention while clinging to the life raft of escapism, and this novella highlights the maddening vapidity of it all by training a hyper-focused eye on something for a few pages before bouncing to something entirely new and offering it the same intense scrutiny of even the minutest details, over and over again. In a time where irony’s self-congratulatory mockery has become an easy default, it is a relief to witness Mastodon Farm’s more subtle (if not mildly schizophrenic) approach to social commentary via deceptive sincerity: It does not exist to poke fun at but rather to raise awareness that we are losing sight of what really matters with a dangerous haste.

Mastodon Farm is not for everyone but those who give it a chance will be rewarded handsomely for their efforts. You may walk away with a slight concussion and a temporary onset of low-grade anxiety, but such admission fees are a small price to pay for taking an eye-opening ride with this distinctly thought-provoking beast.

Madeleine Maccar is a proofreader by trade, a writer by nature and a bookworm by compulsion. You can read more of her reviews at her blog, ilikereadingandeating.blogspot.com, and also at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography's site, cclapcenter.com. She will more than happily show you photos of her dog.

Book Review: The Mercury Waltz

Read 11/6/13 - 11/20/13
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended  to readers who like their fiction wickedly classic and modern at the same time
393 pages
Publisher: Roadswell Editions
Released: Yesterday!

If there was ever a set of books in which I wished I could live within its pages, Kathe Koja's Under the Poppy and it's sequel The Mercury Waltz would be it! The intoxicatingly dark settings, the edgy and charismatic characters, they still call to me in the quiet moments, after all this time.

Where Under the Poppy found Istvan and Rupert spending most of their time in its namesake brothel and dealing with the unruly underground population, The Mercury Waltz finds our main men hiding out in the open in a new city where they continue to put their puppets to good use, this time producing and directing gruesome, gutsy plays in their cozy new theater. Still upsetting the masses - audience and competing theaters alike - Istvan and Rupert are never short of trouble. Hell, they seem to welcome it. And nothing good ever seems to come of it. But the boys will be boys, and happily so.

I loved slipping back into that familiar tension as Istvan and Rupert continue to pull and push at each other, their seductive, unhealthy, elusive lust for one another tested time and time again by new, outside love interests, which seemed to fan the flames of their love, rather than douse them out.

Reading The Mercury Waltz felt a bit like running into old friends on the street, dragging them to the nearest hole-in-the-wall bar, and throwing back a few as you catch each other up till the wee hours of the morning. Once they are standing right in front of you, you realize how much you've missed their face. And you just want to stretch out the moments you have together, to make it last as long as possible, because you know once you let them head out that door, once their feet hit the street, there is no guarantee of ever seeing them again. So you breathe in every... last... second.

Chris Dietzel's Guide to Books & Booze

Time to grab a book and get tipsy!

Back by popular demand, Books & Booze, originally a mini-series of sorts here on TNBBC challenges participating authors to make up their own drinks, name and all, or create a drink list for their characters and/or readers using drinks that already exist. 

Today, Chris Dietzel whips up some drinks to accompany his books. Think you can handle 'em?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love stories about the end of the world. But they almost always have the same storylines—a struggle for resources, a gang terrorizing the survivors. Why couldn’t the world end with a whisper instead of a bang? That idea was the driving force behind my first book, THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE WORLD END. The main character grows up knowing the human population will continue to shrink until there is no one left. He has all the food, water, and shelter he will ever need. All he can do is live out his final years, all the while knowing he is witnessing each facet of society disappear around him. I call that world The Great De-evolution, and my second book, A DIFFERENT ALCHEMY, continues the theme of a slow countdown to mankind’s extinction.

With a world that ends in a different way from other dystopian and apocalyptic books, it’s obvious that a new set of drinks should be created for anyone watching the world fade away!

Watch The World End – Was your favorite TV show cancelled? Just another aspect of daily life that’s ending! Might as well drink to it.

·         1 parts whiskey

·         2 parts almond milk

A Different Alchemy – Material possessions have no value. Instead of hoarding money, enjoy this golden drink!

