Insights
Old Souls, Youthful Dysfunction, and Children Parenting Their Fathers.
My last post dealt with weirdness in fiction. This post is an extension of that topic, related to two works I’ve read recently. The first of these is Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Goldfinch, which I’ve only just gotten around to reading. (It’s nearly 800 pages long–that’s my excuse.) The second is a nonfiction memoir, Not the Kennedys, by a very talented newcomer, John O’Hern, who happens to be my cousin by marriage. These two books have absolutely nothing in common except that I happened to read them in the same month, and that both triggered more thoughts about how we humans confront an incomprehensible and incoherent world by writing about it.
The Goldfinch is, in my unhelpful opinion, less original and less spectacular than critics have made it out to be (maybe my next post will be about the weirdness of literary prizes). (Continue Reading)
Can Fiction Writers Stem the Tide of Barbarism?
The barbarians are no longer at the gates, but inside them – and I’m not talking about invaders from other cultures, but homegrown barbarians who are either ignorant of the glories of Western culture, or actually despise it and want to destroy it. Anyone who supports cancel culture, for a start, which may mean the majority of the people you know, if you’re an educated person in the liberal professions – is a barbarian, someone with a medieval mindset who not only believes in strict orthodoxy, but wants to enforce it through ostracization. And the publishing industry is peopled almost entirely by these latter-day Goths, Vandals, and Huns.
This is all obvious to anyone who’s paying attention. The problem is that most writers have not been paying attention. (Continue Reading)
How Weird is That?
Literary scholars recently seem to think they’ve invented a new genre: weird literature. It’s partly an outgrowth of the increased popularity of science fiction, dystopic fiction and zombie stories–that sort of thing. Scholars also point to the restitution of the writing of HP Lovecroft (USA, 1890-1937), which seems to define this genre. I don’t have a problem with any of this (having been asked to contribute to a volume on the subject), but it’s worth pointing out that weirdness in narrative is nothing new, dating back at least to Cervantes’s Don Quixote, credited with kickstarting the modern novel in 1605. Don Quixote’s problem (the character’s “real” name was Alonso Quijano) was his inability to disentangle reality from fiction and his insistence on attacking the world as if it were an adventure tale from the chivalric tradition of “knight errantry.” (Continue Reading)
Roz Morris Talks to me about her new novel, Ever Rest
I’ve just had the pleasure of interviewing Roz Morris, who is English and the author of three novels, a travel memoir and a series for writers. She once had a secret career as a ghostwriter, where she sold 4 million books writing as other people, but is now obeying the commands of her own soul, which are to write literary fiction with a strong sense of story. She is also an editor and writing coach, and has taught masterclasses in Europe and for The Guardian newspaper in London.
We mainly discuss Ever Rest, (Spark Furnace 2021), her just-published novel. The premise:
Twenty years ago, Hugo and Ash were on top of the world. As the acclaimed rock band Ashbirds they were poised for superstardom. (Continue Reading)
Are Gardens for Real?
Ask any gardener. We’ll tell you that gardens are real enough–made of tangible living material and soil. But they are also products of the imagination, like any art form. And they are cultural products. Just compare the typical American garden–diverse, open, slightly wild–to the gardens characteristic of (in order of increasing formality) England, France, Italy, or Japan, respectively. Each culture imbues its gardens with its own peculiar approach to managing reality.
Because, after all, that is what a garden is–managed reality. A constant balance between the natural and the synthetic, between what we infer the natural world to be and what we want it to become. Between the ungraspable chaos of the natural universe and the aspirational coherence of our human minds. (Continue Reading)
LOOKING FOR AUTHORS (AGAIN)
If have written a book lately (or not so lately), we’re still looking for authors to be interviewed on Late Last Night Books!
A publicity opportunity
Once again, I am looking for authors who want help publicizing their books or writing project in future blog posts. In my experience, getting your name and work “out there” is the most painful part of being a writer. I’m hoping this blog can help make that process a little less painful for others–especially writers (and that’s most of us) who don’t have well-funded publicity machines working on our behalf.
