Friday Five: 5 Best Things Aaron Burch Has Read Recently

That's an image representing Aaron Burch's new book, How To Take Yourself Apart, How To Make Yourself Anew out now from Pank. It details how to take yourself apart.

That image is all I got b/c I forgot to ask Aaron for a photo. In addition to that chapbook, you probably know Aaron for his work with Hobart, one of the coolest & distinctive lit journals out. Read that, but you probably do already.

Here are the 5 best things Aaron Burch has read recently...



1. A Common Pornography by Kevin Sampsell

I've known Kevin for years, both being Northwest indie lit peeps, though Kevin obviously much, much more so than I. But, anyway. I've read his stories and small press books over the years and, as much as I've enjoyed pretty much all of it, my fave was always his short memoir-type thing, A Common Pornography. So... I've been excited about this expanded/reenvisioned book ever since I heard it announced and it did not at all disappoint. I really don't want to overstate, but I think this might have been my favorite memoir I've ever read.

2. Zachary Schomburg's book of poetry, Scary, No Scary. And, specifically, the index.

First of all, how many poetry books have indexes? OK, maybe practically all of them; I don't know, I don't really read much poetry. But, a real "index," not just a reference of "first lines" like I've seen a handful of times. Also, Schomburg's index is like it's own poem, with entries like: "Compression (specifically the idea of being crushed into a tiny cube)" and "Infinity, or a very long time."

2a. My love for Schomburg's poems, despite my fiction prejudice, has reminded me of two other recent poem loves, which I would feel remiss if I didn't mention: "In the Desert" by Stephen Crane, and "Alien v. Predator" by Michael Robbins. I translate the Bible into velociraptor, indeed.

3. The About A Mountain excerpt by John D'Agata in The Believer

I also just read this whole book (back-to-back nonfiction books) and as much as I liked and enjoyed and appreciated it, and as well-written, and etc. etc. as it is, I think I preferred the excerpt in The Believer. I don't know... it seemed more focused and, obviously, concentrated. And I really liked how it played with the structure and the 9 numbered sections. And some of what I'll call D'Agata's "moves" (I was originally, when I started thinking about this list a week or three ago, going to include this blog post on my list of 5, but now some time has passed and I have some new good stuff to pimp) that I loved so much in the excerpt ended up feeling repetitive and less interesting in the longer format. That said, the book was great and I read it in two, maybe three, sittings, which obviously says a lot. But, still. I recommend the Believer excerpt.




4. The Dark Knight Returns analysis on bigother.com

In-depth graphic novel analysis? Superbly written, with tons of examples, etc. Makes me want to go back and reread The Dark Knight Returns all over again.

5. The most recent quote I got to print the next Short Flight / Long Drive minibook.

The first quote I got, from a printer that I knew prefers not to print smaller, "odd-sized" books, left me gasping for air. I thought I was going to have to go crazy into debt and maybe even give up the goal of publishing books. But then another quote request came through and, at almost a third of the price, I am still sighing. Easily one of the best things I've "read" in a long time. Phew.

5a. The next minibook: The Avian Gospels by Adam Novy.

I hate to use this to just mention a book I'm editing and publishing, but I got the above-mentioned quote because we're getting ready to print this thing, which means I've been reading it yet again, working on edits, etc. and... hot damn. This book is amazing. I can't wait for people to read it.
More after the jump...

review: Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture by Kaya Oakes

Friday Five with Kaya Oakes tomorrow!



Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture
by Kaya Oakes
Holt McDougal, 2009

As one of the cofounders of indie mag Kitchen Sink, Oakes is undeniably qualified and interested in compiling a book about the modern indie culture. She never delves quite into the specific semantics of “indie” (cue recent Paste Magazine article) but instead provides myriad examples of the indie culture’s growth and transition.


By location and interest, Oakes is west coast specific, but it doesn’t hurt the examples. The Gilman Street, Op Ivy and Lookout Records in Berkeley or the Riot Grrrl, Bikini Kills, Sub Pop and Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington are all appropriate examples, of course. If all good big media ideas come from the east, then all good DIY ideas come from the west. Oakes is suited perfectly to explain all of this--she either experienced it firsthand or has met most of the major players in the various zine, punk and handcrafted scenes from general interest or personal involvement.

The thread through the chapters exploring punk, indie rock, zines, crafts and comics is a homegrown/grassroots newness/isolation. Nobody knew if they had a good or marketable idea at the beginning of Bikini Kills, they just had an idea that seemed fun. No one knew that Operation Ivy was going to revolutionize punk rock they just had a sound that everyone immediately gravitated towards. Sometimes when more “professional” planning came into play, it also killed what had made it great.

As Oakes says in the example of Lookout Records: “anyone who’s been involved in the arts knows that once something goes mainstream, thing can never go back to how they were before” (76). No one gets into labors of love for the money, and if and once the money comes, it often disrupts.

The book is part history lesson and part appreciation. It’s awesome to learn about the history of the zine Cometbus or Fantagraphics comics or how Pavement wandered into indie rock accidentally only to be castigated once they veered towards the arena rock they appreciated.

In addition to mainstream exploitation, another indie pitfall is for fans to build idols out of their favorites then destroy them when something isn’t “indie” enough---but the word itself balances on a treacherous edge.