·         White wine

·         Apple juice

·         A teaspoon of Goldschlager

The Great De-evolution – For the times when all your drinking buddies have vanished for the night.

·         Hot chocolate

·         A splash of rum

·         A splash of vodka

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BIO:

Chris graduated from Western Maryland College (McDaniel College).  He currently lives outside Washington D.C. His short stories have appeared in Temenos, Foliate Oak, and Down in the Dirt. His first novel, THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE WORLD END, was featured on the Science Fiction Spotlight radio show and was voted as one of GoodReads top 10 ‘Most Interesting Reads of 2013.’ His second book,  A DIFFERENT ALCHEMY, will be released on January 14^th.

More information can be found at: http://www.watchtheworldend.com and https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7048334.Chris_Dietzel

Book Review: Above All Men

Read 1/10/14 - 1/13/14
5 Stars - So Fucking Good / The Next Best Book
259 pages
Publisher: MG Press
Releases: March 2014


When I stop and think about all of the unread books I have stacked in my bookshelves and sitting in my Kindle (currently 674, according to my goodreads shelves), I start to panic at the thought of all the amazing books I'm missing out on and will continue to miss out on, even though they sit right here, right in this house, within a finger's reach.

When I finish my current book, as I reach for the next one, I hesitate a moment and worry that I am not making the right decision. I wonder "what if THIS is not the book I should be reading right now? What if one of the six hundred OTHER books turns out to be THE book and I end up reading THIS book instead?"

But there's really no way to know that, is there? Until you read the book you chose, and then read the next one, and read the one after that, and keep on reading until you finally end up reading one of THE ones. You'll know it's THE one because of the way it grabs you by the throat and slowly starts to choke all of the air out of you... before you reach the end of the first page.

I've only experienced this reaction to a book three other times, that I can remember. First, when I started reading Jose Saramago's Blindness. Then, when I picked up Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Most recently, when I listened to the audio version of Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son. Interestingly enough, in all three cases, those were the first books I'd read by those authors. (What's even more interesting? Though I've read and enjoyed many of their other titles, none surpassed the visceral reactions I had to those firsts.)

And now I can add Eric Shonkwiler's Above All Men to that list. A book that's been in my e-possession since back in October. Just sitting. Waiting. Silent, as I chose book after book after book over it. Concealing its awesomeness until it finally made its way up to the top of the TBR pile. And as I started to read, every book I'd read before it simply... faded away. I was immediately sucked in. I felt Eric's words like a million little sucker punches. And I knew I was reading THE one.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the intensity (I know that is not the right word, yet my words seem to have left me at the moment) I felt while reading Above All Men matched the intensity I had felt while reading Saramago, McCarthy, and Johnson. You can find elements of them within Shonkwiler's novel - a similar intentionally slow, meandering way of dragging the plot along, sticking to the specifics of the moment and letting the background work itself out without wasting much time or breath on it, keeping the reader on tenterhooks the entire time.

Bathroom breaks? You can hold it, or bring a bucket out there with you. Work in the morning? Who needs sleep, go ahead and read straight through the night. Kindle battery dying? Plug that puppy in and sit against the wall to continue reading as it charges. Because Above All Men is a book you will not find yourself capable of walking away from.

It's a bleak tale of the beginning of the end of the world. Of a family man who feels the weight of everyone's worries on his shoulders. Of this man who, regardless of consequence, is determined to make sure everyone is alright, even if it means hurting the ones he cares about most. It's a tale of survival as much as it is one of destruction. And Shonkwiler pulls it off effortlessly.

It's a killer read. It does all of the things you want it to and some of the things you don't. And that's what makes it so powerful. That's what makes it THE one.

The Audio Series: Rich Shapero

Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.


Today, Rich Shapero reads from the prologue of his book The Hope We Seek. Rich's provocative stories deliver readers to different worlds, where characters struggle with gods of their own devising. His two previous critically acclaimed projects, Too Far and Wild Animus, include book, music and visual art and are also available as multimedia tablet apps and ebooks. Too Far was celebrated as "mystical" and "utterly gorgeous," and Kirkus Reviews noted, "Shapero displays an impressive command of the unconscious." He lives with his wife and daughters in the Santa Cruz Mountains.