In the past this offer has brought forth many talented writers, including Todd London, Harriet Arden Byrd, Bill Woods, Nancy Burke, Lila Iona McKenzie, Anna Marsh, and Michael J. (Continue Reading)
Tolstoy’s Hadji Murat
Leo Tolstoy – the greatest novelist of all – and yet lots of readers, even serious ones, have never read him. Why? Partly it’s because his two most famous works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are on the long side. That’s true, but even so, if you read just an hour a day, and typically read a short novel in a week, it might take a month to read Anna Karenina, and six weeks or two months to read War and Peace. Not that long. And you’ll probably read them faster, because they’re so good you’ll find yourself reading more at weekends and on evenings when you have time. But let’s say you’re really busy, and intimidated by these monuments of Russian literature. (Continue Reading)
My Excuse . . .
for not posting a book reivew this month is that I haven’t fallen in love with any of the books I’ve been reading lately. Of course, I don’t always post reviews of books I’m positive about, but the book needs to have sufficient substance to do a review.
One of my problems is I don’t get review copies of books and therefore have to rely on recommendations of others. That limits my ability to read books that are pre-press or have just come out. I’m not complaining . . . just explaining.
So, until next month, keep reading and if there’s a book you’d like me to read and review, email me. (Continue Reading)
Probable versus Plausible—Realism’s Duplicity
I recall years ago reading about the success formula for television sitcoms: the plots can, and often should, be completely implausible, but they must be probable. In other words, the situation and actions can be as weird as you like—the weirder, the funnier—but the sequence of events has to make sense within that weird context. Lucy wandering lost in the New York City subway with her head stuck in a mammoth loving cup was perfectly acceptable, and hilarious, so long as Ricky didn’t suddenly materialize inexplicably out of nowhere to rescue her.
This formula makes me think of my favorite movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. To me, it represents the culmination of Hitchcock’s genius: a realism so rarified that it presents completely unbelievable situations in ways that make them seem perfectly natural. (Continue Reading)
CHILDREN’S SERIES: KICKING OFF A LIFETIME OF READING
Last month I reflected on on how Beverly Clearly‘s death brought back cherished memories of childhood reading. Most especially, it reminded me of the many children’s series that kicked off a lifetime of reading for me: Cleary, Carolyn Haywood, Madeline L’Engel, Sydney Taylor, and Noel Streatfeild among them.
I asked if others had similar memories, especially about series I may have forgotten.
Nancy Drew and Judy Blume Books
I was surprised to get so few responses. Perhaps I had done a better job than I thought remember. Perhaps I was a broader reader than I remembered. But there were a few obvious series I had embarrassingly overlooked:
How could I have forgotten? (Continue Reading)
Is This the End?
For months, I’ve been contemplating giving up—not just this column, but writing. Altogether. I hope this won’t sound like a long whine, whinge, or worse—the dreaded ‘mansplaining.’ But for a long time, there has been no interest in my work from the industry, even though I’m fairly sure I write better than I did fifteen years ago, when there was a lot of interest. Some of that, I suspect, is because of the current ‘woke’ moment—what a ‘vile phrase’ that is, to quote the Bard. But I’ve moaned about that before so I won’t now.
It could also be because my writing simply isn’t engaging a new, different audience: one that is not only ‘woker’ (presumably, if we can trust the media), but one is that is doubtless younger, and suffers from a shorter attention span. (Continue Reading)
Vietnam: The Story that needs to be told over and over gets its due
Jerry A. Rose & Lucy Rose Fischer, The Journalist (Spark Press, 2020)
She probably doesn’t remember, but Lucy Rose Fischer attended my birthday party at my house in Gloversville, New York when I was 7 or 8 years old, and I remember visiting their house probably for a reciprocal activity. I also knew about her older brother Jerry’s being a reporter covering Vietnam and his dying there in 1965. For that reason and because of my interest in Vietnam, I wanted to read Lucy’s book that honors Jerry and shares his story.
I would recommend The Journalist even without a personal connection as a way to keep alive the sad story of America’s involvement in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries post-World War II. (Continue Reading)
BEVERLY CLEARY AND A LIFETIME OF READING
The death of Beverly Clearly last month immediately brought me back to the Evanston Public Library cerca 1966. I saw my 8-year-old self scouring the shelves for every book I could find about Ramona, Ribsy, or Henry Huggins. I limited myself to 5 books per check-out. But I loved that I could come back for more.
