Fast Company

Before I get to my review of Hard Case’s debut originals, I wanted to mention the National Book Awards in advance of the dinner tonight. I’ll take a stab at choosing the winner, Lilly Tuck. Novels about Irish women in Paraguay are in short supply; and to the other finalists, congratulations, and I hope your lives feel enriched by this experience after all.

The publisher of HARD CASE CRIME, Charles Ardai, was interviewed here several weeks ago. He’s written LITTLE GIRL LOST under the nomme de plume of Richard Aleas, which is witty. The novel is done in the classic style of hardboiled crime. John Blake is a young PI looking for his high school sweetheart on the mean streets of NYC. Blake isn’t so much looking for Miranda, she’s been murdered, as trying to reconstruct her life. Miranda went off to college ten years earlier, yet wound up dead, a stripper in a sleazy joint in Lower Manhattan. The clues lead Blake to some rough customers, another missing girl and a stripper with a heart. Aleas blends these classic elements into a fast-paced noir thriller of the old school. The ending gives the story a nice twist, the writing is solid, the setting just as grim as you’d like. The format allows you to slip the novel into your pocketbook or your jacket just like your parents did back in the day.

FADE TO BLONDE by Max Phillips, takes root in 1940s Los Angeles. The war is over and the GIs are back including Ray Corson. Ray is a versatile guy; an ex-boxer, Ray can re-roof the house, write a screenplay, even help a dame like Rebecca La Fountaine get out of a jam with a local gangster. The trouble is Rebecca’s no angel and isn’t always telling Ray the whole truth. That’s part of the fun as Ray gets up close and personal with the local hoods. It’s fast, the Forties and the City of Angels are lovingly on display as fists fly, various bones are broken, and Rebecca weaves her femme fatale web with brisk assurance.

Please note my original post confused Max Phillips with another famous Max. Sorry for the error.

Robert Birnbaum talks to Don Lee

Sometimes I feel a little silly linking to something that I know everybody and their cousin will be linking to but then I figure what the heck, it can’t hurt. So if you haven’t already, click on over to Robert Birnbaum’s discussion with Don Lee. It continues to baffle me why newspapers and magazines don’t publish stuff like this. It is really interesting to feel like you are just listening in to a conversation between an author and someone who obviously has read and cares about their work. It has an honesty and a casualness that I find refreshing. Here is a taste to wet your whistle:

RB: The time factor aside, is it hard for you to write? I suppose it cuts into your windsurfing.

DL: [laughs] Well, I get as many days as I can. I pissed and moaned about writing this novel the entire way through.

DL: With my friends I kept on referring to it as the TFN, the f—ing novel. But in retrospect, it really wasn’t that hard. I was able to discipline myself so that–one decision that I made was if I was going to write this in any kind of reasonable amount of time, I had to make it a plot-driven book. It was the first novel I had ever attempted. And I knew I could get bogged down and it would take me eight or ten years or something if I didn’t have it really relying on story. So that was a deliberate choice, to make it a quasi mystery or play with the mystery genre. That made it a lot easier for me. I was able to switch it on and off, so come Friday morning I was at my desk and was able to write. Granted it would take me–my objective was to write two chapters a month, and to write the 1st draft in one year, which I did. But granted it would take me the entire 8 hours of the day to write 2 damn pages [both laugh] where I would be sitting there constantly getting up and taking naps or checking e-mail. All of these sorts of things–you play all kinds of tricks on yourself to get yourself to write. So what I did was write the entire thing in long hand. And made myself not revise until I got to the end. And I would just keep on going. At the end of the year, I had 20 legal pads.

Ancestral Shadows by Russell Kirk

Close readers of this site know that Russell Kirk is one of my intellectual mentors. Despite having lived in the same state (Michigan) for many years I never had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Kirk. But his writing, which I discovered while working for the Heritage Foundation in D.C., has had a big impact on my political philosophy (see here and here). Kirk is most famous for his groundbreaking The Conservative Mind, and for works like The Roots of American Order and A Program for Conservatives. Kirk had a unique ability to blend together political philosophy and history in a way that was both educational and inspirational; that illuminated the past but also pointed a path for the future.

Despite his accomplishments as one of the fathers of modern American conservatism, Russell Kirk is not exactly a household name. Even less known is that Kirk was also an award winning fiction writer. In fact, in a recent review Michael Dirda lauds Kirk as the “greatest American author of ghostly tales in the classic style, at least of the post-World War II era.” Two recently released collections of Kirk’s short stories prompted this praise. Ancestral Shadows: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales, published by Eerdmans, collects a wide array of Kirk’s ghostly tales but those seeking the complete collection will need to seek out the costlier but complete Off the Sand Road and What Shadows We Pursue by Ash Tree Press. I recently finished reading Ancestral Shadows and, despite my knowledge of Kirk, was amazed at the skill and imagination these stories reveal.