Rich and his publisher took our request for an audio byte to the next level, producing this lovely "audio video" with images from the book.. take a listen/look...

The word on The Hope We Seek:

The Hope We Seek fuses Rich Shapero's provocative novel with hypnotic, original music—featuring the vocals of Marissa Nadler—and the Visionary art of Donald Pass. The result is a riveting and fully immersive storytelling experience.

Zachary Knox, a sharpshooter known as "the Bull's-Eye Telepath," heads north in search of gold. On his way he meets Sephy, a magnetic woman on the trail of her lost brother. But on arrival, they find the mining camp is home to a cult. The mine boss, Trevillian, rules the camp like a despotic priest, and at the center of his faith is Hope, an elusive goddess for whom the miners toil, enduring increasingly perilous trials as they pursue her into the depths of the earth.

Zack determines to overthrow Trevillian, guided by Sephy's cryptic directions—until Hope appears and reveals the astonishing future she has in mind for him.

With epic force and seductive allegory, The Hope We Seek transports us to a netherworld of danger and allure—where arduous labor, sustained by unwavering belief, promises an unearthly reward. Rich Shapero once again holds a dark mirror to the passions that drive us, and the extremes to which we go to find meaning in our lives.

Book Review: Romance For Delinquents

Read 1/7/14 - 1/9/14
4 Stars - Strongly recommended to fans of shorties full of oddball, yet utterly familiar characters
212 Pages
Publisher: Fox Head Books
Releases: January 2014

Love is for suckers. Or at least it sometimes feels that way, don't it? We've all fallen for the new, naive love that births a billion butterflies in our chest. But what about when it becomes an angry and unreciprocated love, the kind that forces those fluttery little creatures down, one by one, into your stomach, where they churn and dissolve in your acidic emotions? Or how about the curious, borderline obsessive love that clouds our senses and causes us to act in strange and sometimes dangerous ways. Watch out that it doesn't turn into a jealous love, one that, as we begin to rage and howl, darkens those clouds and blinds our vision.

In Michael Wayne Hampton's Romance for Delinquents, we are judge, jury, and witness to love in all of its extremes: A photography student who double prints nudie photos at the film shop for his scrapbook; a series of couples who deal with infertility in their own, unique ways; the guy who reluctantly takes his old lady's kids to the local carnival and manages to pull it together long enough for them to collectively make a run for it when all hell breaks loose; an overweight, under-motivated amusement park employee who constructs a fantasy world around his soon-to-be-Russian-mail-order-bride; a middle aged man who falls in love, sight unseen, with a 15 year old high school radio jockey and grows balls big enough to start writing her fan letters....

These are people you may have already met. They stand in line around you in the grocery store. They smile at your kids from across the street. They rub elbows with you at the company party.

Hampton's characters are all poised on the edge of something... through his words we can feel their every breath, sense their muscles tense and release... and we watch and wait... for their final plunge...

Romance for Delinquents is a sharp, severe look at a moment in the lives of strangers - quick peeks and longer glimpses that hang with you for some time after the stories are over.

I plan on picking up some more of Hampton's work in the very near future, and I recommend you do the same.

Anyway, how can you turn away from its totally hip cover? That alone should be all the enticement you need!

Where Writers Write: Phillip Margulies

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 Phillip Margulies. 

He is the author of several books on science, politics, and history for young adults. He has won two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children. His novel Belle Cora just released yesterday. 

Where Philip Marguilies Writes

You should be able to write anywhere.  Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote in a Soviet prison camp, with frozen nostril hairs and numb fingertips.  He wrote in microscopic print on toilet paper. When toilet paper was scarce he memorized scenes and dialogue to set down if he was lucky enough to survive the gulag. I remind myself of that whenever I’m about to complain that my surroundings aren’t inspiring.  Students of the martial arts must learn to break boards with their bare hands; writers should train to write in totalitarian conditions, believing that, if they are discovered, each sentence will add a year to their sentence.  Besides, thinking of your writing as a crime against the state is a good antidote to the more usual condition of everyone’s complete, withering indifference.    