More from Oakes on contemporary Internet infusion would have been helpful--just in the way that blogs, mp3s, mashups and community boards have influenced the DIY movement, or if that is indie/DIY at all. There is no history lesson here on the first video games or blogs, information that may have been interesting or at least addressed for why or why not they should fall under indie.

Oakes obviously did her homework. There are tons of interviews and first-hand visits and she speaks with a insider’s knowledge, but with a clear head towards objectivity and description.

More after the jump...

review: Hear No Evil by Matthew Paul Turner

Read Matthew's Friday Five from the archives...



Hear No Evil: My Story of Innocence, Music and the Holy Ghost
by Matthew Paul Turner
Waterbrook Press, 2010

If it was 1991 and Hyper Color was still cool, Turner's book would sweat the term "satire" into a different color--this is biting commentary for those that get it, it is controversial for the innocent and it is enlightening for those that think evangelical Christianity is a monolithic block of tea partiers and Palin apologists.

And all of it is centered on the close-knit Christian communities that Turner finds himself a part and apart of. Oh wait, did I say it's funny? It's funny.

On the flip side, this is not theology or a "new way to do church" or anything emerging anywhere, it is in the most clear of terms similar to something Dave Barry or Lewis Grizzard would write in columns and now most closely resembles David Sedaris' funny parts. It's a memoir of music, told in vignettes of chronology.

In that way, we learn that Turner as a young kid has an unhealthy fascination with Sandi Patti, Amy Grant and wonders if George Michael is a Christian (Turner finds out he's not....). Turner grew up in the type of sheltered environment where a devotion to Michael W. Smith (or "Smitty" as Matthew calls him) is grounds for hell. Yes, the Michael W. Smith of "Friends" and "Place In This World" was going to send Turner to hell. We're treated to a secret undercover van ride to a Sandi Patti concert and Matthew's struggle in holding on to an Amy Grant tape.

Besides the obvious humor in Turner's devotion to such pop luminaries, this book also clearly explicates Nashville's OTHER music industry.

He gives many possible slices for YOU'RE SO NASHVILLE IF....you can recognize a Christian rocker by their cleanliness, you have a conversion experience to Calvinism, you are a Christian musician "contractually obligated" to faith, or a girl breaks up with you by referencing that she is dating Jesus only to date a Christian keyboardist two months later.

As someone that spent a few years in Nashville and as a Christian, all of these instances are too familiar, hilarious and cringe-worthy. It hits too close to home and nails the bulls eye all in the same throw.

But Turner rarely makes his point too forcefully, it usually goes down with a healthy dose of with. He never has to say that he's skeptical of Pentecostals' healing power, it becomes all too obvious when they try to pray over his burping problem and their prayer fails. But Turner, being gracious, goes to the bathroom and burps instead.

Skepticism is a strength of Turner, but Turner's willingness to overlook flaws trumps it. There are some kind parts such as when Turner takes pity on a woman who wears too many BeDazzler tshirts.

He also has a strong history with music, I was (selfishly) hoping for a few more examples of the Christian music industry gone amok. The ones provided, such as the Amy Grant interview, are outrageous enough, but I was thinking there had to be a funny Christian music fest experience, a GMA meltdown or something with confused Christian punk rockers.

But that is me wanting the gritty gossip and Turner does a fine job in going above and beyond that.

Turner provides a new trove of potent examples about how Christians have it far from figured out and that some of the biases against Christians and Christian music is most definitely true. Thankfully, there is someone like Turner to give it a punch with his tongue usually in his cheek.

Oh wait, did I say it's funny? It's funny.

More after the jump...

Friday Five: 5 Best Things Matt Baker has read recently

I'm new to Matt Baker's writing. But I've seen his work in bookstores, libraries and in my home--in the form of the printed edition of the Oxford American mag. Baker was the circulation director and is now an associate publisher. His book, Drag The Darkness Down, was published last summer on No Record Press.



Matt lives in Little Rock, Arkansas and here's an interview with him that ran on the OA website.

Here are the five best things Matt has read recently:

1. The Knockout Artist by Harry Crews

Everyone knows that Crews writes about freaks. Eugene is no exception, he’s known for a trick, a self-inflicted knockout. But don’t be fooled, the “freak show” is a Crews trick to get you inside the tent. Once inside he demonstrates with big tent showmanship that the irregularities among us are really the truest human beings. And really, the spit-shined and polished regulars are the biggest suckers among us.

2. “A Pryor Love” by Hilton Als. The New Yorker Sept 13. 1999.

I still have a copy of this issue that I keep stored in my 1976 commemorative centennial wooden Budweiser box. I re-read this article once a year. It’s the best profile I’ve ever read about Richard Pryor. Pryor’s artistic honesty is unrivaled. My hero.

3. Real Unreal: Best American Fantasy 3 Edited by Kevin Brockmeier.

I’m not completely finished with this one yet and that’s intentional. I’m reading these stories slowly, like a twelve-stepper, one day (story) at a time. I don’t want to overindulge too quickly, and wake up the next day feeling like I don’t remember half of it. So easy goes it… and so far the stories are richly written and full of imaginative bursts.

4. The Unknown Knowns by Jeffrey Rotter

I borrow a well-used phrase from my pothead friend, Shane, who likes to say, “Seriously, this is the good shit.” That’s my sentiment exactly. You can take The Unknown Knowns with or without the cannabis, your choice, but you won’t need it. Reading Rotter’s hilarious novel gave me a serious fit of the giggles that stayed with me even after I finished.