My heart beat fast every time I returned to the library for another fix. It beat even faster when I carried my cache home and dove into the stories. My goal was to read Cleary’s entire oeuvre.
A Serie-ous Habit
I was only busy clearing out the Cleary collection because I had read my way through every one of Carolyn Haywood‘s series.
That habit had started the day I discovered Betsy’s Little Star on the shelves of the Washington School library. (Continue Reading)
A Very Different Diverse Voice: The Leopard by Giuseppe Lampedusa
We’re all being urged to read ‘more diverse voices’ these days, although you may have noticed that almost all of the writers you’re being told to read write in English, live in the United States or England and have been to top-tier universities. Curiously, they’re also nearly of the same currently fashionable ethnicity, and the majority of them are of the same sex, or gender if you prefer. Odder still, the stories resemble each other: nearly all are victim narratives, ‘heartbreaking’ stories of loss, oppression, repression, cruelty, violence and slavery. And there’s a bogeyman (I choose the gender deliberately here) common to all these novels too. You know who that is.
Let me state categorically, for anyone who doesn’t know my views, that I am not defending the hegemony of the white male, and welcome diverse voices, provided they are talented, and provided they are—well, diverse. (Continue Reading)
Silva does it again; a novel of such complexity that we cannot wait for the 2021 sequel
Daniel Silva, The Order (2020)
If there were an award for the best opening chapter of a fiction, including characterization, dialogue, plot and theme, the first chapter of The Order would be in the running. Daniel Silva, after all, is no amateur in beginning a novel that feels that it has been recorded by cameras, microphones and probes into each characters mind. The initial scene in The Order suggests something tragic has happened at the Vatican. The chapter’s main character, Archbishop Luigi Donati, fears the worst. It turns out his mentor, Pope Paul VII, is dead and the circumstances are suspicious.
Thus begins a narrative featuring the Church of Rome and the Church’s most trusted Jew––Gabriel Allon. The complexity, including a fictional account of the origins of the Church, is portrayed realistically, with verve and in a tasteful manner, considering Allon’s role, must represent a heresy to millions. (Continue Reading)
Book Review: The Hare
The emotionally engaging story of a naive young woman trapped in a dangerous relationship.
On Poetry, Performance and Amanda Gorman
Recently I attended a lecture about Irish “occasional poetry.” This doesn’t mean poetry written now and again; it means poetry written and performed for special occasions: holidays, commemorations, funerals and the like. The most obvious of these that comes to mind is “The Hill We Climb,” the poem commissioned for, written and performed by Amanda Gorman at President Biden’s inauguration.
I won’t get into a critique of the poem, except to say that I liked it on the whole, and that, like most people, I admire Ms. Gorman’s talents. Nor will I comment much on an infamous precursor, “Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander, performed at President Obama’s first inaugural in 2009. (Suffice to say that at the time I had a good rant about it with my favorite poet, Alexandra Burack, who also happens to be my cousin.) (Continue Reading)
Zooming with a World Famous Editor and a Debut Author with a Seven-Figure Advance
Let me say first that this was a large Zoom group, and the editor and author are both alumni of Selwyn, one of the colleges of the University of Cambridge, as I am. I did manage to ask one question. Since it was a private group I shall not name the figures, though you may be able to guess who they are, particularly the editor.
The editor founded one of the largest independent publishers in the world in the eighties, and has published Booker Prize winners and Nobel Prize winners. He also discovered JK Rowling–to whom he offered the princely advance of £1,500 for her first novel. (Her agent persuaded him to raise the offer to £2,500!) Many people in the meeting asked questions about how to find a publisher, whether an agent was necessary, and so on. (Continue Reading)
Three Fantasies
Victor LaValle, The Changeling, 2017, Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk, & Tasha Suri, Empire of Sand, 2018
Fantasy fiction seems to be in the midst of a crisis. The content of recent novels is ripe with bizarre plots and characters––the more extreme the better. Of course, I’m basing this on a small sample, but it’s worth pointing out in hopes someone will read this and prove me wrong.