I don’t like writing in my apartment.  There are things begging to be cleaned and repaired; there’s a refrigerator full of food; it’s lonely. I create my masterpieces away from my home, washed over by wave on wave of strangers, or people I know slightly coming and going.  It feels like I’m writing on the back of an envelope in a quiet table for the least-favored guests at a wedding. I like to be the one still point, the person who overstays his welcome, at café’s, at diner counters, at Dunkin Donuts, on the subway, in the Hungarian Pastry Shop on Amsterdam Avenue, in train station waiting rooms. I feed off the energy of crowds, as rock stars and stand-up comics are said to, except that I need to be completely unnoticed by the crowd.  No place is so charged with this energy than the concourse of Penn Station. It’s breathtaking, apocalyptic; wherever I turn I glimpse people I’ll see only once, including the woman who would have been my wife if I had not met the wife I have.  The churning chaos brings me a strange peace and I can write.  

I used to commute to such places the way other people commute to their jobs.  But it became impractical to throw away so much time, so for the last several years I’ve gone to the Starbucks on 181^st Street about a block and a half from my house.  It was there that I wrote several nonfiction books, several unproduced plays, an unfinished novel about a detective with Asperger Syndrome, five unpublished short stories, assorted poems, songs, and eventually Belle Cora, which is not my first novel, but the first novel to be published after a half a century of writing amid swarms of people who did not care if ever wrote a word or had some other innocuous hobby instead.   

Every morning I rose at 6:00 a.m.  I made breakfast for my son, who is autistic.  I made sure that he was combed and dressed and his fly was zipped and he had his homework.  I would wait with him for the bus to a special education school in Queens and while we waited we would have a highly repetitive conversation about plot and continuity problems in the original Pokemon TV series; shallow spots in the ocean which he had identified by means of Google Earth as good places to build artificial islands; which cities are antipodes of other cities; the coincidentally exact relationship between the distribution of the five black keys on the piano and the distribution of the months of the year that have less than 31 days; or one of his other obsessions at the time.  Then I’d go up the street to Starbucks where I would give my freshest hours to Belle Cora before switching to The Devil on Trial, which my wife Maxine Rosaler and I were finishing then, or to Nuclear Nonproliferation and later America’s Role in the World, two full-length nonfiction books which I researched and wrote while writing the first draft of the first half of Belle Cora.

I’m staring at the screen, and typing, and according to friends who’ve seen me at it, usually my lips are moving because I’m muttering the words.   

Now and then, my diligence was observed by a young mother who would occasionally come in for her morning coffee, or would pass by the big plate glass window, on her way to catch a cab to her office at the William Morris Agency.  Whenever she passed Starbucks, she always seemed to see this bald-headed little Jewish man in his mid fifties feverishly typing and his lips moving.  The woman’s name was Dorian Karchmar.  Sometimes, on weekends, she would come in to read a fat double-spaced manuscript and mark it up in red pencil, and I would notice that.  We respected each other’s privacy and did not speak to each other.  However, one Saturday, Starbucks was very crowded and the only available seat happened to be at my table.  My young friend Maxim, the perpetual graduate student in philosophy, was there and he maintains that I would never have talked to her without his help, but I remember it differently.  Taking note of the manuscript and the red pencil, I asked if she was an editor.  She said, “I’m a literary agent.” 

“Really?”—coolly, my heart beating like its trying to escape from my ribcage.  “Fiction?”

“Yes.”

“I’m writing an historical novel.” 

“Tell me a little bit about it.” 