5. “Amid the Swirling Ghosts and Other Essays” by William Caverlee

I learned more about on Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury in his ten-page essay than I ever did in literature classes or the fragments of understanding I grasped on my own. More after the jump...

review: I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett

I Am Not Sidney Poitier
by Percival Everett
Graywolf Press, 2009

I feel kind of stupid for not knowing who Percival Everett was before this book. Not that I KNOW him now, but now I’m a bit more familiar, and I want to explore his back catalog, maybe take on Glyph or Suder or that beastly-sounding Strom Thurmond one. But here we are with I Am Not Sidney Poitier, an ironic statement if any, especially since the kid’s name is Not Sidney Poitier. Of course having a name as “Not...” anything would be a nice set up for a lot of cheap laughs and “Who’s on First?” montages, but of course Everett chooses the name of the most powerful African-American actor, so all of those sequences are not only more confusing, but more meaningful.

Not Sidney’s birth is a great mystery, there is no reason to believe that he was conceived by Sidney Poitier, though he might have been or his mother may have conceived him by her own thoughts, her own special form of “Fesmerizing,” a hypnosis tool that gets Not Sidney out of some sticky situations in his youth. Not Sidney’s mother dies early on, but she’s smart enough to invest heavily in a broadcasting company started by Ted Turner and leaves Not Sidney tons of cash and names Ted Turner his pseudo-guardian. Not Sidney lives with Ted Turner, but pays him rent and Turner serves him as a father offering non-sensical advice, only trumped later by one of Not Sidney’s professors at Morehouse College, Percival Everett, who teaches the philosophy of nonsense.

If all of this sounds funny it is, but the extra layer are the situations that Not Sidney finds him in, all vaguely familiar of the real Sidney Poitier’s acting career (a weird double entendre of not Sidney, because really, that’s not Sidney in those movies, it’s Sidney as an actor....and I digress), so Not Sidney is arrested for being black, is handcuffed to a white prisoner, goes home for Thanksgiving with a lighter black classmate who only wants to use him to prove him a point to her family, then ends up in Smuteye, Alabama and must solve a murder and build a church for nuns.

In the midst of this, Not Sidney is hit on by older women who believe he may be the real Sidney Poitier, because as fate would have it, Not Sidney looks eerily similar to Sidney, and all this involves a lady obsessed with bells and the words “Mr. Tibbs.”

In equal parts Forrest Gump and O Brother Where Art Thou, Everett’s book is funny on the surface level just for the comments by Ted Turner, but the linguistic wrangling of the allusions (and he never mentions a movie!) and situations provokes deeper questions about fame, race and identity in the South, without beating anything “stereotypically” Southern over us--I Am Not Sidney Poitier is a fresh way to approach the old issues, old issues that not only look absurd and nonsensical, but actually are.

More after the jump...

Lit Randomness: Joshua Ferris, Stephen Elliott, Rudy Wurlitzer, Rules for Writing, Charles Plymell & more

The Joshua Ferris...triple! Oh my!
At Powells, with Reagan Arthur.
At B&N.

Or maybe you prefer Jersey Shore? Lit Kicks does. (from Vol.1 Brooklyn).
The only question remaining: Is Ferris the Eggers or Safran Foer of 2010?

Caleb Ross' fav. upcoming small press books: At Caleb J Ross (sounds like a clothing store.)

A Rudy Wurlitzer Double!
At PopMatters.
At Bookworm (from Maud Newton).
The only question remaining: Is Wurlitzer the William Vollman or Thomas Pynchon of 2010?

You've seen this: THE NY TYRANT GUIDE TO NOT BEING A HORRIBLE WRITER IN THE YEAR 2010. At Vice.
But Vol. 1 Brooklyn breaks it down.

An interview with Charles Plymell, who knew all the Beats, apparently: At Outside Writers Collective.

DIY Book Tour by Stephen Elliott: At the NY Times.
He's in the NY Times?!? (assist by Vol 1.)

More after the jump...

review: When The Cats Razzed The Chickens & Other Stories by Mel Bosworth

Check back tomorrow for the 5 best things Mel has read recently...



When The Cats Razzed The Chickens & other stories
by Mel Bosworth
Folded Word, 2009
(Nice handmade & e-versions available!)


I've never met Mel Bosworth, only exchanged some emails, but if I were to see him, I think I would stalk him for awhile, watch from afar, as he shovels snow or goes to the bar or the coffeeshop or shops at Costco. I would watch him, maybe not like a hawk, but very closely still, just to find out how absurd he really is, before I actually introduced myself.

Because here's the question for Mel--does he believe these stories? Does he tell friends these stories in all seriousness, with no smiles or grins? How sarcastic is Mel Bosworth really, if he's sarcastic at all? I really don't know. Sometimes I felt Mel was telling jokes, sometimes I thought he was revealing spiritual places, other times---both.


See, take this story: "Leave Me as I Lessen." The first line is--"I"m stuck to the beach, melting." Okay, funny haha. But the story really is about someone melting, fading away, not sinking, on the beach and a family takes pictures around the person as an attraction, then as a horror show, and by the end the father kneels in wonder. In between there are lines like--"Dad instructs the children not to bother me. He can see I'm tired." That's damn funny. Maybe not funny here, but it's funny in the story, I swear. The guy is melting, and that's all the Dad can say?