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No Good Deed

There are two souls within me as Goethe once pointed out; this is true not only of people, but of entire communities. Publishing is no exception. The National Book Award nominations have ignited a discussion that exposes the duality of a business that wants to blend art and commerce without splattering the kitchen walls.

I’d offer an overview of the book business this way. You’ve opened a restaurant that offers subtle sophisticated food; the portions are small and beautifully presented. The chef is tempermental, but that only adds to the ambience; you’re going broke because, on average, you’re drawing three people a night to your place. So, you start selling pizzas out the back door. The pizza guys can’t make enough of the stuff. Pretty soon, the cash register is ringing. The place is profitable. Your accountant will take your phone calls.

But you didn’t want to sell pizza. The editors at Gourmet turn up their noses. You want to sell tornedoes of lamb in plum sauce reduction, but the Phillistines, your customers, want spaghetti and meatballs.

Here are my nominees for the NBA. Plum Sykes for Bergdorf Blondes. Her treatment of the language almost defies description. I wept. Pamela Anderson for Star; sure, go ahead and laugh. Pam loses points for her ghost writer. Faye and Jon Kellerman for Double Homicide; reading this can destroy brain cells that won’t regenerate, much like a pepperoni and sausage pizza. Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich; eviscerates the canon like a house on fire. Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Hilarious with undertones of magical realism, outdoor scenes in Tuscany, and philandering RV salesmen; a juggernaut that grabs you by the throat, kicks you in the gut, bends your thumbs.

Oprah, just move it on over.

Topic Du Jure

Since everybody seems to be talking about it, allow me to weigh in on the Caryn James piece on the National Book Awards. Some reactions have been rather sharp (see here and here for example) although OGIC has come to the defense.

To me the piece seemed valid criticism marred by a lack of focus. There seems to be a couple of things going on here. One is her central critique that the books are too similar. She argues that four sparse short-story orientated books by mostly unknown women writers from New York City don’t offer the diversity one expects from a significant literary award panel.

After introducing this critique, she rather awkwardly tries to discuss the merits of each book in turn. This is the muckiest part of the piece. You are never quiet sure whether the books are good but too similar or if they are all similarly bad. After discussing the books, James then ends by reinforcing her initial point about the lack of breadth in the nominations.

I think the two issues should have been handled separately, or James should have been given more space. It seems to me her rushed review of the books doesn’t help her argument that awards should reflect a range of writing. There is a plausible argument to be made that literary award nominations are best served by highlighting a wide range of writing. This both avoids turning off people by ignoring a particular style or perspective while at the same time communicating that the process was an open one with a wide range of writing being considered.

Granted that books that have already received a great deal of publicity (like Roth’s latest) don’t really need more hype, but these books shouldn’t be punished for being popular either. Regardless, nominating three books that are so similar in aesthetic and whose authors backgrounds seem similar does raise an interesting question, and James is not being snarky to discuss it.

But because she feels compelled to discuss each book in turn in a sort of mini-review, she fails to make a compelling argument about diversity in the nominations nor does she offer much of a review of the books themselves. It seems to me that the editors should have forced James to do one or the other. Either make an argument about the NBA process and or discuss the books themselves. The failing here is not in tone or attitude but rather a lack of clarity and focus.

It is funny how often I worry that my book reviews and commentary tend to meander and get off topic. It is equally interesting how often I run into pieces published by journalists in major outlets whose work is no more focused or elegant than my own. I am not saying that I deserve, or want for that matter, a column at the New York Times, but clearly journalists struggle with the same issues we bloggers do – and sometimes they fail. This is the true power of blogs. Once a large group of intelligent and talented people realized that they could write just as well or better than many “journalists” the gig was up. The media world was bound to change once cheap and effective tools became available for “amateur” writers to communicate with a wider audience.

Good Pulp

The New Republic’s “Pulps” feature has usually been an excuse to read a pop culture bestseller and psychoanalyze the general reading public; sort of pop culture as tea leaves. For the most part this has mean bad literature but interesting theorizing. This week, however, they have stumbled upon a book worthy of its buzz: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell By Susanna Clarke. Sacha Zimmerman is positively bubbly about the work:

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is an exceptional work. It is thoughtful and irrepressibly imaginative. At a staggering near-800 pages, I never once felt bored or overwhelmed. But Clarke is demanding: She engenders a subtle and refined depth through symbols and broad themes that challenge societal constructs at every turn. The novel’s literary triumph is as significant as the epic plot. In other words, this is no ordinary pulp.

Zimmerman almost convinces me to take up this much talked about work. But I will admit that the prospect of reading a 800 page book right now is just too much. Maybe when I have made a dent in my current TBR pile I can summon the energy to tackle this one, but for now I will have to pass despite all the buzz.

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