I told her that it was based very loosely, on a real life parlor house madam, that is on the keeper and owner of the fanciest brothel in San Francisco during the gold rush years, who became nationally famous for bribing the jury during the trial of a her gambler lover, Charles Cora.  Every book-length history of the city of San Francisco devotes a page or two to Belle because of her battle with the 1856 San Francisco Committee of Vigilance, which was formed partly for the purpose of lynching Charles Cora.   I told Dorian that the novel was written in first person as Belle’s memoir; that it took Belle from childhood to old age; that she was a strong character who had to be broken time and again to emerge stronger than before; and that I was sure it was the best thing I had ever done and I had felt inspired from the moment I began it.  She gave me her card and said, “Email me when you’ve finished it.”

And then we both went back to our work.  I was afraid Maxim was going to hit on her, which is what he does, and ruin everything. 

From time to time Dorian would come in for her coffee and sometimes we would exchange a few words, sometimes not.  “How is it going,” she asked me sometimes.  “Almost done,” I’d answer, or “a few more weeks,” feeling that I was under a deadline and I was being negligent, and once she told me, chillingly, “Take your time: you’ve got one shot.”  Dorian has a tough side. I decided to revise the thing another time before I sent it.   Finally the exchange of emails began.  Her assistant read the first 75 pages and asked for the rest. He read it and liked it, and Dorian began to read it, and started to email me while she was in its first stages.  She wrote, “This is the best literary debut I’ve seen in years. Tell me a little bit about yourself.” I wrote back suavely; “I’ve been a debutante for many years now,” and I gave her a brief, guarded, strictly business account of my career.  In what struck me as a rather Hannibal Lectorish way she asked me for to be more expansive—she wanted me to be personal; she wanted to hear the pain.  So I supplied it— my brother’s suicide, my son’s autism, my father’s dementia.  At the end I apologized:   “Before I was too reticent, and now I’ve said too much.” “No,” she replied, “You haven’t overshared.”

Maxine read each of these emails and before I sent them we discussed them to death.  We lay in bed talking about them as another couple might discuss the possible outcomes of walking into the boss’s office and demanding a raise. 

When she was about 150 pages into the manuscript Dorian began to report, “It’s beginning to drag, but I’m still reading.”  

When she was done we met at Starbucks.  I was very nervous.  The following topics were discussed: good things about my novel, problems with it, my willingness to cut and rewrite; kinds of books Dorian liked, dismal state of the publishing industry that year; fate of my earlier novels, my possible contractual obligations to my present agent.

“We’ll take it step by step,” said Dorian.  Under her direction I spent another six months revising the novel before she said, “We’re ready as we’ll ever be.”  Only then did she send me a contract, and it seemed just a matter of days afterward that an editor at every publishing house in New York was reading my novel.  

Last year, apparently under orders from corporate headquarters in Seattle, my local Starbucks was brutally remodeled, in an obvious effort to rid the place of marathon malingerers like myself.  The big wooden tables were replaced by tiny Italian-style marble tables with room only for one laptop.  Half the chairs were removed, replaced by a long cushioned ledge along the windows, which offer no back support.  The music became louder.  The selection became less intelligent.   The chairs which used to face every which way, encouraging conversation, all face the window and the street now, as if to say, “What are you doing cooped up in here?  Why don’t you go outside and play?” In what they probably think of as their masterstroke, it is always kept too cold.  That’s where they made their mistake, in my case.  They don’t know about my Alexander Solzhenitsyn fetish.  They don’t know what it does to me when you make it cold.  The colder it gets, the more I write.   

Drew Reviews: Foreign Gods, Inc

Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe 

3 Stars 

336 Pages

Publisher: Soho Press

Releases:  1/14/14

Guest review by Drew Broussard 

The Short Version: Ike, a Nigerian taxi driver in New York, has had a pretty poor string of luck.  Despite his good education and his immigration to the US, his life hasn't really been as successful as he'd hoped.  So he returns home intending to steal the war deity of his old tribe and sell it to a gallery in New York - but maybe the god himself has other plans.

