Drew Reviews: Woke Up Lonely

Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel
2 Stars - Recommended Lightly
323 Pages
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Released: 2013 (paperback release this April)


Guest review by Drew Broussard 

The Short Version: Esme Haas hasn't been the best mother.  Or wife.  Or spy.  Her husband runs a cult, which may or may not have ties to North Korea, and she's trying to keep her daughter from finding out who her father actually is - and when a hostage-taking goes awry, it leads everybody to the breaking point.

The Review: I apologize if you've heard this one before, but once upon a time... I saw a production of The Threepenny Opera at my alma mater.  Despite being well-acted and featuring an interesting & engaging design, the show seemed impenetrable.  It was as though there was a scrim hung between the stage and the audience, effectively creating two separate rooms - the story played out in a self-contained fashion and before long the audience was distracted to the point of feeling as though they were, well, in a separate place from the folks onstage.  Not terribly conducive to a good theatrical experience.

And this novel feels the same way: as though there was an indefinite scrim between the action and myself.  I never found a way in and as a result, the whole thing felt like it was happening somewhere nearby instead of right here in my hands.  And I can't quite figure out why.  I think, at the end of the day, it has to do with stakes - I never really felt like there were any.

This is an odd thing to say about a novel whose central set-piece involves the prolonged siege of a cult-leader's house in Cincinnati.  Inherently, that's a high-stakes situation.  Similarly with the North Korea bits, the recruitment of the spies, etc etc.  It's all stuff that should zip off the page but instead I found myself just sort of dumbly clomping forward through the action.  We jump from moment to moment without ever getting anywhere remotely close to the characters and Thurlow & Esme especially both feel wholly made-up - so there's no sense of who we're meant to root for or side with or anything like that.  I'm all for the wacky - in fact, after this recent span of more serious fiction, I could use some wacky (which this novel does, objectively, deliver - more on that in a moment) - but not at the expense of believing in the characters' existence.  Zaphod Beeblebrox has two heads, the Librarian of the Unseen University is a wizard-turned-organutan, and James Bond should rightly be dead from either combat or drinking... but I never, when I'm reading their stories, believe anything other than their existence.  They are real characters in the context of the world that is laid out between the endpapers whereas not a single person in this novel (except, strangely, Martin the makeup-man/butler/assistant) felt remotely real.   There was no way for me to associate with any of them because they felt like constructs instead of characters.

I will give the book this: conceptually, there's some fun stuff happening.  An underground city of vice in Cincinnati?  Cool.  Too bad it only really appears in the last 75 pages and only glancingly at that - although that seems to be one of the big takeaways from the novel, which should really just serve to point out the problems with the rest of the book.  Similarly, Esme's whole super-spy thing is hilarious.  Her ridiculous costumes and disguises should play raucously... but because we don't care about her or believe in her, they fall flat.  Even the wacky plot she hatches to both spy on and defend Thurlow feels inherently interesting - but it just isn't in the execution.  

Rating: 2 out of 5.  Perhaps I just wasn't in the appropriate mood or mindset or something - but it feels like (as with that production of Threepenny) there is something interesting going on and I just can't get to it.  There's an artificiality to the book that undercuts the imagination that went into dreaming up the story.  Even Thurlow's cult, The Helix, is an interesting concept: we're all so lonely, let's join together to be less lonely - but it's almost there as an afterthought.  Based on the end of this novel, are we meant to understand it as the story of an odd couple?  Because it feints often enough to other things (cult novel, spy novel, slapstick comedy) that I just can't buy it at whatever face value it's trying to achieve.  I really hoped for so much more. [ed. note on Threepenny - I actually really like that musical and know that there's something interesting going on when I watch it.] 

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.

Book Review: Made to Break

Read 2/08/14 - 2/14/14
3 Stars - Recommended to those who remember what it was like to be wild and free and careless with other people's lives
217 Pages
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Releases: March 2014


The first thing you notice is the way in which D. Foy manipulates language. He pulls it taught then lets it go, snapping it to and fro, filling the pages with words in fits and bursts; tensing things up and slowing things down with his hypnotic prose.

The second thing you notice is that Andrew, our narrator, and the four friends he is planning on hanging with at a secluded cabin in Lake Tahoe, are all completely out of their gords. Drugs, drink, sex, and a storm-to-end-all-storms set the stage for this story, and the set up is sure to put you in mind of certain b-level thrillers.

After a quick trip out for ice ends in an unfortunate car accident, leaving one of group sick and dying, the storm floods the roads around them trapping them tight. As the fivesome kill the time by passing around the hooch and playing a round of Truth or Dare, their paranoia, past histories, and Dinky's quickly failing health threaten to turn what should have been a relaxing New Year's vacation into a full out waking nightmare.

