The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Good writing. Novel idea. Imaginative. Unique. Alternate history mystery.

But I was terribly disappointed in the ending. The novel just stops - there is no denouement. There are major threads of the plot that are left hanging. It left me very dissatisfied.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

This book got great reviews and won the Pultizer Prize. Diaz came up with a unique voice. The title is somewhat misleading. The novel is really about the culture of the Dominican Republic and the diasporo follwing unrest there. It follows a family curse that culminates in the death of Oscar Wao.

Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo

Another exceptional book by Richard Russo, and another insightful look at small town America.

Also interesting from a craft standpoint. It's the story of a trio of friends - two boys and a girl. Their interaction comes to a climax in their senior year of High School, but the novel begins when they are 60. The portion of the story that occurs when they are 60 serves as a narrative wrapper around the rest of the story, which follows the two boys from childhood through High School, and the girl from about age thirteen on.

The parents play an important part as well, and the behavior of the children is foreshadowed by that of their parents. The 60 year old characters again have their behavior echoed by their own children.

Third person is used for all the characters except one. that one is used as the central character of the book, and his story is told in first person. He is also a slightly unreliable narrator, in that a lot of the story that he relates is contradicted by other characters. This adds an extra dimension to the storytelling.

There are plenty of echos in the novel, from the bridges that are in the title to the repeated character traits of the parents and children. Richard Russo's insight into human character is what makes the novel an outstanding read.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

A clever, original book. Written in the second person plural ("We"), it is a darkly comic examination of office life. Are they friends, or just co-workers? Do they care for and look out for each other, or are their jobs more important than personal relationships. The book follows an advertising agency as it declines and workers are laid off. Very true to life and authentic.

The Fireman's Wife by Jack Riggs

A sad and tragic book, but intriguing. I especially liked it since the settings were my old stomping grounds - the low country of South Carolina and the mountains of western North Carolina. It's the story of Cassie, who is married to a fireman, Peck, and has a fifteen-year-old daughter. She is having an affair with another fireman, and unwisely exposes her daughter to her misconduct.

Cassie is not a very likable character. She is self-centered, selfish, and whines constantly about her life. I just wanted to slap her. Her husband Peck, coping in the best way he can, is much more likable.

The novel is told in the first-person serial format, unusual and rare, but not unique. There are only two viewpoints, Cassie and Peck. The climax is a surprise, and I can't reveal anything about it without ruining the book for the prospective reader. But, as the title suggests, this is Cassie's story. As much as I might want it to be about Peck, or Peck and Cassie together, in the end Cassie is the focus.

It's a great read, extremely well written, and there are plenty of little things to keep the reader turning the pages.

Job: A comedy of justice by Robert Heinlein

Picked this up as reading material for a backpacking trip. I read it years ago, back when it first came out. Heinlein is strong on ideas and creativity - not so strong on other things. This is a retelling of the Job story from the old testament, with the added twist that the Judeo-Christian God is not the only God.

Never Too Late by John Holt

An interesting non-fiction book about the author's efforts to become an amateur musician late in life. I say amateur not as a comment on his ability, but because he did not use music to make money - except by writing this book. The first and last chapters are the best, in which he recounts his personal experiences as a musician. The middle chapters are more of a journey narrative and were not as interesting to me.

But the book is inspiring if you are like me and trying to be more musical late in life.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agathe Christie

I read this years ago, and when I finished it I threw it across the room in disgust. But my book club was looking for a challenging mystery, so I suggested this. Let me just say this - unreliable narrator. Probably best example I have ever read. So I read it again, knowing the ending, just to see what sense I could make of it. The ending still made me mad!

The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis

Senior citizen sex! Have I gotten your attention? Wisely the author did not dscribe the sex in any detail - visualization is left to the reader. But there is plenty of it here. Four or five couples (there are a lot of characters) that have known each other for decades have their lives disrupted when one old couple returns to their hometown. It's like the TV show "Friends" for seniors - they have all slept with each other.

They also do an incredible amount of drinking and smoking, pub crawling all over a fictional Wales. That is part of the theme of the book, searching for the old Wales and the real Welchman. There is a fictional poet that serves as the symbol of that search. Celebrated as a great Welch poet, he didn't even speak Welch.

It's a good read, full of wry British humor.

South Carolina Writers Workshop Complaint

I attended the SCWW in 2007 and had a good time. I received an excellent manuscript critique and met some authors and agents that I liked and respected. So I decided to go back in 2008, and convinced my wife to go with me.

Unfortunately my brother passed away just two days before the conference, at age fifty-nine, from complications related to colon cancer. The three months prior to that were spent traveling back and forth to see him when I could and thinking about him the rest of the time. Not much writing got done. Missing the conference was of little consequence in the big picture at the time. Now that I've had a couple of weeks to recover, it has left a very bad impression.