The Review: The single thing that I think will stick with me about this book is the idea of the titular gallery. This is not to say that the book, overall, isn't memorable or well-written - it's both of those things and I'll get into details shortly - but rather that the idea of a shop down in Soho where the ridiculously rich purchase the actual physical totems and statues of gods to show off their wealth... it's inspired.  Mostly because it feels like it could probably actually exist.  Ndibe does a great job of making it seem real, right down to the New York magazine article so consistently referenced and consulted by our hero - and after having several discussions over the holiday with friends regarding, how shall we put it, "conspicuous consumption" (specifically regarding American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street), it felt timely.  Here's this cabbie, come to the land of opportunity in the hopes of realizing his dreams, watching people drop a cool half-million on a statue of a god they don't believe in while he can barely pay his bills or his rent.  The disparity is staggering.

But, interestingly enough, the disparity doesn't just exist in the States.  The most interesting part of the novel, the middle portion, takes place back in Ike's village in Nigeria - and things have changed since he's been gone.  On the one hand, there's a sense of history repeating itself - a Christian preacher has set up shop and set the villagers against one another, including Ike's mother against his uncle (who happens to be the priest of Ngene, the warrior deity of the village) - but on the other, there are cellphones and flatscreens and increasing inequality just like you'd find anywhere else in world.
Except - and this is what's most startling, perhaps - the locals don't quite understand it in the way that anyone who's spent time in the West understands it.  A scene, played somewhat comically but also quite truthfully, where Ike explains to youngsters the realities of playing basketball and how not everyone can be Michael Jordan... it's hard to summarize the scene because there's so much addressed so succinctly, but basically he (as an American, now) is attempting to explain the way the West actually works and these kids don't believe it.  Any of it.  They don't understand how someone can not achieve the dream and Ike, having now discovered exactly how, barely knows what to say.

As much as I think this social critique and commentary is important - I don't know that I've read something that has addressed modern Africa so well since Chinua Achebe - I feel like Ndibe wanted to write two different novels here.  The socio-cultural novel that exists is a good one, strong and well-constructed, but he adds this vaguely mystical/mythic element that never quite solidifies.  Early in the novel, Ike has a weird (and potentially god-induced) blackout and there are hints, throughout the novel, that Ngene may actually be real... but in the last forty or so pages, this mystical quality gets amplified in a way that (for me) undercuts the message of the rest of the book.  The idea of these gods being 'real' (in whatever sense of the term) is a strong one and worth a novel - just imagining this Soho-based shop, full of slumbering deities, makes me think of the American Gods universe - but so too is the idea that we (both the West and just humanity in general) have screwed ourselves up so badly that all the money in the world won't be able to buy our way out of this hole.  And when Ndibe turns his eye towards the latter, this is an exceptional novel - but when he splits the difference on the fantastical stuff, it lessens the impact.

Rating: 3 out of 5.  Ultimately, this book is something less than the sum of its parts - excellent though those parts may be.  Ndibe has a sharp eye for the realities on the ground both in Nigeria and in the States - but there are two different types of story here and neither of them fully commands the tale at hand.  As a result, I found myself just sort of shrugging the book away as I finished it, despite it having started off so strong.

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.

The Audio Series: Kim Triedman

Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.


Today, Kim Triedman reads an excerpt from The Other Room, which was a finalist for the 2008 James Jones First Novel Fellowship. 

Kim is both an award-winning poet and a novelist.  Her debut novel The Other Room was just released this past October, and Kim’s poetry has garnered numerous honors and awards.  Kim’s work has been widely published in anthologies and literary journals including Prairie Schooner, Salamander and WomenArts Quarterly.  Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Kim co-organized and co-chaired a collaborative poetry reading at Harvard University to benefit Partners in Health and the people of Haiti.  The reading was featured on NPR’s Here and Now with Robin Young and led to the publication of a Poets for Haiti anthology, which Kim developed and edited.