Unlike most of your typical B-level thrillers, though, there are no monsters or madmen lurking in the shadows here, unless you consider the passerby Super and his dog Fortinbras mad. Instead, this group of 30-something burnouts work at each other relentlessly, while taking turns watching over their ill buddy, racing out into the pouring rain and wandering through the wooded trails seeking help, hoping for a break in the bad weather by which they might get him to a hospital.

If wearing out your welcome and driving your friends nutty is your bag, and if being careless with other people's lives provides you with hilarious fodder, this book was written for you.

To Woo or Not to Woo - Love in Literature : Part Deux

On Valentine's Day, back in 2012, I had some fun with the whole hallmark holiday gush-fest and recommended some left-of-center love stories to you guys. Interestingly enough, looking back on that post, I still agree with every single word I said and still stand behind every single book I pushed your way. If you didn't take me up on the offer to read those bad boys back then, there's no time like the present, yo!

It would seem that we're smack-dab in the middle of the month of love again, and this Valentine's Day, rather than tackle the holiday all on my own, I solicited a little help from my friends - and rockin' TNBBC guest reviewers - Madeleine Maccar, and Drew Broussard!

And so, on this, the chocolaty-ist, cheesiest holiday known to man, we give you Love in Literature, TNBBC style.


Madeleine Maccar's Literary Love Picks:

Whether you're looking for the perfect date or the perfect gift, Valentine's Day is a great day to be a book lover (though it's not like there's ever a bad day for bibliophilia). However you're spending your February 14--romancing your better half, showing some love for your platonic pals, curling up with a beloved novel and/or Mssrs. Ben & Jerry, or Facebook-stalking an old flame (no judging: everyone gets there sooner or later)--there is most assuredly a book just waiting to complement your mood. After scrutinizing my bookshelves and revisiting some dearly loved favorites, I've tried to come up with a Valentine's Day list that addresses all the best that love has to offer and all the worst damage it can leave in its wake, to suit whatever spirits the day inspires.

The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
So maybe Bulgakov's scathing indictment of stifling bureaucracy is not a love story in the classic sense but it is absolutely a classic with a love story safety nestled within its madcap goings-on. The titular characters are but two players comprising the novel's cast, but they are the beating heart of this satirical gem. The Master is a writer whose career and mind are both in shambles; Margarita is his devoted love who believes him dead for much of the novel's first half; together, they prove that the bond between two souls is one of the world's greatest redemptive powers and that any insufferable trial is made more bearable when one's beloved is the light at the end of the tunnel.

Hope, Glen Duncan
Oh, Glen Duncan. Oh, my beloved, criminally under-appreciated Glen Duncan. You may have taken recent notice of him thanks to his just-concluded Last Werewolf trilogy but, like most of my favorite things, his older stuff is just the absolute best of what's around. His first novel, Hope, offers a nascent peek into what this literary powerhouse has to offer: Characters rendered just as vividly and palpably as the emotional gamuts they run, intimidatingly gorgeous prose, and the brutal, beautiful realities of existence. It's a love letter to the self, to a lost other, to the vices in which one finds both comfort and ruin, to misery, and to the past. And it's perfect for anyone who needs to be assured that someone else--even someone fictional--completely understands what it's like to be torn apart by all that love.

Ex Libris, Anne Fadiman
Some people love books. Those of us who loveloveLOVE books can find pieces of ourselves in Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, a bona fide bibliophile's serenade that sings of how it feels to truly love literature. Fadiman's lifelong love affair with reading is familiar territory for any of us who have no problem admitting that we prefer the company of books to most people, and it's tough to keep from shouting "I know, I KNOW!" throughout her collection of essays. For those of us who consider a marriage properly consummated only when two people's libraries become a couple's one, who compulsively proofread everything from traffic signs to television captions, who so thoroughly annotate our books that lending them out is akin to handing over a diary, and who take pride in letting our homes look less like domiciles and more like used-book stores, Anne Fadiman has created the ultimate love-letter to literature that is sure to resonate with her fellow bookworms.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Sometimes you find the absolute right person at the absolute right time, but you're just as likely to stumble upon that perfect person at the perfectly wrong time; Love in the Time of Cholera is what happens when the latter is your cross to bear and must wait out the lovesickness until your soul mate finds her way back to you. It's also penned by the incomparable Gabo so it's chock-full of the kind of writing that is made to capture the ups and downs, thrills and agonies of love both fulfilled and long delayed. For those who need some hope that sometimes an unhappy ending isn't the last gasp of a love that's destined to work out, albeit maybe not until one's golden years, find solace in this tribute to letting go of what you love and accepting that it will come back if it's meant to be yours.