They give no refunds on such short notice, so the money is gone. The Hilton also required a one night cancellation fee. Since my wife was accompanying me this year, we are out about a thousand dollars. My wife appealed to the SCWW, to no avail.

I had also paid one hundred dollars extra for an extended critique. They said there was no way they would arrange for the critique by phone or email, or even tell me who was doing the critique. Both my wife and I appealed via email. Yesterday I got a five line email that contained my extended critique. I won't name who gave the critique, but my impression is simple carelessness. Even though I paid extra, I am just not worth the time or effort because I was unable to attend in person.

So this is my rant against the South Carolina Writers Workshop. If I had been able to attend, no doubt I would have had a very different impression, but the careless and callous treatment I have received will probably prevent me from ever attending again.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

A coming of age novel, but of a ten-year-old boy. Doyle captures the manic immaturity of a child very well. It brought back memories, even though this novel takes place in Ireland. The superstitions in particular struck a chord with me - I remember thinking those same things when I was a kid.

It's a series of short scenes, all in first person in the voice of a boy. He's not a very nice boy either - he terrorizes his younger brother and his friends, engaging in acts of cruelty and viciousness that only kids are capable of. So Paddy Clarke is not very likable.

The novel is essentially plotless. A novel without a plot has to have something else to give it forward motion and to keep the reader interested. Doyle uses the incomplete understanding of Paddy as he watches his parents argue and his father become violent with his mother. Perhaps Paddy will turn out like his father, since he also seems to hurt those that he loves.

I have to compare it to Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. Atwood actually wraps the story of the young girl coming of age in a frame of the girl as an adult. In my opinion, a much better way to tell the story - it certainly kept my interest more than this novel, which tended to drag - I was tempted to skip ahead. If you have ever spent any time with a child of that age you will now what I mean - a little bit goes a long way.

Good Poems by Garrison Keillor

A collection of poems that Keillor has used on his daily "Writer's Almanac." Poems for every mood.

Flying at Night by Ted Kooser

I love Ted Kooser's poetry. So seemingly simple, yet so complex.

The Perfect Wrong Note - Learning to Trust Your Musical Self by William Westney

This book reinforces the idea that it is OK to make mistakes - a good thing, since I make a lot of them. Surprising how many musicians subscribe to the cult that mistakes in practice are bad. The best example in the book is that of a child learning to feed itself - they make a mess, and yet they learn how to be an expert in no time. To practice so carefully that no mistakes are made doesn't work for me as a practice technique. Better to play with energy and enthusiasm and plenty of wrong notes - then correct them.

The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green

An inspirational book that helps musicians get in touch with their inner, creative selves. A worthwhile read.

The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green

An inspirational book that helps musicians get in touch with their inner, creative selves. A worthwhile read.

Possession by A. S. Byatt

This novel is a wonderful treat for readers who love good reading, and it's a remarkable achievement. Part literary fiction, part mystery, part romance, the story follows a group of unlikely detectives - professors of English Literature. The mystery involves the romantic relationship between a pair of Victorian poets, and is traced through their letters and poems and the journals of people around them.

I have to confess that I was fooled. I had never heard of the two Victorian poets featured in the novel - not so surprising, I guess. So I went to wikipedia and did a search and found out they were fictional. Not only did Byatt create the modern characters, but the historical ones as well, including writing their poetry and prose. A remarkable achievement.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

A great book, well written and captivating. The story of a reluctant travel writer who breaks out of the rut of his life when he meets an eclectic dog trainer.

A much better novel, in my opinion, than Breathing Lessons, for which Anne Tyler won the Pulitzer. There were moments in Breathing Lessons when I just wished the novel would stop - it was too long, but this novel is much more balanced and is a pleasure to read.

Grand Obsession by Perri Knize

A cool book, very interesting, about one woman's quest to find the perfect piano. She starts out with a $3k budget and ends up spending ten times that much, only to have her dream come apart when her new piano arrives and it just doesn't sound the same as it did in the showroom. She continues her quest, now to get it tuned and voiced. Three years later she is finally "satisfied".

Sounds obsessive, and a little crazy, but it's actually a very enjoyable read, especially for any piano lover.

Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

What an odd book. I don't mean that the writing is odd - it's actually very good. The characters are odd, but they are also unique. I don't think I have encountered any like them before. The plot is also odd - very odd. I don't want to give anything away, but things do not work out quite the way I expected. Which is probably a good thing.

It's a historical novel, set in Australia and England in the 1860s. There is a minimal framework where it seems that a modern great-grandchild is actually telling the story. The framework is really only needed for the final twist at the end - and no I won't reveal what that odd plot twist is - you'll have to read those 400+ pages to see what it is.

Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland

Sad to say, this piece of trash is typical of popular fiction. It's just the quest plot, rehashed - young person holds the fate of the world in their hands. She has special powers, of course, and has to be trained. One of her mentors is even dead. Sound like Luke Skywalker? or Harry Potter? Add vampires and magic.

It's a formula book. I can see the author thinking, "what can I write that will appeal to female readers, a real hip crowd?" And she comes up with a sarcastic, snarky female protagonist, that can save the world if only she has sex with enough hunky men. What crap. I'm actually sorry I read it.

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

The structure of this novel is excellent. It's the story of an elderly woman on her deathbed he relates her history. Those portions of the narrative that take place in the present time are in the first person. At other times the narration is in the third person, even when the author uses the point of view of the narrator. Very unusual. What is even more interesting is that the third person scenes are often of the same episode. For instance, when the narrator relates to her lover that she is pregnant, we get it from the viewpoint of both the narrator and her lover. Writers will frequently write a scene from two different points of view as an exercise - here the exercise is polished and included in the book!

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

I love a good literary novel - I read them almost exclusively. But this one is just too loosey-goosey for me. Too unstructured, too haphazard. The opposite of clear and succinct. And I am sure the author worked very hard to make it that way.

How Late it Was, How Late by James Kelman

I gave this book about a hundred pages before giving up on it. It's written entirely in dialect - Scottish. The odd thing is that it is third person, not first person, so the unseen, unnamed narrator is talking in dialect.

There are also no chapter breaks. That's not enough by itself to make me give up on a book, but it is aggravating.

So I gave up on it. It just wasn't worth the effort, and this is a Booker prize winner. Life's too short...

The Remains of the Day by Kazui Ishiguro

This could be the perfect, short, first-person novel. It can't be more than 70k words, yet it says so much. The voice of Stevens the butler is perfect, as is his questioning of his past while he professes to be so proud of it.

I only wish that I had read it before seeing the movie. I can't tell if my love of the book has been influenced by the images from the movie. They are both excellent.

The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks

A historical novel about Carrie McGavock, who just happened to live on the the edge of a battle in the waning months of the Civil War. Her house was used for a field hospital, and the battle was one of the bloodiest of the war. Later she led an effort to move the dead from their hasty burial places on the battlefield to a cemetery on her property.

This is a novel about those facts, and the author focuses on the attempts by the survivors to make sense of what has happened. Why did so many die, and for what? It is essentially an unanswerable question, I think, although the author makes a valiant attempt.

A lot of the novel is devoted to answering those questions. In my opinion, maybe too much. Late in the novel there is a little bit of drama as the battleground is threatened by the plow, and some conflict emerges over saving the bodies from destruction.

There's also some unorthodox craft in the telling of the story. Some of the chapters are in the first person viewpoint of the two principal characters. The rest of the chapters are in third person. An unusual technique, but not unheard of.

I thought the novel, after the beginning, was going to be something along the line of the "Spoon River Anthology", since one of the characters is gifted at envisioning the dead - that might have been a very interesting method of telling the story - alternate chapters that deal with the present difficulties with chapters from the dead soldiers. Instead the novel drags in the middle - how many times can we revisit the same questions?

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

What a strange book. Set in India, paternal twins are involved in the death o their cousin - something that affects them as adults. The story is told by jumping back and forth in time, from when the twins were only children to when they are thirty. That's not so unusual - it's a common tactic of novelists, but the author dribbles out the facts of the tragedy in small bits of premonition here and there. Here's an example:

He assumed, not without reason, that he would be the first in his family to follow in his mother's wake. He would learn otherwise. Soon. Too soon.

Which, of course, gets the reader thinking who the other members of the family are and why they might die. The author as narrator is giving us privileged information that only the author knows. She does this constantly, as a way of keeping the reader interested while she paints the picture of India and the lives of the children and the adults around them.

It worked very well for me for about 200 pages - then I got impatient with it. Even near the end, when the reader has discovered most of what happened, the author still is digressing into the lives of peripheral characters when I just wanted the torture of not knowing what happened to be over.

And yet, there is no single scene that describes the tragedy completely. It's all told in bits and pieces, which ultimately detracted from the final pages for me.

One thing the author can do very well is write from the viewpoint of a female child. She was perfect.

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

Despair would be a better title, since that is the tone of this novel. And it sums up how I felt when I finished reading it.

I loathe the protagonist. He is selfish, hypocritical, melodramatic, and unrepentant. He is worse than the characters who commit violent acts in the novel.

So it's tough for me to get past my dislike for the protagonist and the overall feeling of despair I get when reading this. Is the author a good writer? Yes. Would I recommend this book? No.