Click the soundcloud link below to experience The Other Room as read by author Kim Triedman:






The word on The Other Room:

Three years after the sudden, mysterious death of their 1-year-old daughter Lily, Josef Coleman, a high-strung New York surgeon, and his editor wife Claudia Macinnes remain mired in anguish and grief. Their mourning has left them reaching out for different things in different ways: Josef for a primal, physical connection that Claudia can no longer bear, and Claudia for a connection of the soul that Josef has never really known how to offer. To numb his pain and attempt to fill the gaping hole of loss, Josef turns to a young surgical nurse named Kiera; Claudia, meanwhile, is drawn into what seems like an unrequited fantasy about her psychotherapist, Stuart. The time she spends in his office--this sole "other room" where she can allow herself to project into the future--becomes a rare bright spot in her weeks.
*lifted with love from goodreads

Audio Review: 20th Century Ghosts

Listened Dec 2013 - January 2014
3 Stars - Recommended to fans of short stories that follow no real ebb or flow; Not as good as Heart Shaped Box or Horns, but some of these stories have real staying power
Audio CD
Publisher: Harper Audio

I toss and turn when it comes to short story collections. When executed right, they can be amazing. Breathtaking, even. Themed collections, or collections that contain loose, interconnecting threads have always been a favorite. I love making my way through them, experiencing the stories as they continue to grow and take on new meaning.

Other times, the stories in a collection can end up working against each other. They can be clunky and awkward, creating uncomfortable hiccups that distract, rather than attract. They can start to feel forced and wrong, or just plain jarring.

When I downloaded the 20th Century Ghosts audiobook, I just assumed all of the stories contained within it were going to be about... well, you know... ghosts. Or at least be ghost-like. I mean, the title alludes to as much, right? But if memory serves me right, since I listened to this in the car on my daily commute to and from work thus making it impossible to take notes or jot down story titles to refer back to, there was exactly one story that contained a ghost. The title story. The rest were a mish-mosh of strange, fantastical, creepy, and sometimes (don't throw things at me) boring stories that didn't seem to mesh very well together, no matter how hard they tried.

Quite a few of Hill's stories stuck with me long after I heard them - The title story about the ghost of the dead girl who haunted the theater; "Pop Art", about a kid, normal in every way except for the fact that he was born as an inflatable boy-shaped balloon; the fairy-tale-esque "My Father's Mask", about the strange family who travel to a cabin and don masks to "hide" for the weekend; and the most intriguing of all, "Voluntary Committal" the story about Morris and his cardboard tunnels system that "disappears" people.

These stories were like a beacon of light in the dark, and complimented each other very well, while the rest just simply fell flat and struggled to shine a light of their own. The Kakfa and Van Helsing's ripoffs; the kidnapped teenager in the basement who took calls from the dead; and the two straight up fiction stories "Better Than Home", about the autistic kid who's dad is a baseball coach ( which read so very much like King's "Blockade Billy") and "Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead", which is basically just about a dude playing an extra in a zombie flick who runs into an old crush of his on the set.

Now, to be clear, I am not critiquing Hill's writing in any way. I am a huge fan of his work, and really fell hard for Heart Shaped Box and Horns. What I am critiquing is the fact that his editor allowed those latter stories to be included with the former to create one uneven, and somewhat disappointing, collection. So listening to it, as it was read, felt a lot like being in a hurky-jerky roller coaster, one that speeds up too fast and breaks too hard, slamming your head back and forth as the car flies along the tracks.

The creepier stories sucked the life out of the ones that were much-less-so. How do I say this? It's like... taking two sisters who are both gorgeous in their own right. When looked upon separately, they are flawless. They steal your breath away and just gazing upon them makes you swoon. But when placed next to each other, one will always outshine the other. Her hair is shinier, her teeth are straighter, her eyes are more centered, her skin is less ashen, while the other starts to become more frumpy looking, less alluring, less... hot. You get what I'm saying?

The narrator, David LeDoux, did a pretty great job reading the stories. As I find with most male narrators, he had a habit of making the women sound like flamboyantly gay men or as though they were doped up on some completely personality-numbing drug, and he himself reads a bit nasally, but overall he kept my attention - especially on the parts where he dropped his voice to a near-whisper, making me lean in towards the car speakers.