On the funny side is "The Humble Origins of the Milky Way (Boys)," about two guys performing outrageous stunts outside a Chinese restaurant. This is good stuff right here: "I could feel the pressure building in the behemoth beneath me, a churning machine of flab, muscle and cheap wine, and when he loosed me to the stars, the silence cracked my mind like a whip, and I spun, and twirled, and somersaulted." Good stuff. The kicker, the closer, the whatever-that-MFA-word-is, comes like a sly surprise, not fully unexpected, yet surprising all the same--like when you look in a bag of M&Ms and you think they're all gone, but there's still one left. Mel works like that. Mel is able to do most of his shenanigans in 200 word bursts or something, sometimes shorter, giving full legitimacy to the term 'flash fiction' if any one is concerned about those things.

Mel has this thing with fantastical fables, somewhat mythical, and maybe they just don't work for me--but I really didn't "get" them I guess. There's Hambone Sizzlewitt pushing a boulder up a hill, there's Glitterbug and Hucklebuck in a hayfield, that funny beard story (okay, I liked that one). I'm most interested in when Mel Bosworth illuminates something so odd, but probably, maybe, partially, true--because he bridges the absurd and reality so well. Personal preference, I guess.

See, this visceral response from me at the words of Mel Bosworth is completely illuminating--really only to myself, because I've learned more about myself by reading Mel Bosworth--these stories make me think of things I've never thought of before.

When the Cats is just a chapbook, so I hope he unleashes something longer and fiercer one day, but for now, I'm totally pleased with rereading this.

More after the jump...

Year of Reading Faulkner Update: The Sound and The Fury

In 2010, Deckfight decided to take on Faulkner. This is a chronicle of our journey.



Hey remember this? I'll admit, it's been a bit of struggle the first two weeks. I'm going pretty slow, I'm reading some other stuff simultaneously, really just to keep my interest. Yes, this is hard. And no, I'm not totally into The Sound and The Fury yet, but I have started.

Just so we're clear, I've read no outside criticism. No Wikipedia of the book, no Cliffsnotes, and I never read this before in high school or college. I just read the back of the book and learned of Benjy the "man-child."




In my Faulkner Reader edition, I'm on page 60, 61, just after the "June 2, 1910" section. Which by the way, is this the first (and only) chapter designation? More chapters would be helpful, but I guess that would disturb the rhythm that Faulkner establishes with the time flips and italics. It's hard to read, but I settled into the rhythm of it by about the 25th or 30th page, though I felt mroe confused than the flashing-piercing-time shocks of the Lost castaways.

Benjy is what one of our Sound and Fury editions calls a "man-child," obviously mentally-incapacitated, yet observant enough to craft a nice first-person narrative. There's some weird fascination with sister Caddy, with a simmering sexual tension there--incest insinuations make me sick.

With that I'm confused on the rest of the characters and their relationships...Dilsey is obviously a caretaker/servant for the family, but I have no idea where Luster, Jason or Varsh come in, except that they sleep in a barn sometimes. And why, exactly, did they change Benjy's name from Maury? Was it because it was more biblical?

Conclusion so far: Almost threw this book down within the first 10 pages, then settled into it. Wasn't sure if the whole thing was going to be Benjy/Maury's disjointed observations, but now that I've barely started the Quentin section, I'm intrigued to see what is revealed.

Anybody else reading this? What do you think so far?
More after the jump...

Lit Randomness: Thrice Double, Dave Eggers, Matt Baker, Oxford (MS), Electric Lit's indie vision

Some of this is a little old, but it's all relevant.

A Thrice Double: On CS Lewis' Space Trilogy & Paul Shirley's Can I Keep My Jersey?
This is why Thrice is one of my favorite bands. At Magnet.

Dave Eggers and newspapers. Remember that time when Dave Eggers put out a newspaper? Doesn't he know that print is so last decade: At AV Club. (via Vol1Brooklyn).

Awesome playlist from Matt Baker, author Drag The Darkness Down: At Largehearted Boy. I want to read this book now.

Electric Literature's Indie vision. Best of '09: At Publishing Perspectives.

Square Books at Oxford, MS: At Poets and Writers.



More after the jump...

Friday Five: 5 Best Things Caleb Ross has read recently

(There's a blowtorch!)

Caleb Ross has been on a wild blog tour for the past month or so and he graciously stops by Deckfight to share the 5 best things he has read recently.

Caleb is the author of the recently released story collection, Charactered Pieces (from OW Press). For the past month he's been doing an online tour called The Blog Orgy Tour, where he offers guest posts at various blogs, revealing along the way things he'd rather have kept to himself. See his tour page for all the stops, both past and forthcoming.

Yesterday he was at Lit Drift and next week he's at 3AM Magazine all week long.

1. Yes, that’s a speed limit sign that reads 9. This sign hangs in a parking garage in Clayton, Missouri (a St. Louis suburb). I understand the need for low speed when exiting a parking garage, but the refusal to round this number to 10 forces me to fathom the circumstances that lead to such a specific number. Crying parent: “Is she going to live, doctor?” Doctor: “If the car was going just one mile-per-hour less, yes, but…”

2. This one is a bit selfish, but truly, it’s one of the best things I’ve read recently. From a review at Present Magazine of my fiction chapbook, Charactered Pieces:

He crafts stories that are powerful, accessible, and unsettling enough to draw the reader in with curiosity about how these lives will play out, prompting the imagination to extend the implications long after the final word has been read.