I couldn’t finish The Changeling, an award-winning novel. It is billed as a fantasy, but what makes it so is a macabre story line where the fantasy portion only appears half way through the book. The book’s title doesn’t make sense for over two hundred pages. The Changeling is really horror, not fantasy, fiction. (Continue Reading)
In Praise of Head-Hopping
“She had discovered that this was the tragedy of being human: unlike every other living thing, each person lived alone inside themselves, always seeking to build a bridge from soul to soul but never really succeeding, at least not for a few shining moments, now and then.” –Carol Bird, A Home Worth Having, 2020.
The great human paradox. Anyone who has lost a loved one to death—and we all have—knows it is so. All human souls have the grief of loss in common, yet each of us must grieve alone. And because this paradox is so obvious in our lived experience, we try to transcend it. Failing that, which we invariably do, we deny it.
Is that why editors of fiction so often insist that human points of view must always be given in isolation from one another? (Continue Reading)
FAVORITE BOOKS ON PANDEMICS, PLAGUES, AND SOCIAL ISOLATION
Last month I asked readers about favorite books on pandemics, plagues, exile, quarantines, and social isolation–on many of our minds for obvious reasons. This month I wanted to share the list of selections in case you have a bit of time on your hands.
Thanks to everyone who helped me build these lists. I’m looking forward to reading some of the selections as the lock-downs promise to continue. Then again, perhaps I’ll just keep plowing through Proust.
Fictional Books on Pandemics, Plagues, and Social Isolation
Here’s a short list of fictional books on pandemics, plagues, and other human tragedies that require quarantines and other forms of social isolation:
- The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. Ten young Italian aristocrats flee Florence to escape the bubonic plague and self-isolate in a secluded countryside villa telling stories, some tragic, some bawdy and irreverent.
(Continue Reading)
Why Fiction Writers Should Read Shakespeare
It struck me recently that I still hadn’t read all of Shakespeare, and there was no real excuse. After all, I claim to be a writer, in English, and Shakespeare has been regarded as the prince of poets for four hundred years. It’s possible that in our benighted days, when even university curricula frequently try to teach identity politics—which means bombarding their students with woke authors of cool ethnicities and sexual persuasions, among other things—Shakespeare, as a Dead White Male from an evil colonial country, is considered irrelevant, or worse, pernicious. But quite apart from the fact that the man was surely gay or bisexual (it’s hard to imagine anyone who’s read the sonnets coming to any other conclusion) and that his plays are full of gender-fluid people, there are compelling literary reasons to read him too. (Continue Reading)
Maggie Stiefvater’s Call Down the Hawk
Call Down The Hawk is book one of The Dream Trilogy by fantasy author Maggie Stiefvater. Stiefvater has created a unique fantasy world in which there are dreamers who can create things in the real world––some times those dreams are under their control; sometimes not. Sometimes they dream duplicates of themselves, which can get complicated. Then there are those who are hunting the dreamers to kill them.
Stiefvater is a master at creating fantastic worlds. The problem to this reader is that the world overwhelms the story. The lack of a defined plot in the early chapters made my following the story a challenge. That’s an issue which only improves slightly as the story progresses.
That’s not to say she doesn’t create interesting characters as well as well as interesting possibilities. (Continue Reading)
2020: Reviewing a Year of Reading
2020, a Year in Reading
When Virtue is Absent
Think of a movie or book you love where not a single character, not even the hero, is truly virtuous. For old-timers like me, “The Sting” (you know, starring Robert Redford) immediately comes to mind. For literary types, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith. Both are about con artists, though the crooks in “The Sting” are fun and are just ripping off illegal gamblers, where Mr. Ripley is, well, pretty much everything that personifies awfulness. The fact is that there are compelling anti-heroes for all literary tastes, the common ingredient being that we somehow end up rooting for them despite their criminality. What is the point of works like this–what are we supposed to do with them? Now that I’m working on a novel about a professional rumrunner during Prohibition (based very loosely on my grandfather), these questions are beginning to haunt me. (Continue Reading)