And then there's that whole matter of the strangely inserted musical breaks. You would think the music would denote the end of a story, an audible clue that the listener should mentally prepare to say goodbye to the old characters and prepare for a whole new set of them, as we loaded up the next audio file, but that wasn't the case. Harper Audio, instead, seems to have inserted musical breaks within some of the stories. Was it because those story was longer than others? And that was Harper's way of separating part one from part two? Because I don't have a paper copy, there is no way for me to verify that. Needless to say, because of that, the music was distracting and awkward and sometimes quite confusing. Some stories didn't have any, some had it more than once...

Overall, there's a part of me that wishes that 20th Century Ghosts had been my first experience with Joe Hill, because as I listened to this audiobook, I felt as though I was hearing his writing regress, when in fact, as each new novel comes out, Joe Hill is actually honing and fine tuning his storytelling.

book review: Motherfucking Sharks

Read 12/31/13 - 1/1/14
4.5 Stars - As close to the next best book as a book can get / Strongly recommended to light bizarro fans and especially recommended to those who've never read bizarro before
Pgs: 124
Publisher: Lazy Fascist Press



Happy 2014 everyone!  Hope you rang in the new year like i did, curled up on the couch reading a great book.

I spent much of last night nose-deep in Brian Allen Carr's Motherfucking Sharks and I gotta tell you, it was a romping good time.  With a title like that... How can it NOT be?!

If I hadn't seen the Eraserhead Press 99 cent holiday Kindle sale this weekend, I might never have stumbled across it. Needless to say, when I saw this book,  I simply had to have it!

Motherfucking Sharks will have you thinking about thunderstorms differently, that's for sure. You won't be finding them all that sexy once Carr gets through with them.

His writing sucks you in and, like the shark's razor sharp teeth, digs deeply inside your flesh and leaves you gasping in panic and fear till the very end.

Do yourself a favor. If a tattooed stranger passes through town as a storm brews over the horizon,  pulling a cart full of harpoons, juggling an armful of skulls, warning you about motherfucking sharks,  don't ignore him. When it begins to rains, get ready.  And don't go pouncing through the pretty little puddles once the storm subsides.  Those Motherfucking sharks are forming inside the puddles.  And they're fucking hungry. And they'll eat you for dinner.

Those motherfucking sharks will tear you and your loved ones limb from limb and no amount of screaming or crying will save you. There is no place you can hide that they won't find you. They will keep tearing and munching and crunching through you until there is nothing left to munch and crunch through.

And then they will fade away to nothing and it will be like they never were. Except for your dead bodies, gutted and gory and strewn all over town.

Book Giveaway: A Deep and Gorgeous Thirst

Since July 2010, TNBBC has been bringing authors and readers together every month to get behind the book! This unique experience wouldn't be possible without the generous donations of the authors and publishers involved.

We're baaaack! 

And I'm really excited to to bring you this year's first

Author/Reader Discussion book!

We will be reading and discussing A Deep and Gorgeous Thirst

with author/poet Hosho McCreesh.

In order to stimulate discussion, Hosho and his publisher,

Artistically Declined Press are giving away 6 paper copies to US residents only
and 6 PDF's internationally! 

Here's the goodreads description to whet your appetite:

In the footsteps of Charles Bukowski comes Hosho McCreesh's magnum opus of drunk poetry. Mammoth in size and scope, A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst is unlike any of McCreesh's previous collections.

"A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst is for anyone who's ever had a drinking buddy—and who hasn't? A perfect elegy to the illusions and delusions of alcohol. A book to be tasted and savored.” —Mark SaFranko, author of Hating Olivia, and No Strings

This giveaway will run through January 8th. 

Winners will be announced here and via email on January 9th.

Here's how to enter:

1 - Leave a comment here or in the giveaway thread over at TNBBC on goodreads, stating why you'd like to receive a copy of the book. You MUST be a resident of the US to win a paper copy, so please state your preference and where you reside.

ONLY COMMENT ONCE. MULTIPLE COMMENTS DO NOT GAIN YOU ADDITIONAL CHANCES TO WIN.

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from February 16th through February 22nd. Hosho McCreesh has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for him. 

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before the discussion begins). 

 3 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred). 

GOOD LUCK!