Wizard and Glass, Stephen King
Stephen King's Dark Tower multi-novelled series has a special place in my heart because it's one of the first bookish commonalities my husband and I shared, even if he had to coax me toward it the first summer we were dating. Wizard and Glass is more or less the series' halfway point that flashes back to the saga's catalysts, events that include the most convincingly intense love between two teenagers since Shakespeare was writing such fare. To this point, we have only snagged whispers of the series' main character, Roland Deschain, before he became the hardened gunslinger who has seen too much and lost even more; here, he is a lovesick boy thrust into adulthood too soon by forces beyond his control. If you think Stephen King can't write a moving love story (complete with the immediacy and heightened emotions that youth has a nasty way of bringing to the party), this is your chance to be proven bitterly wrong--though I wish I could say the same about misguidedly doubting King's aversion to happy endings.

100 Love Sonnets, Pablo Neruda
What's a Valentine's Day roundup without a poetry collection? Pablo Neruda's so good that his work loses not a drop of ardent poignancy in its translation to English, and it's guaranteed to melt even the hardest and most guarded of hearts. It is sensual in the purest sense, inspired by the kind of love that is as exuberant as it is comfortable, that knows it is safely protected in another's heart and flutters to life with the thrill of beginning and ending every day with the only person worthy of being a lifelong partner. This is stuff that turns a tongue tied with an embarrassment of loving riches to a fluent instrument of rapturous, undying adoration.

The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, Steven Sherrill
Please allow me to introduce what has been my go-to recommendation for more than a year now. The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break drops the mythical, monstrous Minotaur--now simply "M"--5,000 years and half a world away from his origins. In the modern-day American South, he is but a lonely creature who is heartbreakingly desperate for whatever shadow of human connection he can get. Hindered by his own limited speech and awkward strength, to say nothing about the cruelty of others, M finds a common sort of freakishness with a coworker and proceeds to fall madly in love with her. Yes, you feel a little weird rooting for a man/bull hybrid to get the very human girl (and, believe me, the novel's lone sex scene is hard to get through but is so completely necessary to the integrity of the story) but I defy you to not find M to be one of the most sympathetically, charmingly magnetic protagonists ever. This is a nontraditional boy-meets-girl yarn whose ending I refuse to spoil but the real love story here is of the kind where it's easy to feel protective of a fictional being to the point that it almost hurts to accept that he's not someone you can just wrap up in a life-affirming hug. 

Stay Close, Little Ghost, Oliver Serang
For those whose heartbreak is still fresh, either because of a recently failed romance or a long-healing wound that leaves you having imaginary conversations with an ex-love you'll never quite get over, Oliver Serang's debut novel, Stay Close, Little Ghost, is reminiscent of Murakami's finest moments. It is unflinchingly honest, magically immersive and so imbued with heartache that it's like revisiting your Top Five All-Time Worst Breakups à la High Fidelity. But at all once. And completely devoid of self-pity's trappings because it's too stuffed with raw emotion's introspection to fit much of anything else.

Love is a Mix Tape, Rob Sheffield
If you need a reminder that time with the one you love is fleeting and don't mind tearing through the rest of your flu-season Kleenex reserve in one night, look no further than Rolling Stone contributor Rob Sheffield's account of love, life and loss. Heartfelt without being mawkish, grieving but dignified, a tribute without erring on the side of sanctification, Sheffield paints his first wife, Renée, in all the vivid colors she comprised in life, as turning a memoir into a eulogy would obviously be a crime against the joie de vivre with which she was obviously thrumming. This biography of a marriage cut short is proof that true love transcends the limits of life and death, and that there is nothing like a shared love of music to unite two people every time their songs play.

Orlando, Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf both dedicated this book to and based its ageless gender-bending hero(ine) on her lover, Vita Sackville-West. While there isn't a whole lot of romance going on in the novel itself, the love and regard Ginny felt for Vita practically wafts from these pages. Woolf wrote Orlando with such immortalizing tenderness that it's almost like watching her court her lady lover with the written word. While one does not need to have bounded heedlessly and happily from friendship to romance with a kindred spirit to appreciate the unique sort of love on display here, this novel's themes and undertones will ring all too familiarly by simply knowing what it is to love someone, platonically or passionately, so much that you want the world to see this beloved specimen as radiantly as you do and preserve their unique wonder for all times.