Last Orders by Graham Swift

An outstanding novel. Obviously a homage to Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. The narration is the same - first person serial, with seven of the characters sharing the duties of narration, all in first person. The chapter titles are the names of the characters who narrate, except for the chapters which are named for locations, which serve to advance the action.

The story is similar to Faulkner also. A man has died, and wishes his friends and family to make a trip to throw his ashes off a pier. Sound similar?

And it shares some of the black humor of Faulkner as well, although not as dramatic. With Faulkner, I shook my head in disbelief at the actions of the characters, while actually believing what had occurred. Swift does not evoke that same reaction, but portions of the character's "quest" are wryly humorous.

So an outstanding effort. I admire anyone who can plan and execute a novel of this much precision.

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

An interesting novel of WWI. An English doctor compares and contrasts the customs and beliefs of Polynesian headhunters with the conduct of soldiers in the war.

This is the third book in a series, and I read it because it won the Booker prize, without reading the previous novels. It was tough to get started because of that. The author didn't waste any time recapping what had happened before, so I had to guess and piece together the characters as best I could. I have to say it is not intended to be read without the preceding novels, but I managed.

"It's not worth it" is the basic message here, referring to the war. There are also graphic descriptions of homosexual sex too. One of the soldiers is bisexual, engaged to be married, and has sex with female prostitutes, his fiance, and various men. I believe his character may be explained better in the previous novels, or at least the author may give some background.

So it's interesting, just not that effective standing alone.

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

Sort of the Australian version of the James gang from the American west. It even happened around the same time. This is a novel, although it may be based on fact - I didn't realize this until I read the acknowledgments at the end. It's written in the form of a journal by Ned Kelly, an account of his true history addressed to his daughter.

Which is part of the problem I had with the book. Kelly didn't know how to use commas, or, more correctly, the author chose that Kelly should write that way. Not only commas, but the usual things that an author would use to show that his narrator is uneducated. Makes the novel a little difficult to get interested in, and hard to read, and wearing. I almost gave up around page 200 - it was just more of the same, but I slogged all the way to the end.

It won the Booker prize, but I was not that impressed.

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

A strange little novel, with an unexpected twist at the end. I don't think I have ever read a novel with an ending like this one. I've read about murders, and suicides, and accidental deaths, but nothing like this - don't worry, I won't give it away.

It is very short. This edition is less than 200 pages, and with large print. It might be 50 thousand words. Yet the author gets his story out there and nothing seems to be missing. Not a lot of words are wasted, obviously.

His novel, Atonement, is one of my favorites. This novel is very different, but it's also finely crafted and a delight to read.

Middlemarch by George Eliot

A nuanced and complex novel that deals realistically with life. Comparisons with her contemporary Charles Dickens are inevitable. Compared to Eliot, Dickens seems overly sentimental and even a little crude in his portrayal of characters and their motivations - and I love my Dickens. But Eliot (actually the female author Mary Ann Evans) has an insight into the psychological makeup of her characters that rings true.

How I spent my summer vacation

Actually, how I have been spending my summer. Several highlights:

- Signed up for the South Carolina Writer's Conference in October. Polished up the beginning of the latest novel and sent it off to be critiqued. Laurie will be going with me this time - that's good news, because I can be a painfully-shy wallflower when alone.

- Spent our vacation at the John C. Campbell Folk School. We both took a memoir writing class from Vicki Hunt. That was a great time, and she's an excellent and insightful teacher. The class sessions were very "Oprahesque", as we all shared episodes from our past. I'm not really very keen on writing a memoir, but writing is writing, and I had a good time. Came away with a version of my "Broken Keys" story that everybody liked. We had a reading on the last night, and I got so choked up reading it that I had to stop and try to recover. Very embarrassing, but everyone was very nice about it. I guess that episode of the broken piano afected me more than I realized.

- So I converted the first person memoir about the broken piano to a 3rd person short story - added some scenes, narrativem and dialog, rearraged things, etc. Sent it off to Glimmer Train for the "Family Matters" contest they have every so often. Should hear back from them fairly soon - they are very good at reviewing submissions.

So the summer has been productive. I know I made the resolution to let the novel rest and work on shorter pieces and I have done that. We'll see what happens...

Ipod touch test post

A test of posting from my iPod touch. A cute trick, but too tedious for a substantive post.

Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre

A very strange book. It's not the plot that's strange, although it is somewhat surreal at times, not the characters, or the setting. It's the narrator, who is crude and scatologically obsessed. It's like watching an episode of South Park or Family Guy, but without a lot of the humor. Although there is some wry, satirical humor.