To affect someone long after the book is closed; that’s my dream as a writer.

3. This sign angered me. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to exit a gas station parking lot in a Boeing 747? Quite difficult.

4. I’ve been on a Jose Saramago trip for the last month or so. I’m upset that it took me so long to discover this wonderful author. From his novel, The Double, I read this passage today, which, me being a language-geek, struck a particular chord:

There was a time when there were so few words that we did not even have enough to express something as simple as This is my mouth, or That is your mouth, still less ask, Why are our mouths touching. It doesn’t occur to people nowadays that a lot of work was involved in creating those words, it was necessary, in the first place, to realize that there was a need for them, which may, who knows, have been the most difficult thing of all, then to reach a consensus on the significance, of their immediate effects, and finally, a task that will never fully be completed, to imagine the consequences that might ensue, in the medium and long term, for these effects and from these words.

5. This quote from Jay Schaefer, an editor-at-large at Workman Publishers in New York City: “Publishers desperately seeking insanely great debut novelists.”

He says this like it’s news, like he’s announcing this amazing new business model that will save publishing. Answer me this: has there ever been a time when publishers weren’t looking for “insanely great debut novelists”? Try harder, Big Time Publishing. Try harder.

More after the jump...

We read books in 2009. Here are our favorites.

There were a lot of books that came out in 2009 I wanted to read. We know the motto though, time is of the essence. I will not pretend to act like I know what really happened in the lit world in 2009.

All I know is that I started Inherent Vice and couldn't/didn't want to finish it.

All I know is that 2009 made me tired of one of my favorite authors (here's looking at you, Dave Eggers. I still like you, I just kind of OD'd on you. For the record, Vol. 1 Brooklyn was my pusher).

All I know is that Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer are more of a threat to literature than ebooks.

All I know is that I haven't made room yet for Scorch Atlas (gasp!) or Chronic City, two books I'm pretty sure I'd like. Also right now, I'm in the middle of 2666, Simmons' Book of Basketball, Lipsyte's new one and have Blood's A Rover and Amigoland on hold at the library. Those may have found their way on here if I finish any of them before the year is out.

So this is a list of the books we enjoyed the most this year and had never read before. Some of these books came out in 2009, some of them didn't. This is not a "best of" list; it's a favorites of 2009.

My list is up first, followed by Josh Rank....



1. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
2. Hopscotch by Cortazar
3. Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
4. The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno
5. Sunlight at Midnight, Darkness at Noon by Christopher Cunningham & Hosho McCreesh
6. Hard Times by Studs Terkel
7. if on a winter’s night a traveler by Calvino
8. Columbine by Dave Cullen
9. Arkansas by John Brandon
10. Shake the Devil Off by Ethan Brown
11. Lowboy by John Wray
12. Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott
13. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
14. A.D. new orleans after the deluge by Josh Neufeld
15. Our Noise: the story of merge records by John Cook
16. Floodmarkers by Nic Brown

Josh Rank's list

1. Deliverance - James Dickey

The writing style had me hooked from the second page. I bought the book because I heard there was a pretty gnarly sodomy scene but there turned out to be a really good book on both sides of it. It ended up being based around a group’s struggle with morality when faced with the possibility of zero repercussions. Is it okay to kill when it’s necessary? The group answered in a scene so vividly described I felt as if I were climbing the trees right beside them.

2. What is the What – Dave Eggers

If you think your life sucks, read this book. The main character, Valentino Achak Deng, is a real person. Yeah, this actually happened to somebody. The book outlines Deng’s journey out of war-torn Sudan and into Atlanta where things continue to go wrong. You think it sucks that your girl/boyfriend broke up with you? Well at least you don’t have to worry about lions eating your head after you just watched your mother get shot in the face.

3. Pygmy – Chuck Palahniuk

Palahniuk has made a name for himself taking fiction into new directions. Pygmy takes that idea to another level. Written in the voice of an adolescent, non-native English speaker, it is a chore to trudge through at first. After getting used to the style, though, the story lives up to Chuck’s level of story-telling.

4. When You Are Engulfed in Flames – David Sedaris

A main concern for musicians and writers alike is to not repeat yourself. However, when your style is as good as Sedaris’ this doesn’t need to be a concern. If you like anything he’s every written, this book doesn’t disappoint.

5. A Father’s Story – Lionel Dahmer

I may have an unhealthy interest in serial killers. When I got a chance to read about the childhood of my favorite one (is it wrong to have a favorite?) I jumped at the chance. Be prepared to actually think of Jeffery Dahmer as a person and not a monster. It’s a little strange.

6. Blindness – Jose Saramago

An epidemic of blindness takes over. People freak and lock up the infected in an old insane asylum. Shit gets crazy. Beautifully chosen words drag us through the mud of blindness and we come out with a great story.

7. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

If you like books that give you characters you become attached to, this book is not for you. Characters come and go constantly from page one until the end. However, the manner of their entrances and exits provide a narrative that makes you feel like you’re reading a dream.