Drew Broussard's Literary Love Picks:

So I am, at heart, an incurable romantic.  Flowers, over-the-top gestures, gifts and lavishments just for the hell of it - yeah, that's my kind of jam.  But I've always steered a bit clear of making a big to-do over Valentine's Day (because it's easy to feel weird on that weirdest of days) and so I've become a giver of books to my significant other/apple of my eye/romantic interest/attractive stranger (depending on my current relationship status).  Since I'm currently accepting applications for the 'attractive stranger' position and you, dear reader, are undoubtedly both attractive and a stranger... here are a couple of fun books for your love life, no matter what the status of it might currently be.

* David Levithan, "The Lover's Dictionary" - I genuinely don't think there's a more romantic book on the planet.  The novel is this alphabetically organized dictionary (which continues to expand via Levithan's twitter: twitter.com/loversdiction) and it explores so wonderfully the vagaries of romantic life.  The ups, the downs, and the in-betweens - often delivered perfectly in just a few sentences.  It's a celebration of love itself, even the messy bits.

* Eric Smith, "The Geek's Guide to Dating" - because even the non-geek can learn a bit about how to love both yourself and another person from Eric's hilarious guidebook. 

* Joyce Maynard, "Labor Day" - look, judge me all you want because I'm judging myself.  But every once and a while, some housewife-fantasy-love-affair stuff can hit all the right buttons.  You will feel embarrassed to be reading the book in public - and that's okay.  I promise.  Just lean into the fantasy, especially if you're on your own this Valentine's Day.

Lori's Literary Love Picks:

Never much of romance reader, I avoid lovey-dovey literature like the plague. If it boasts a traditional love story or cheesy erotic sexytime scenes, there is simply no way I'm going to read it. However, if it's down-in-the-dumps-I'm-so-depressed-I-can't-get-out-of-bed love, or I've-lost-the-only-person-I've-ever-loved-and-now-I've-lost-my-mind love, or I'm-totally-fucking-this-relationship-up-and-watching-it-go-down-in-flames love, then I'm all over that shit! So if you're like me and dig on the best worst-kind of love stories, do yourself a solid this month and shove your nose in these books:

Of Human Bondage, W.Somerset Maugham We never expect love to come easy. But when it's this hard, is it really worth it? Philip, our main man, has a lot of issues he's working through. His low self esteem is physically painful to read. But not nearly as painful as the way he pines over his girlfriend, who, by the way, treats him like a bag of shit time and time again, and poor Philip just can't seem to get enough of it.

Threats, Amelia Gray Whoa Nelly! If I die before my husband, I hope that he feels my loss like this guy does. David, our protagonist, is trying to come to terms with the fact that his wife is dead (this is not a spoiler. I promise). That she had, in fact, died right beside him on the hallway stairs and has since been delivered back to him, as a box of ashes, that sit on his kitchen table. The days immediately after her death are a mystery to him. He can't seem to get his brain to behave; he's misinterpreting things, he's paranoid and his memory is unreliable. Depression, or a complete mental breakdown? That's for you to decide. This book is a tricky little bitch and it is absolutely gorgeous to boot!

My Only Wife, Jac Jemc In this book, an abandoned husband grieves and mourns the disappearance of his wife. Ten years have passed, and it appears our nameless narrator is still reliving the memories of their failed marriage in an effort to discover exactly where things had begun to disintegrate between them. I eat this shit up. I love when it's the men who are all gut-wrenched and my-world-has-ended over their wives. It's about time!!

Under the Poppy, Kathe Koja 1800's war time brothels, baby! This book oozes sex in such a cool and smooth way. Prepare for all of your boundaries to be crossed - sex with prostitutes, a girl/guy/guy love triangle, and girl on... puppet?! Don't let all of that scare you off. I swear to you,  it's a truly amazing book. I wish I could read it again for the first time!

The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, Jonathan Coe Sometimes, when your relationship crashes and burns right in front of your eyes, you need some time to withdraw from the world and let the sorrow have its way with you. When you're ready, you'll step back out into society, slightly unhinged but totally willing to make some new friends and meet a nice lady. Or, oh, stalk a pretty women who you saw sitting in the cafe with her daughter. And, well, fall in love with every chick who accidentally makes eye contact with you or assume every woman who makes small talk is in love with YOU. Or you could, you know, shuck them all and really fall in love... with the female voice inside your GPS system. Totally normal things like that, you know?  