Vernon Little is the narrator, a teenager from Texas caught in the tragedy of a school shooting. He is blamed for it, or at least targeted as the scapegoat, and then all manner of unlikely events occur.

So if you can get past the constant images of shit and crap and the aroma of poontang, you might actually enjoy this book.

Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood

Woman recovering from cancer surgery goes to a Caribbean island for a work/vacation trip and becomes involved in political upheaval. Not my favorite Atwood novel. I had a tough time understanding the point of it all, something that is usually very clear with her novels. The ending is also very dark.

Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood

Another great early Atwood novel. First published in 1976, her third novel. This is the first one where she employs what will become a favorite technique. She starts at the end of the story, this time with a great opening line: "I planned my death carefully; unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it." That line perfectly describes the novel. Of course, we learn within the first paragraph that she is not really dead, just faking her death, but the reader is already hooked.

After that beginning, Atwood goes back and fills in all the details, so that the reader learns how and why the narrator has gotten to this point. Later Atwood uses this same technique in several more novels, always to great success.

Highly recommended.

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

I'm ashamed to say that I stopped reading this novel in Chapter 8, the second chapter in the second section, about 175 pages in this edition. The reason? boredom.

The boredom was a problem from the start. The characters are not particularly interesting, there's no plot, and the writing is not impressive. Any one of those is usually enough to keep me interested in a literary novel. The novel seems to be an examination of the homosexual lifestyle of the 1980s. So it's a polemical novel, which means it probably has a point, and that point is probably that promiscuous, unprotected sex is hazardous to your mental and physical health. Well, the author was taking too long to make any point to keep me interested.

Which leaves me asking why this novel even got published. Must have been the male homosexual angle.

Standard disclaimer: I'm nobody, why should you listen to my opinion of this book. It won the Man Booker prize in 2004, so the prize committee liked it. Makes me wonder if it wasn't a type of affirmative action award - reward this novel because of some perceived slight for this class of book in the past, regardless of it's real merit.

The Sea by John Banville

The narrator of this novel relives and re-imagines scenes from his childhood and his life with his recently-deceased wife. He has returned to the seaside in an attempt to make sense of what has happened to him.

Banville writes with exquisite prose. There's not much else to propel the reader though, since we get vignettes, imperfectly remembered and confused. Essentially plotless, we don't learn some essential details until almost the end of the novel - so don't give up on it!

I almost Banville hadn't been so stingy with his plot points. The novel would have benefited from an earlier clue about who the landlady really was, for instance. I know it would have kept me reading with more interest to know that something was coming up later that would be more interesting. But the novel won the Booker prize, and has gotten rave reviews, so who am I to criticize?

Highly recommended.

The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

Atwood's very first published novel, way back in 1969. A little awkward, but her promise is obvious. It has the Atwood style and feel about it, even though it is somewhat stiff.

A woman, about to be married and give up her independence, feels as if she is being consumed. She stops eating. Plenty of symbolism, which seems a little heavy-handed at times, something that Atwood doesn't do in her later novels. It's also very slow to begin.

But if you are one of her fans, like I am, by all means give it a read for some insight into the author's early years.

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

I've read almost all the Atwood novels now, at least everything but the obscure ones, and this is my favorite. Why? The characters and the skill with which Atwood draws them for the reader. There are three women, all with very unique and distinctive characters, who all have their men "stolen" by what has to be one of the most evil villains in literature, the robber bride. I say the men were stolen, but they were duplicitous in their own downfall, of course.

This is not some cerebral, fancy-parlor novel of manners, but down-to-earth and grounded in real sin. Atwood spends considerable time and pages drawing the characters of the three victim-women, and detailing their interaction with the robber bride. I have to confess, after this was over and the denouement about to begin, that I had no idea how the novel would end. Surely there would be no cliche-ridden shoot out!. And I was not disappointed, but very satisfied with the ending that Atwood imagined for the readers.

Highly recommended.

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Albom has certainly carved out a niche for himself. What do you call this genre? An inspirational/self-help/supernatural novel? Even the format is unique, always a small hardback with dust jacket, more like a book of poetry than a novel. And they are always short - it can't be much more than 40k words. He has filled a niche that is popular too - people love these little books - I know the ladies in my book club do.

I know I got choked up. I'm not so proud I can't admit to a little bit of emotion while reading this. It's about a man who gets to relive one more day with his dead mother, and learns something that helps him improve his life and the lives of others. Inspirational, self-help, and supernatural!

Is it maudlin, sappy, corny, and overly sentimental? Yes, it's those things too, at least to me. But that's OK too, there's a place for that in fiction as well. So grab a copy and indulge yourself.

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Another great Dickens' novel of biblical proportions. Even the pages of this edition have a scriptural feel to them - thin and vellum-like, with the added benefit of the original illustrations.