8. Women – Charles Bukowski

Watch an interview with Bukowski and then read this book. Everything will make perfect sense. However, feminists should stay far, far away.

9. Dream House – Valerie Laken

A young couple buys a house together only to find it to be the scene of a crime from years before. The writing style is enough to pull you through but the consistently moving action acts as a motor that doesn’t let you stop until you’re finished. Plus, the author is a pretty sharp dresser.

More after the jump...

Friday Five: Five Best Things Ben Tanzer has read recently

Ben Tanzer (right) at a recent CCLaP party.

There's no doubt Ben Tanzer is a man of exquisite taste. Tanzer is not afraid to inaugurate a publisher with Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine or take a chance on a e-publisher with his short stories, Repetition Patterns.

Publisher Jason Pettus of CCLaP said Repetition Patterns "is Sherwood Anderson with a fair dose of Sam Shepard injected into it, plus a dash of Chuck Klosterman for good measure, all of it filmed with a flattened lens by Robert Altman; yes, they are related stories about small-town life that are sometimes nostalgic, but with a pitch-black sense of despair many times thrown in, tales of rural smothering and the tragic consequences that can sometimes ensue, most of it tinted through the grimy filter of '80s pop-culture gone to seed."

My kind of story. One of Tanzer's chapbooks, "I Am Richard Simmons" has also dropped over at Mudluscious.

Tanzer also blogs like mad over at This Blog Will Change Your Life, where he publishes his portrait regularly. Here are the five best things Ben Tanzer has read recently, as of late November.

1. "Protects minor cuts, scrapes & burns." This was on the label of a very dusty 3.75 OZ. container of Vaseline I bought at a truck stop in Michigan. I'm not sure why other people need to buy Vaseline at truck stops in Michigan, but I was having some chafing issues and I should probably leave it at that.





2. When the Cats Razzed the Chickens & Other Stories by Mel Bosworth. I got to read an Advanced Reader Copy of this and it is the goods.

3. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. I was asked to write about a piece about the intersection between running and writing and I decided to read this first. Murakami comes off as low-key and slightly compulsive. It has highlighted for me how not low-key and highly compulsive I am about both running and writing and how I want to capture that in this piece.

4. "Bulldozer love powers." This was the subject line of an e-mail I received at work. My wife was especially excited about this one and the possibilities explicitly and implicitly promised there in. The results were not exactly what we were hoping for, though you should in no way read this as having anything to do with (1) above. Nothing.

5. "Ezra Furman's song just for you." This was from an article I read about
this local Chicagoland singer Ezra Furman and how he is writing a song for
every fan who buys his latest album - Ezra Furman and The Harpoons' "Moon
Face: Bootlegs and Road Recordings: 2006-2009." I love everything about
this.



More after the jump...

Lit Randomness: McSweeneys & The Nervous Breakdown & Ha Jin

Awesome interview with McSweeney's publisher, Oscar Villalon. This interview is so good, it should take up two spots in the Lit Randomness list: At The Rumpus.

Behind The Nervous Breakdown: At Jacket Copy.

Ha Jin visits Flushing: At NY Mag.


More after the jump...

Friday Five: 5 Favorite Books of the Decade

We already listed our favorite albums of the decade, now it's time for books. Man, I love these books.


5) Home Land by Sam Lipsyte

This did not immediately occur to me as a favorite, but then I realized I had recommended this book to several people and always think about it in my own meager efforts. While much of these decade lists shower those books that somehow connect the "now" to the "past," Lipsyte makes us unflinchingly aware of the present. In all of its humorous glory. It also struck me that books, serious literary books, are not funny. There aren't many funny novels in general, and there aren't many as well-written with so many zingers as Home Land. If you do not know what is to fail as a Catamount, then you don't know what it is to fail. Just to let you know I'm not completely crazy, Believer named this one of their best books in 2005.





4) The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

Forget the weight of history, let's just relive it through the inexhaustible weight of pop-artistry achievement. Using comics as a motif, Chabon makes the grand connections between history and the human condition (see above), but presents it with classic suspense. As a reader, I really want to know what happens to these characters, so much so I plunge through its heft and am satisfied all the way through.



3) The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Liked this book the first time I read it, surprised by all the accolades its receiving. Apocalypse now.



2) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Fiction/non-fiction, it doesn't matter. In recent books, Eggers has traded postmodern garrulousness for more sparse words, and I sorely miss that style. It was compulsive overanalysis on the state of being young and responsible and a word explaining is rarely misused. His Real World stunt would've been a gamechanger for sure, both for the series and for the resulting stories. Instead, we only have a book that changed us.



1) House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

Don't approach this book with the same frame of mind used for reading other novels, but think of it instead as a graphic novel that doesn't have as many illustrations. The connections between the words, the footnotes, the font will open up a new structure that mirrors the narrative structure of the house. To write off this book as only a gimmicky esoteric exercise is to possibly write off all interesting books in the future.

AHWOSG and HOL were released in the same year and they've held up over the past ten. The books were prophets to what was to come in the decade--a focus on the concept of reality TV and the desire to chronicle all our moments.

Most important book of the decade: Million Little Pieces by James Frey
People, real people!, discussed the differences between fiction and memoir unprompted by grades, college admission essays or the teacher's dirty looks. Amazing!