There is No End to This Slope, Richard Fulco A delicious woe-is-me down-and-out'r, this upcoming release should be read as a warning sign for all those who fall helplessly in love with the wrong person, who should have seen the writing on the wall, and who, because they didn't, are now so utterly bereft, they not only lose the girl but go on to lose everything else they ever had too... their job, their house, their dignity. Read this book when you find yourself newly single, and no matter how horrible you are feeling, it'll have you saying "well, at least I ain't this guy!". 

From our blog to yours.... Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!!!

The Indie Ink Runs Deep: Amy Biddle

Every now and then I manage to talk a small press author into showing us a little skin... tattooed skin, that is. I know there are websites and books out there that have been-there-done-that already, but I hadn't seen one with a specific focus on the authors and publishers of the small press community. Whether it's the influence for their book, influenced by their book, or completely unrelated to the book, we get to hear the story behind their indie ink....


Today's ink comes from Amy Biddle. Amy is a sailor and writer who resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her debut novel, The Atheist’s Prayer, is available for pre-order now! Find out more at www.amyrbiddle.com.

I never thought I’d be sending images of myself in a bikini to a literary blog, but there’s a first time for everything. This is a tattoo I’m particularly fond of, probably because I don’t have to look at it every day.

Before I tell you what it’s a tattoo is of, I want you to take a good look and see if you can identify it yourself.

OK, fine, I’ll help you. Three leaves and shiny…

That’s right. I have poison ivy growing up my back. Despite what you might think, I did not get the tattoo because I’m poisonous or dangerous, and no, I won’t give you a rash.

Just don’t get too close.

The real reason I got a tattoo of poison ivy is because, growing up, poison ivy defined my summers. I would run barefoot on the banks of the James River and hike through the woods, and without fail, every summer, bubbles of puss oozed up on my arms and legs and, ugh, between my toes and sometimes even on my face. God, I loved those summers. Don’t they sound amazing?

And because, by nature, I need to have a story behind everything, there is more to this tattoo than meets the eye. It is, in theory, a vine in the shape of the James River. Yes, the very same river whose banks gave me days of miserable, itchy pain.

Granted, the map might not be particularly accurate, since I got the tattoo in Thailand, and there was a language barrier to work with, and the entire thing was rather spur-of-the-moment, and it took six hours because instead of a gun they used a bunch of needles tied to a bamboo shoot… You know, the usual touristy crap. Needless to say, things were generally confusing and I was somewhat impatient.

Still, I’ve always wondered if my lovely map of the James was anywhere near accurate. Since I can’t check it out in the mirror, I finally decided to sit down and use Photoshop for a comparison. Just for kicks.

In retrospect, a map would have been more useful on one of my legs, or even my stomach. But that’s OK, because it’s not particularly accurate after all, and I might have gotten lost if I’d tried to orient myself in the wilderness according to my poison ivy leaves.

And hey, in the end, it’s all about artistic interpretation, right?

ML Kennedy'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....

ML Kennedy's

Would You Rather

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

My feet. I am a remarkably slow typist anyway, so I don’t think there would be a huge net loss in WPM.

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

I suppose I’d rather have a long string of moderate sellers. Ideally, though, I want to have creepy fans who put up disturbing things on DeviantArt, so, whichever option allows for that.

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

I’d prefer the latter. I don’t think I will ever be called a literary genius, but I don’t want to be well known if it means that I have frequent awkward conversations with strangers. I’ve parked outside Stephen King’s house and taken pictures, so I cannot imagine all the weirdoes he must suffer.

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

I feel like you can write some classy literature without conjunctions. Beginning every sentence with a conjunction seems like a cheap gimmick. Or worse, poetry.

  

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?

 The former. I’d cheat and get one of those guys who can write the bible on a grain of rice to do it. Ever since I hit 30, I have trouble concentrating on writing when people are talking; that option is right out.

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 done the former. Does that count? I’m probably going to keep on doing the former forever, though I am not sure I’d call it a choice.

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

This one is easy. Bad plot twists are the worst. I’m still mad about the movie High Tension. As a lifelong wrestling fan, I love to hate characters.

.  

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

Blood as ink. I feel as though it is a more easily renewed resource. Having written a vampire novella, it might be a little on the nose, though.

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

The latter. I could probably get along with the types of misanthropes and goofballs I tend to write. Most of my stories have fairly low stakes, so I feel as though I wouldn’t be endangering the world.

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

If I could cheat and use spacing and line breaks I lieu of punctuation, I would chose the former. If not, the latter. I would probably have to kill myself though.

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

Having a book of mine banned would be hella sexy. That’s a level of speaking truth to power to which I aspire. Truthfully, I am probably still ten years away from writing anything that is banned for its ideas. I snuck some transhumanism stuff, some atheist stuff and some gross stuff with menstrual blood into The Mosquito Song, but nothing that could be called a threat to the American way of life. I could see a ban due to swearing and violence, but at present my content is not seditious enough.

