Among The Jumbled Heap

Jose Saramago 1922-2010

This seems to be a big year for the literary dead. Jose Saramago, Nobel prize-winning author, died last Friday June 18th. Check out the NYTimes obit. I immersed myself in Saramago a few years back whilst living in Chicago. I read his novels riding the El to and from work and in the few spare minutes at the end of my work day. Our apartment had a deck built between the two crumbling edifices that our landlord generously called carriage houses. One of those was ours. I remember vividly ...

Paul Yoon — Once the Shore

Once the Shore is Yoon's first book, and it brings together many of the short stories that have made him a writer of note. All the stories in Once the Shore take place on a small island belonging to South Korea. Each story captures a different moment in the island's history, from World War II and the Japanese occupation to the present day when the island is overrun with tourism. Yoon has a subtle touch in depicting his characters. He can speak volumes in a few words or gestures. He invests ...

Why I love Bill Murray

Bill Murray reading poetry to construction workers.

Rejection

The past year, I have been diligently sending out my short stories to various journals.  This is a major psychological step for me.  My stories have always been just that, mine, and I have not wanted to share them with a larger audience.  A feeling, I'm sure, that is partially rooted in my own fear of rejection.  So far rejection is all my stories have found in the wider world. This past week I received yet another letter saying "no thanks."  This one came from Cezanne's Carrot, a journal who...

Herta Muller and the Book of Revelation

The Literature of Oppression The current wave of obsession with the Christian notion of the Rapture and the Apocalypse, on the surface, has little to do with literature and certainly even less to do with the writing of Herta Muller, the Nobel Prize winner of 2009. Rapture literature is low-brow fiction, for sure. The Left Behind series written by Christian hacks Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye in no way participates in what the Nobel committee calls the “great conversation of world literature.” ...

Michelle Huneven

There are novelists whom I read for the pleasure of their words, others I read for the beauty of the stories, and, if I'm honest, there are some I read simply because I feel like it's a cultural must (that damned Western Cannon), but then there are novels that I seem drawn to for psychological reasons--often as not with no rational basis. Michelle Huneven's books fall in this category. I read her to be a better human. I read to find some solace. Huneven's novels are positive, weighty thing...

On becoming a famous poet…

Want to know how to become the most important poet in America over night? Jim Behrle has the answer: How you can become the most important poet in America overnight. Here's a snippet: There are many paths through the art. Having enough money to sit in a log cabin all day watching foxes make out, with berries on one’s breath. Having an entire university beneath one’s command. Ability to drag friends in for a little merlot and sloppy sex with students. This is perhaps my favorite part: ...

Also Read…

My good friend the Hamster unwittingly helped launch this blog.  He was visiting Arkansas and we were sitting together at a chicken shack sharing a pipe and talking about books.  "You read all these books, but how much time to do you spend thinking about 'em?"  His challenge was that I write a blurb about each book I read.  Thus, the blog was born. Unfortunately, I read books faster than I can write about 'em.  My desk is littered with books that are awaiting a blog post. In an effort to clea...

The Yankee South

American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell I was born in Flint, Michigan. My parents still live there. My grandparents have lived or still live there. Flint is the quintessential Northern factory town. It is a city that General Motors built, and when I grew up nearly everyone I knew was connected in some way to the auto industry. Yet despite being a distinctly Northern town, Flint was mostly populated with Southern transplants, folks who came North to find a better life. These Southern Yankee...

If a body see a body…

Salinger, J.D. (Jerome David) 1919-2010 J.D. Salinger and I go way back.  It was he who stuck "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a poor sinner" into my little brain.  Yep, this is that damned Jesus Prayer that drives Franny Glass bonkers in Franny and Zooey. As much as I hate the man for giving me that ear worm, i'm sad to see him gone. My good friend The Hamster has the best remembrance of the man I've read.  Go check it out http://wheresmyhockeymask.blogspot.com/2010/01/...