Following up on Monday’s post, as it turns out, that missing issue of the New Yorker turned up (bearing a paper jacket reminding me to renew and sporting a torn cover) a day after this week’s issue landed in the mailbox. So it appears as though I won’t be skipping an issue after all. Luckily for me, I’m going on vacation for a few days, and I’m hoping this will afford me some time to catch up. (Incidentally, you can expect The Millions to go dark through Sunday while we take a break.)
Back on Track
Literary power couples
I’ve been getting emails extolling the virtues of Nicole Krauss’s new novel, The History of Love lately. She, by the way, is also known as the wife of Jonathan Safran Foer, and there has been some suggestion that her new novel suspiciously resembles his. Seems like sour grapes to me, but it did get me thinking about contemporary literary couples, and how it seems like there’s a lot of them. There’s Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt. And then there’s the couples where the woman is the bigger star like Zadie Smith and Nick Laird (he’s a poet… does that even count?) and Alice Sebold and Glen David Gold. There must be others… writers attract writers it seems.This, of course, is not a new trend. Here’s a list of some of history’s literary power couples that I borrowed from a UPenn english department Web site: Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris, and Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson.
My brief encounter with J.T. Leroy
I saw this post at Galleycat about the mysterious transvestite cult author J.T. Leroy (Sarah, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things). As the Galleycat post suggests, there has been much speculation over the years about whether or not Leroy is a real person or perhaps simply the pseudonym and persona of another author, and the evidence remains inconclusive. Having never read any of Leroy’s books, I don’t have much to say about Leroy as writer, but, as a bookstore clerk in Los Angeles, I did see him (or someone pretending to be him) in the flesh, so I may have something to add on the subject of whether or not he exists.I’m probably a little off on some of the specifics, but here’s what I remember. On a weekday sometime during 2002 or 2003 (see, I told you I’m a little foggy here), the manager told us that she’d gotten a call from Leroy’s representative and that he would be stopping by to sign some books. We bookstore clerks, aware of Leroy’s reclusiveness, mysteriousness, and even the possibility that he didn’t exist, awaited his arrival with much curiosity. Many speculated that it was a hoax and he wouldn’t show. But then he did. He wore very baggy clothes including a much too large gray hooded sweatshirt. The hood was pulled low over his face, which was further obscured by a disheveled blonde wig. In photos, you almost never see Leroy’s face, and even though we were in close proximity to him as he signed books, none of us got a very good look at him. Nor did he talk much, mumbling one word answers or giggling nervously in response to our questions. The strange thing was, even though my coworkers and I had all seen him in the flesh, after he was gone none of us were any more or less sure that he was actually real.
New Books in August
The summer, that great season of reading, is now on the wane. And as the autumn swings into view, you might be looking for a book to prolong the escapism of the season or perhaps to provide you with some comfort as the cooler months settle in. August is not traditionally a great month for new books. It’s too late for “summer reads” and too early yet for the holiday retail push. Still, this August there will be several books that will be worth a look. It’s an eclectic and intriguing list, and I’ll start with the title that I am most looking forward to. Harbor is a novel about an Algerian immigrant named Aziz who has stowed away in a tanker’s hold for 52 days in order to illegally enter the United States. Upon his arrival, however, there isn’t much stopping him from becoming an unwitting participant in the war on terror. The book was written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Lorraine Adams. For those who enjoy short stories, check out a new collection by young writer named Courtney Eldridge. Unkempt consists of seven stories as well as a novella entitled “The Former World Record Holder Settles Down” in which the “world record” refers to the now happily married title character’s past life as a porn star. The Wasp Eater, a debut novel by William Lychack, sounds especially intriguing. The book is set in New England in 1979 and is about a nine-year-old boy who is caught between his estranged parents. It is, I’m told, beautifully written, and both wrenching and uplifting. For those looking for a more light-hearted book there’s another debut effort: An Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray. The lead character, Charles Hythloday, is a loveable drunkard from an eccentric family, and his life of leisure is about to be severely curtailed by his feisty sister and the return of his long lost mother. This one is being described as a hilarious update on classic British humor and it was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award no less. Also sure to tickle your funny bone is Eating Crow by Jay Rayner about a restaurant reviewer named Marc Basset whose cruel review drives a chef to suicide. Basset is compelled to make an apology, and, after discover the palliative effects of such an act, decides to make a career of it, eventually becoming Chief Apologist for the United Nations. Viciously funny, I’m told. Two better-known authors will be releasing books in August as well. Arthur Phillips will release The Egyptologist, which is supposed to be even better than his big selling debut Prague. Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk has a new book out as well, Snow. Pamuk’s previous book, My Name is Red, was a favorite among many readers, but this new offering is supposed to be dense and challenging. Still, some believe that a dense and challenging book is the best way to counteract a summer’s worth of fluffy beach reading.Harbor by Lorraine Adams — excerptUnkempt by Courtney Eldridge — short storyThe Wasp Eater by William Lychack — interviewAn Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray — excerptEating Crow by Jay Rayner — excerpt, The Apology LogThe Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips — excerptSnow by Orhan Pamuk — excerpt
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New book previews: Michael Cunningham, Dai Sijie, Terry Gamble, Kaui Hart Hemmings
Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer-winning novel The Hours was one of the biggest hits of the last ten years, so it’s fair to say that his follow-up Specimen Days is being anticipated by many readers. Like The Hours, Specimen Days is composed of three interrelated stories. The title of the novel is borrowed from Walt Whitman’s autobiography, and much as Virginia Woolf was the inspiration for The Hours, Whitman provides raw material for Specimen Days. The book gets a gushing review in the New York Observer: Specimen Days is “an extraordinary book, as ambitious as it is generous; and the depth of its kindness, or grace, is to convey that it is we ourselves, the multitude, who are extraordinary, or might be.”Another anticipated follow up is Dai Sijie’s Mr. Muo’s Traveling Couch, which comes on the heels of Sijie’s popular novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. Traveling Couch (no relation to the Traveling Pants as far as I know) is about a French-trained psychoanalyst who returns to his native China where his sweetheart is a political prisoner. You can read an excerpt of the book here.Terry Gamble has new book out, Good Family, her second novel after her 2003 debut, Water Dancers. Good Family starts like this: “In the years before our grandmother died, when my sister and I wore matching dresses, and the grown-ups, unburdened by conscience, drank gin and smoked; those years before planes made a mockery of distance, and physics a mockery of time; in the years before I knew what it was like to be regarded with hard, needy want, when my family still had its goodness, and I my innocence; in those years before Negroes were blacks, and soldiers went AWOL, and women were given their constrained, abridged liberties, we traveled to Michigan by train.”Kaui Hart Hemmings is the author of a debut collection of stories, House of Thieves, that sounds very interesting. Hemmings is Hawaiian, and PW says “a dusty, dreamy Hawaii rife with sexual frustration, loneliness and adolescent heartbreak is the setting for the nine stories of Hemmings’s bold debut collection.” Her story “The Minor Wars” appeared in the 2004 Best Nonrequired Reading, and here you can read an excerpt of the title story which appeared in Zoetrope: All Story.
Have a good break:)