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

 Ayn Rand.

  

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

I suppose writing. It would be too hard to do essential things like ordering food, criticizing movies, and telling jokes while keeping a syllable count in my head. Plus, you’d have to mention nature at least every 17 syllables and nobody wants to hang out with that guy.

Plus, writing grocery lists in haiku might be fantastic.

Buy one dozen eggs,

Oscar Meyer Lunchable

And one gallon milk

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

My only real knowledge of 50 Shades comes from Gilbert Gottfried reading selection on YouTube. So maybe it is really. . . Well. . . It does seem like those books would be fairly flammable. Maybe they could light a fire in my campsite in lieu of my loins.

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

Rip it apart. I don’t mind negative attention; I crave it. Perhaps I have brain problems. So far my favorite review of my vampire novella, The Mosquito Song, is a negative one. Somebody on Amazon said that she couldn’t get into the story because vampires don’t interest her.

What? Why did you download a book about a vampire then?

  

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

Do normal people not have that narration in their head? Perhaps, I’ve said too much. As for the former, I have dirty thoughts nearly once a week. Things like that aren’t allowed on the internet; I’m pretty sure.

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

I feel like I could give up pens and paper. Almost everything I write with pens and paper ends up on a computer anyway. And you can’t watch Netflix with a sheet of paper; I’ve tried.

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

Tippy-toes.

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

I think the world would prefer the latter. I would still do the reading to no one. The show must go on, and all that jive. Besides, just reading my stuff in front of people makes me feel all pink and naked anyway. I wouldn’t want to be double naked.

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? 

I’d rather have the story. I understand people that find intrinsic beauty in language, but at the end of the day I’ve got things to do. I am not going to curl up with Proust. For me, a good story transcends bad storytelling more so than a weak story is bolstered by good story-telling. I also feel like it is easier to share a good story that was told poorly than the other way. You don’t want to have a conversation with somebody where they say, “What was the point of that story?” I’ve been married almost 13 years; I’ve heard that a lot.

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

ML Kennedy is a Chicagobased writer/editor. Tiny Toe Press published his debut novella, The Mosquito Song, in October of 2011. His next book, a collection called Thanksgiving for Werewolves and Other Monstrous Tales, is slated for release this June.

Book Review: O, Democracy!

Read 1/28/14 - 2/8/14
3 Stars - Recommended to those in the political-know, though knowledge of politics is actually not required!
416 Pages
Publisher: Fifth Star Press
Releases: April 2014


When Kathleen initially approached me about reviewing O, Democracy! I was hesitant and confessed my political ignorance, fearing the entirety of the novel would be lost on me. I mean, I don't vote, I don't follow candidates, I ignore every debate or presidential speech on TV, and I (gasp!) can't even tell you the difference between a republican and a democrat other than the former identifies with an elephant while the latter identifies with a donkey.

Maybe my political ignorance makes me a jackass, and thus a democrat by default?!  Ok, forget I said that.

In my defense, if this can be called a defense, (as though I need a defense), I'm a Gen-Xer through and through, preferring to let others worry about the state of the world as I continue to make my way through it, perfectly content in blaming others when it all goes to hell. I look at those who prance around in front of the cameras, making impossible promises to the public, saying things they know we want to hear just to get elected - "pro-life", "affordable healthcare for all", "create more jobs" - when in reality, they can't make it happen anymore than I can. Puppets, one and all. Ok. Forget I said that too.

Actually, let's just forget politics all together. Because in O, Democracy! we are treated to a behind-the-scenes look at a job that, despite the fact that it's at the Illinois Senator's office, looks and sounds very much like any one of our jobs... training young and clueless interns, dealing with ridiculous interoffice politics, putting up with bitchy bosses, and submitting to the whims of a powerful pervert who think it's ok to abuse his position by sexually harassing you.

The book's events take place during the 2008 election year (even I know that this is a fictional spin on Obama's initial run for the presidency), and is being relayed to us through the eyes of our dead forefathers. They are watching over the career of Colleen, a mid-level lackey for the Illinois Senator who is NOT running for president. Her various and incredibly unglamorous responsibilities include staff photographer, part-time personal escort to the Senator, and one time garbage-cleaner-upper. When her dreams of being part of the actual campaign team are squashed, she mopes around the Chicago office with the interns and other-left-behind staffers souring with each passing debate. That is, until she unexpectedly becomes the possessor of a video starring the Senator's republican rival that could change the course of the campaign in an instant.