And the novel is everything that I have come to expect of Dickens. Plenty of memorable characters and scenes and a plot full of unexpectedly and unbelievable coincidences. You just have to suspend your modern cynicism and go with it - when you do, it's incredibly satisfying. Every character, no matter how insignificant, gets their just desserts at the end.

This is also the novel where Dickens turns his satirical eye on the United States, since two of the characters immigrate in quest of their fortune, and are horribly disappointed. In the appendix, there is actually a postscript where Dickens attempts to make amends.

So heft a copy of this 800 page tome and give it a read - you won't be disappointed.

Summer and Fall Plans

I've been in a slump since the great AWC pitch session. Depressed and unwilling to write or work on my novels. The only thing I have done is write a few poems. Yes, the agent pitch was disappointing. I came away with nothing. In both cases the agent got the wrong idea about my work and I couldn't alter their perception in the short time that I had. I felt like an incompetent poseur.

How to recover? My first idea was to let both novels rest and concentrate on short fiction - both short stories and poems. I sent out some more short stories, at least. But I didn't work on them or write any new ones. All I really did was dash off a few poems.

What should I be doing?

• I have a class coming up, a week long vacation/class at the Campbell Folk School. That's the first week of July. Surely this will kick me back into gear.
• There's a one day seminar with Brian Corrigan later in July with the AWC. Although I don't agree with everything that he says, I'm very impressed in him as a teacher. He has a lot of energy. It would be a good idea to attend this as well.
• The South Carolina Writer's Workshop is October 24-26. Should I go back this year and try another humiliating agent pitch? At least I was successful there last year - the agent actually requested my entire novel to read, although she later turned me down.

Option #1 - concentrate on short fiction until the folk school class, then concentrate on the novels in preparation for the SCWW.

Option #2 - Skip the SCWW this year and write a new novel in the fall. This would mean I would have two novels in the drawer (actually five novels in the drawer, but I don't count the first three.)

Option #3 - Do nothing. Give up, gain weight, watch TV, vegetate.

I don't guess I'll do option #3. That's not my style. It doesn't make me happy to do nothing. So I guess, for now, it will be option #1. I don't want to put these two novels in the drawer, since I am, usually, proud of them.

So the plan is to concentrate on the short fiction and poetry until the folk school. The short story "Broken Keys" will be the project for the folk school.

Only one problem with this strategy. Most of the literary journals are not accepting submissions in the summer, but that shouldn;t stop me from working on the short stories.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

A different perspective on the end of the story of Odysseus, told from the viewpoint of Penelope, his wife, who waited twenty years for him to go off to the Trojan War and come back. Atwood examines the death of the twelve maidens, killed by Odysseus and Telemachus after they kill the suitors. The twelve forgotten maidens, who are glossed over by Homer.

The maidens appear in the book as the chorus, as in the chorus from a Greek play. They comment on the action in various poetic and prose poems. Very imaginative and clever.

I wasn't very involved in the rest of the book though. Penelope's story seems a little distant. Not my favorite Atwood - she's written some excellent and impressive books, but still, it is clever and humorous, and worth a read.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry by Nikki Moustaki

I was pleasantly surprised by how good this book is. It's comprehensive, entertaining, and makes writing poetry approachable. It's fun and thought-provoking without being pedantic - just what poetry, and a book about writing poetry, should be.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

A vision of a bio-tech apocalypse. Crake plays god, Oryx is the earth-mother, and poor Snowman is witness to it all. Like "Cat's Eye", Atwood writes most of this novel in flashback, an interesting technique. There are some big ideas here, and a fertile imagination. Much of it reads like today's headlines. Highly recommended.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Atwood can do it all: poetry, literary fiction, speculative fiction, and this novel, which is historical fiction. She picked the complex and confused story of a murderess in mid nineteenth century Canada. She kept the facts, so having a story that is conflicting and complex makes her novel that much more rich. And she does a great job with it - I can't imagine how much research she had to do to write this novel. What I like best is that the final decision about Grace is left up to the reader. Highly recommended.

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

This novel could be subtitled "The Secret Life of Girls." Atwood states the work is about how girlhood traumas continue into adult life. My question is, how did she remember so much from her childhood? Or did she observe children while writing this? She also stated this novel had the most autobiographical elements of all her novels. It does share some common details with "Surfacing", one of her earliest novels: the girl that spends her summers in the North woods, that has difficulty relating to other girls during the school year.

The novel is excellent, and very convincing. Highly recommended.