Honorable mentions: the devil and the white city, a generous orthodoxy, nickel and dimed, fast food nation, ovenman, blankets, the great perhaps, the known world, the lost boys of sudan, await your reply, on beauty, interpreter of maladies, arkansas, moneyball, then we came to the end.

More after the jump...

review: Shake The Devil Off by Ethan Brown

Going to try and do this book review from memory, as it was part of last week's theft.



Shake The Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder that Rocked New Orleans
by Ethan Brown
Henry Holt, 2009

On the surface this is a story straight from the deepest, darkest macabre tales of New Orleans. A guy and a girl, part of the New Orleans French Quarter and bar scene get in a dispute. The guy cuts girls' limbs, puts pieces of her in various apartment appliances and he writes frightening messages all across his walls. All of this occurs only a year after Hurricane Katrina.

This is not a Hurricane Katrina book per se, more of a book about the aftereffects and emotional toll that two national tragedies wrought on the psyche of one young man.

Zack Bowen and Addie Hall's tale was spread across the local and national news as gruesome evidence of what Hurricane Katrina had wrought. I remember reading about this back in 2006 and being fascinated by what everyone else was fascinated by--not the violence, but the unusual nature of it. That it happened in the French Quarter, among folk so strange, yet so familiar to one another made it seem even more odd. (The website Nolafugees did one of the first interesting introspective pieces about it--I think they pulled it down, but it's now in their book).

Ethan Brown seems like kind of the wrong guy to write this book, he was visiting New Orleans soon after the murder happened, and sensing a story, started interviews and later moved his family down from New York to write the story. Brown, though somewhat an opportunist, seems to have the right deposition for the legwork however. He obviously spends a lot of time at the various stomping grounds of Zack and Addie, especially at Matassa's, a grocery store in the Quarter. He is also able to convince Zack's ex-wife to speak with him along with several fellow "Quartericans"--some drug dealers, some landlords, some waiters and waitresses.

The life of Zack is fully excavated by Brown, for whatever reason (maybe it becomes clear in the last 1/8 of the book I didn't get to read) the life of Addie before New Orleans is barely touched. But we learn that Zack was a tall and nervous sort, who had a sense of depression about "mistakes he had made" before he had really made any. He had dropped out of high school in California, bounced around a bit, ended up in New Orleans bartending and eventually married a stripper named Lana. Bowen got his life together and joined the Army shortly before 9/11 and then served in Kosovo and Afghanistan. This service, as Brown makes clear, is the turning point for Bowen's life--it filled him with duty, but also filled him with post-traumatic stress, a situation that he would never fully recover from.

Brown rightly points out that Zack was involved in two of the greatest government debacles of the decade, first Afghanistan, where he witnessed children being killed and then later New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where Zack had a front row display. But, as Brown finds, it wasn't Hurricane Katrina that Zack had a problem with, it was the post-traumatic stress worsened by Hurricane Katrina.

During the storm, Zack and Addie played "house," essentially--they befriended other holdouts in the Quarter and performed a series of odd jobs and chores during the day to make Quarter life better while hanging out with the other holdouts at night. This lasted for a month, and as every good student of Katrina knows, the Quarter was barely touched in the flooding and most that stayed practiced their drinking skills to full effect, while managing to pull off some basic Boy Scout survival skills during the day. This was the happiest and best times for Zack and Addie.

What unhinged Zack was the undoing of this war-like world, the camaraderie involved in it dissipated into a broken government system. Brown lists incidences where Zack and Addie felt disrespected by the National Guard sent to their area, as if they deserved immunity from forced evacuations and the rule of law. On Addie's side, she was plagued by extreme mood swings--sometimes violent in nature, setting her at odds with roommates and other Quarter confidantes.
Their behavior was exacerbated by the free drugs they were allowed from helping out a friend.

The very eccentricities of the people that make the French Quarter a bohemian and party mecca also make those same people unstable and volatile. The two, at least in Brown's account, go hand-in-hand.
More after the jump...

Friday 5: Five Best Things Shya Scanlon Has Read Recently

Everything is new again, so Shya Scanlon is serializing his novel, Forecast. Its 42 weeks over 42 blogs, which both honors the literary blogs while also throwing in some others to try and gain some new readers (I'm just guessing...nobody told me that's the exact purpose, but I'm sure that purpose is not disagreeable).


He got Kottke to sign on, so I'm impressed. The whole thing wraps up in a couple weeks and Shya recently announced that Forecast will be released "properly" (I'll let you define that word) in by Flatmancrooked.

Shya's "crazy" method has garnered him quite a bit of attention on the interwebs, but this interview with JacketCopy sums it all up nicely. In the midst of this, Shya was nice enough to tell us the 5 best things he has read recently (submitted about 2 wks ago):

5. An email from my dear friends Chad and Megan, saying they’ve gotten engaged.



4. About half of the pieces in AM/PM by Amelia Gray. I think many of the short prose pieces in this collection are terrific. She has an amazing sense of humor, and although there’s a bit too much filler in the book—I think her concept got the best of her—it’s well worth the read.

3. A Jello Horse by Matthew Simmons. It’s somehow incredibly concise without being dense, and highly emotional without being dramatic. It’s a remarkable novella.