In this well written tale of a women caught up in a job that fails to live up to her expectations, Kathleen creatively captures our collective longing and desire to be a part of something bigger. She also succeeds at not naming names - both presidential and brand - by employing trivia and well known facts in their place, forcing her readers to work out what she is referring to. I've never known another author to attempt anything like it before. Most of the time, I picked up what she was putting down. For the few times I couldn't work it out on my own, google got me there.

While it may appear a little bit lengthy at the start, O, Democracy! is a worthy read and audiences of all sorts - politically savvy and otherwise - will find something to latch onto within its pages.

Indie Spotlight: Jonny Gibbings

Some of us were born reading right out of the womb. Others came to their love of literature later in life.

I am most definitely one of the former.

Jonny Gibbings, author of the upcoming novel Remember to Forget (March 2014, Perfect Edge),  is one of the latter. The survivor of a rough young life, Jonny shares his story with us today, explaining the strange nuances of the English language and how his unique sense of humor grew out of a desire to hide his illiteracy.

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I still think it's odd that the first word you see at an airport is 'Terminal' – that isn't a word I want to see before getting on a plane. Thing is, I see words differently, and this is a product of not being able to read or write properly till late teens. To be fair, the English language doesn't make it easy. How can 'fish' be singular, plural and what one does to catch fish? Even letters, there is a 'U', then 'V' and then push two V's together... and call it double U? Seriously, why isn't it double V? Are they trying to make it hard?

My sense of humour too is a product of the same shitty past, a coping mechanism, that if you couldn't find something funny you'd give up, so you end up seeing things differently too. Staying with airports for example, I think it is crazy that there are so many luggage shops at airports. How late must you be to need to buy your bags at the airport?

“Just put everything on, EVERYTHING on, we'll get a bag at the airport!”

My sense of humour disguised that I was illiterate, it deflected and hid what was vulnerable inside, yet when someone knows there has been trauma, they want to see the scar. People wanted to know about my past, at readings would always ask, “Why don't you write a memoir?” I am a child of unspeakable violence. Beaten, burned and bullied. Most of my childhood was spent exhausted from surviving the night or residing in care homes, that schools mistook my exhaustion for being learning disabled. To escape the violence I became homeless at 14, so for a few years I lived under railway bridges, in sheds, broke into caravans to sleep and burgled homes for food. Literature wasn't high on my agenda. It wasn't until I found myself in prison at nineteen, a place where you are locked up for 23 hours each day, but had a library, that I had the time to fall in love with books and learn to read and write.

I read everything I could get my hands on, and have now an unending love of words and literature. It amazes me that with just a pen you can invent worlds, villains and even bring people to tears. This is also why I hate book snobs, there are no bad books – just books. It would seem that for some, as their knowledge grows their perspective narrows, developing a kind of book apartheid. Some pour scorn on authors like J.K. Rowling, saying her books were poorly written. Harry Potter wasn't a book, it was a transport system that took kids to another world, told them that it's okay to dream about being a wizard. It didn't try to convince kids that demons are real, only that they can be beat.

I tried to write a memoir, because people kept asking me too, but it read like a long suicide note. Why would I want to remember all that I had tried so hard to forget? And with such a massive investment in alcohol to bleach the past away. Each time I considered it, I just laboured on what might have been if things were different, and this is what gave me the idea for my Novella 'Remember to Forget.' The idea wasn't to write some Franzen-ish tome, not a life and times of a family with issues delivered over many more pages than needed, but to be simply write an event. I didn't want the novella to be received as preachy, as, well I'm in no position to preach, but having been homeless and freezing, so that that it felt like the cold was gnawing at my bones and being so hungry it physically hurt, you lean to love what you have rather than what you haven't. Rather than a downbeat piece, I wanted to write of how change can happen. 

Fortunately 'Remember to Forget' has been well received, however, oddly, those who were anti my first book for it being bad taste and dark humoured were first to ask: “Why are you turning your back on comedy?”

“Who said I was?”

I don't set out to write any one type or brand of literature. I certainly don't write for approval from literary snobs that seem to be like ants, following the same route to the same authors. I write simply because it wasn't so very long ago that I couldn't, and am all to aware what a privilege it is.

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Homeless at fourteen, prison by eighteen, Jonny Gibbings endured a violent and difficult start to life, resulting in being illiterate until late teens. With a distorted world view, his first book, the shock-comedy 'Malice in Blunderland' was well received and due to be made into a film late 2014.