Agent Pitch at Atlanta Writer's Club

Why do I put myself through these things? Hours of waiting and preparation for five minutes of uncomfortable face time with a literary agent. I got rejected twice, for both novels. Here are the things that I did wrong:

For the first agent, we were allowed to submit twenty pages in advance. As soon as I sat down in front of him, he complained about the fact that I did not include a summary or synopsis. Well, I had followed the guidelines exactly, which limited us to a log line, a short bio, and the twenty pages - no mention of a summary. As a result, the agent had an incorrect idea of my novel. Next time (if I am ever masochistic enough to do this again) I will include a summary regardless of what the guidelines say. This is actually the second time this has happened to me. At the SCWW pitch, I stuck to the rules and included a one-page summary only to be told by the agent that she wished I had written a longer summary! But this agent was very nice, very helpful with his comments, based on the incomplete information that he had.

The second agent was a cold pitch, and I talked about my first novel. I described it as young adult, because a previous agent (who read the whole novel and rejected it) had advised me to pitch it that way instead of how I perceived it - literary fiction. Well, this agent fixated on my choice of genre and informed me my novel was not young adult, but probably literary fiction, exactly the opposite. I did not have time to explain my predicament to her. So I should have stuck to what I thought was right from the beginning.

Needless to say, it was not a good day for me. I decided not to think about it for a day, which didn't work of course - I spent a sleepless night. But the more time that passes the more I am able to assess the two disastrous pitches and learn something.

I realize I do not pitch well, especially a cold pitch. Reducing my novels to just a few words is difficult, and I always seem to pick the wrong ones - I think I am too easily swayed by what other people tell me, what I hear in round-table discussions, what I read in articles and books. I know my first novel is about loss, and yet I pitched it as a coming of age story. I know my second novel is about love, and yet the agent got the idea it was about caring for an aging parent

I think the best advice I can give myself is to avoid cold pitches. If I get another chance to submit pages then I can at least impress them, and I have never failed to get compliments on my writing. Stick to what I know is correct about my own novels, and try not to be swayed by what other people tell me.

Valentines by Ted Kooser

For years Kooser carried on a Valentine's day tradition. He mailed a short poem on a postcard to women that he knew, an annual event that grew over the years. This book is a compilation of those valentine cards.

Far from maudlin or sentimental, the topics are varied and always interesting. Highly recommended.

The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser

I love Kooser's poetry - it's so clear and understandable, as well as meaningful to me. So when I saw this book on a recommended list at poets.org I rushed out and bought it. Just like his poetry, his advice about writing poetry is clear and understandable.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

An excellent work of speculative fiction by an author who has demonstrated her skill in many genres, including poetry. This is a dystopia, or a utopia gone horribly wrong. The portrait of a misogynistic society where women are property, treated as mere wombs and the source of original sin. Picture radical Islam mixed with Old Testament Jewish law as interpreted by power-hungry pseudo-Christians that form a theocracy and you have the general idea.

The narrator is a "handmaid", as in the handmaid of Rachel. When Rachel could not bear Jacob a child, she offered her handmaid to her husband and then raised the resulting child as her own. Atwood takes these ideas to their extremes, imaging a plausible, if twisted society. Couple that with her excellent writing skills and you have an excellent novel that touches the reader in a number of ways.

SPOILER WARNING

As a writer myself, the ending is interesting. I suspected, having read other Atwood novels, that the ending would not be straightforward. Some readers might want revenge, violence, an end to the horrors of the society, a catharsis or healing of some kind, but none of these things happen. It's an ambiguous ending, in which we do not know if the handmaid is rescued or not. We suspect that she is, but can't be sure. There is certainly no revenge, no payback, and no interruption in the society. After the narration ends, there is an epilogue, in the form of a transcript from a scholarly conference that occurs a century or so after the events in the novel, in which a speaker discusses the discovery and authenticity of the narration we have just finished reading. Once again there are no hard facts presented, just the impression that the narrator escaped to record her story - but there are no details supplied about the fate of the society.

Not sure how I feel about the epilogue. Was it really needed? I'm fine with the ending of the narration, as ambiguous as it is, and I guess Atwood felt that something else was needed to help the reader resolve the story. Maybe that in itself is an admission that the ending of the narration is not satisfying by itself.

I highly recommend this novel - it's thought provoking and well written.

Negotiating With the Dead - A Writer on Writing by Margaret Atwood

An interesting book on writing that will really get you thinking. It's not a writing manual, and not a prescription for success or failure. Atwood doesn't answer any questions, but she poses plenty - and they are real head scratchers. This is education at its best, forcing the student to think for themselves.

And it's so impressive to see how many poets and writers Atwood quotes. She provides the reader with plenty of examples to illustrate her questions.