2. The fifth chapter of The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien. It’s mindbendingly funny. I’ve read the passage many times, and it still very nearly brings me to tears it’s so damn good. I first encountered it at a talk given by David Wilson of The Museum of Jurassic Technology, who read it aloud before giving a slideshow about miniature art. I thought I was on drugs.

1. Terese Svoboda’s Black Glasses Like Clark Kent. It’s a memoir and it’s a war story and it’s a mystery and it’s all told in a neat fractured narrative based on rhythm and breath.


And some housekeeping---I've done a few of these now, so does everybody like these from the authors? Or would you prefer a 'traditional' interview in addition or instead of? Let me know.
More after the jump...

Lit Randomness: Paul Auster, Robert McKee, Molly Gaudry & Miami Book Fair

A Rumpus Double:


Interv. with Paul Auster.

Interv. with story guru, Robert McKee.

Interview with Molly Gaudry, author of We Take Me Apart. She seems to be a nice person: At HTML Giant.

Ben Greenman at the Miami Book Fair: At The New Yorker. More after the jump...

review: Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

Await Your Reply
by Dan Chaon
Ballantine Books, 2009

Have no idea about how the differences between say, thrillers and literary fiction came to be about, but it's nice for someone to bleed into each Chaon has "capital L" credentials, but this book is plot-driven without being predictable.

Twins Hayden and Miles have an inventive childhood to say the least, causing Hayden to confuse the real with the imaginary and Hayden takes that wonder to its fullest ends. It's not giving anything away to say this is about identity theft, but it goes deeper than just theft, it becomes identity inhabitation.



As fanciful as that sounds, Chaon constructs a world of vignettes about modern gangsters, guys that do not intimidate with guns or knives, but with pieces of self-scrap that all modern day humans are leaving behind. It's not a case of electronic presence vs. a non-electronic presence, but our personal identity is distancing itself farther and farther from the physical person.

Await Your Reply is compelling because it fully utilizes what literature does best--unknown faces, hidden personas and untraceable physical features manifest itself best in the written word. In other words, Await Your Reply is not ready-made for a movie, serious reconfigurations would be the only way it's possible, eviscerating it for what it is. As our society is now almost all visual, it's refreshing to read such a thoroughly modern book with modern subject matter that can only be told in a old-fashioned way, so to speak.

Await Your Reply reminded me of William Gibson's two later works, as they try to deal also with modern conundrums of travel and electronic presence. Chaon is not so heavy-handed in wonder about the technology, instead its presence is leveraged rather than just admired. Fascinating read.

Also check this review from Three Guys One Book.

More after the jump...

Lit Randomness: On poets leaving NYC, Generation A, Brockmeier, Await Your Reply review

Poets! Dare to leave NYC at the risk of your social lives! Daniel Nester explains: At The Morning News.

My complaint, if there is one, is not that New York Poets are rude. It is that New York Poets are too nice, that they don’t tell the truth to each other enough. In New York, you see, it also helps to have someone else say you are a poet. Beneath the surface politesse and modesty of the New York Poet runs an undercurrent of exclusion you only sense years later. To be coddled in New York City as a poet is to be killed slowly.

Review of Coupland's Generation A...does that title sound familiar?: At The AV Club.

Questions with Kevin Brockmeier: At Papercuts.

Not only am I jealous of Dan Chaon, I'm jealous of this review as well: At Three Guys One Book.

Now I'm interested in reading this. Q&A with Michelle Huneven, author of Blame:At The Elegant Variation.
More after the jump...

Friday Five: 5 Bests Things Jeff Parker Has Read Recently

Somehow I got a copy of Jeff Parker's Ovenman a few years ago and was smitten. Being a punk kid from Florida, it was awesome to read about a punk kid from Florida. Adding post-it notes and pizza made it even better.

After that book, Parker compiled an anthology of Russian stories called Rasskazzy and now has a set of stories called The Taste of Penny from Dzanc Books in April.

Here's the five best things Jeff Parker has read recently:



5. Padgett Powell’s new novel The Interrogative Mood – 164 pages of questions. Sample: “If we were told that Einstein secretly carries a very small pet in his pocket, would we seek to discover what it is? Do you feel all right? Would you be embarrassed or rather thrilled by yourself if you were caught by Einstein with your hand in his coat pocket? Would you prefer to explain yourself in such a moment to Einstein, to Freud or to Picasso? Are you not past the point of explaining yourself in earnest? Would you like to go to the big new grocery store and marvel at packaging? How have we gotten so stoned, on nothing? Can what we have come to be explained merely by fatigue?”



4. "There is somewhat low even in hope." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

3. "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." --Lamar Odom

2. Description of Carl Jung's secret novel stored in a safe in Switzerland, by Sara Corbett, writing for The New York Times Magazine: "Man skids into midlife and loses his soul. Man goes looking for soul. After a lot of instructive hardship and adventure — taking place entirely in his head — he finds it again."

1. Когда мой губы и язык будут упиваться твоим прекрасным, сочным телом, твои (1) стоны / (2) крики (3) наслаждения / (4) экстаза будут слышны в Южной Африке. (When my lips and tongue revel on your beautiful, luscious body, they will hear your (1) moans / (2) screams of (3) pleasure / (4) ecstasy in South Africa.) --English-Russian Dictionary Phrasebook of Love: Words and phrases to win hearts, stir desire, and express feelings by Marina Frolova and Robert Powers

More after the jump...