Last night I had the opportunity to attend part of a reading by the new Booker Prize winner DBC Pierre (he won for Vernon God Little), and Dan Rhodes, whose book Timoleon Vieta Come Home was shortlisted. Rhodes went first, mentioning that were he to purchase a star map, he would be interested only in finding Morissey’s house. He then read some super short stories from his “cult favorite,” Anthropology: and a Hundred Other Stories, which were charming and amusing in a Richard Brautigan sort of way. Here are four of them. Perhaps the high point was when he read some unpublished work, which turned out to be a story he wrote when he was seven. It was about a pop star/football star who “goes wee on everyone.” DBC Pierre, when it was his turn to read, offered this interesting nugget: he said that since he is a new writer he does not read very much for fear of corrupting his fragile writing voice — an odd sentiment, but one that I’m sure some writers can relate to.
Booker Laureates
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How Yasmin Zaher Wrote the Year’s Best New York City Novel
"This is going to sound absurd, but in a novel, you can say the truth, and in journalism, you cannot."
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Things Got Weird: On the Early ‘90s Crack-Up
Ganz vividly renders the early 1990s’ shouty yet blankly confused alienations along with the endlessly gassy and vituperative “whither America?” debates.
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The Beguiling Crónicas of Hebe Uhart
'A Question of Belonging' is marked by an unerring belief that a good story can be found almost anywhere.
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