However, it was his mini-memoir that received critical acclaim and a 'Pushcart' nomination. Lyrical and thought provoking pieces for Thunderdome and Revolt illustrate a deep and thought provoking side that can only be the product of painful experience. Jonny Gibbings was described as 'schizophrenic' by film and television producer Kieron Hawkes, due to his extremes of comedy and sensitive writing. A committed vegan and animal rights campaigner, he donated all the proceeds of the film rights of his first book to animal welfare. He lives in Billingshurst, UK.

Eric Shonkwiler'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, Eric Shonkwiler brings forth what is quite possible the grossest looking drink yet for his novel Above all Men! Check it out!

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I’m a little embarrassed to admit, as a boozehound author, that Above All Men doesn't have a lot of drinking in it. David, the book’s protagonist, gets drunk only a few times. This is in part because he doesn’t have the time, and partly because he doesn’t need booze to screw things up—he does just fine on his own. He’s a veteran, see, and a farmer, with an aggressive messianic complex. You could leave that alone and eventually he’d be a headline in the local newspaper, but add Steinbeckian dust storms, oil scarcity, a crashing economy, a murder, and you've got this book.

All this does, eventually, drive David to drink. The world’s falling apart—who wouldn’t look for a bottle? Kicked out of his house for being a bit too much of a reckless hero and not enough of a farmer, David washes up in a neighbor’s barn and gets himself a bottle of whiskey we can only hope is as good as something like Old Crow. I can’t, in good conscience, recommend you drink Old Crow, so for our main event we’ll level up and say get some decent bourbon. This concoction tastes like the book reads.

The Dust Storm:

2-3 (or hell, 4) oz. of bourbon (my personal favorite is Bulleit)

And we’re done! Kidding. If it were just me, that’d be the end of the drink. But I have, on the consult of a former bartender, prepared a legitimate drink for you to imbibe.

The Dust Storm:

2-3 oz. of Bulleit Bourbon

1 small chunk hot red pepper

1 slice burnt orange peel

Muddle the red pepper at the bottom of a regular rocks glass. Lightly burn the orange peel with a match (cool, right? For added literary cred, squeeze it to mimic Hemingway in A Moveable Feast.) Place the burnt rind in the glass along with two or three ice cubes*. Pour in your bourbon. Prepare your throat. The peel gives the drink a gritty taste, and the pepper punches up the heat of the bourbon and gives it a darker coloration—hence the name Dust Storm.

You can gussy this drink up a bit with some sugar or simple syrup, even a cherry. You can go the other way, too, and heat it up with some Tabasco. It’s a versatile cocktail, but it best reflects the book when taken simply.

*If you’re ridiculously classy, you can use smoked ice. Yes, this is a thing.

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Eric Shonkwiler has had writing appear in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, Fiddleblack, [PANK] Magazine, and Midwestern Gothic. He was born and raised in Ohio, received his MFA from The University of California at Riverside, and has lived and worked in every contiguous U.S. timezone. Above All Menis his first novel.

Book Giveaway: Stupid Children

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.

It's the first of the month and you know what that means.

It's time to bring you March's Author/Reader Discussion book!

We will be reading and discussing Stupid Children 

with author Lenore Zion

Lenore's publisher, Emergency Press, is giving us a total of 10 copies to giveaway. 

A mish mosh of Epub or Mobi ebooks (open internationally) 

and print copies (open to US only)

Here's the goodreads description to whet your appetite:

Jane lived happily in Miami Beach with her father until his failed suicide attempt and relocation to a mental hospital forced her into the foster care system. By chance, Jane is assigned to foster parents in central Florida who are deeply involved in the Second Day Believers - a cult focused on the cleansing of mental impurities in their children, and the sanctity of the internal organs of farm animals. Jane is quickly initiated into the Second Day Believers, but her father’s lingering voice prevents her from becoming entirely indoctrinated. Despite Jane’s resistance, she is revered in the cult as the second coming of the late wife of Sir One, the leader of the Second Day Believers. Poised to rise through the ranks of the insane cult and marry their leader, Jane must make a difficult choice.

Stupid Children is a story inspired by Katherine Dunn’s, Geek Love, and written in a voice similar to Donald Barthelme. Hilarious, offbeat, fast-paced and wildly imaginative, Zion, a doctor of psychology, imbues her characters with bizarre psychological abnormalities to create vivid, memorable eccentrics that leap from the page. With deadpan, wonderful ruminations on tattoos, the nature of coincidence, drug use, father-daughter relationships, mental illness, violence, and deviant sexuality, this novel is destined to become a cult favorite.

This giveaway will run through February 8th. 

Winners will be announced here and via email on February 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 March 16th through March 22nd. Lenore Zion has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for her. 

 *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!!!