Dombey and Sons by Charles Dickens

Merely finishing this beast of novel gives me a sense of accomplishment. This edition is 833 pages of small type, without a single blank page or added space, not even for the beginnings of chapters. Let's estimate: 12 words per line, 39 lines per page, 833 pages equals 489,844 words, minus about 20 or 25 percent for white space gives us almost 400 thousand words. That's four times the size of a modern novel.

Update: Went to Project Gutenberg and downloaded a text copy, pasted it into Word, and after it thought about it for awhile it came back with a word count of - 358,952. So I should have deducted 27% from my back of the envelope calculations. That's still a sizable novel.

I spent about a month wading through this (while reading, and finishing, several other more modern novels, at the same time), and it was worth every bit of the effort. This may be my new favorite Dickens' novel. It's definitely more mature than "David Copperfield", more satisfying than "A Tale of Two Cities", more convincing than "Bleak House". All the elements we expect from Dickens are here: the settings, the unforgettable characters, the compassion, the sentimentalism. And the female character that is too good to be true, as well - she always seems to show up in a Dickens novel somewhere, and in this case, regardless of the title, she is at the center of all the activity.

And, as usual, Dickens cannot resist wrapping up every character, no matter how insignificant, and bringing everyone, no matter how wicked or debased, to an appropriate end as elevated as he can manage.

So put this novel on your nightstand and chip away at it gradually for a month or so - it will be well worth the effort.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

First, a disclaimer: I have hiked a considerable portion of the Appalachian trail in the South, I am a volunteer with the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club, and I live in north Georgia. I also belong to and support the Appalachian Trail Conference. If you are going to read my opinion of this book, I may as well be honest with you - I love hiking the Appalachian Trail, and I spend time and money supporting it.

Bill Bryson is a man who sees his glass half-empty. In this book he trashes the U. S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Appalachian Trail Conference. He denigrates every locale that he hikes: North Georgia, Gatlinburg, Hiawassee, the Great Smoky Mountains, Pennsylvania, and his own adopted hometown. He dwells on the dangers of bears, panthers, weather, and attacks on hikers. Does he ever say anything good about anybody or any institution?

In the character of Katz, Bryson describes some of the worst behavior you see on the trail: he routinely litters, with aluminum cans, cigarette butts, and discarded food and equipment, yet Bryson makes no effort to correct him or point out how he is wrong.

I am sure Bryson went into this project knowing that he wanted to write a book, with the intention of gathering material for the book, and yet he did not finish his hike. So he has the effrontery to present himself as some sort of authority, someone qualified to write a travel memoir about the AT, even though he gives up his hike every time the challenge is too much for him.

So if you are looking for a memoir about a successful hike of the AT, don't bother with this pseudo memoir by a great pretender. Instead, go to the ATC website, where you will find a large number of excellent hiking memoirs for sale.

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood

Picked this up to read while I was on a five day backpack. Needless to say, it spooked me out at first. Two couples stranded on a North woods island looking for the missing father of one of them. Is he dead or crazy? I thought I was in a slasher movie. But then things turned around and the novel changed its direction. The narrator is unreliable, and everything is told from her viewpoint, so at times it can be hard to sort out what is really happening, but it was a good read. A very early Atwood, and worth picking up.

Titan by Ben Bova

I haven't read a science fiction book in years. I was hiking the Pinhoti trail in Alabama, seventy-something miles in five days, and had finished the book I brought with me. At the shelter on Mt. Cheaha I found this book, which someone had left, probably leaving it after reading it as too heavy to carry. So I picked it up, happy to have something to read.

Bear in mind that I have been reading literary novels almost exclusively for the past few years. I try to write literary novels. So it took quite a few pages before I got over the shock of being immersed in such a different style of writing. I have to say that I enjoyed the book, not on the same level that I enjoy something by Geraldine Brooks or Margaret Atwood, but still, it was fun to read.

It's written in an omniscient viewpoint in very short scenes. Every character has some characteristic that sets him or her apart from the other characters - otherwise, how would the reader be able to tell them apart? It's fast paced and relies heavily on plot. There is nothing in the least bit subtle about the characters. Most of their actions do not ring true to me, and I think that is because there are so many of them and they are so categorized. As you read you think: this is the one that loves power, this is the one that craves adventure, this is the one that wants to be reunited with his wife, this is the one that is afraid of women, and so forth and so on.

The science? Who knows if it is feasible or not - I don't. It seems to be a sequel, or at least some of the characters are continued from a previous book, and there is plenty of space left at the end for another book to follow this one.

So yes, I enjoyed reading it, but I would not have picked it up except under those extraordinary circumstances, and I will not buy another one or make a habit of reading them. It seems incomplete and awkward compared to the novels I usually read.

New Look!

I upgraded my WordPress and changed to a different template today. I also made some new header images, six of them, and hacked the header code so that each time you visit the page or reload you get a random image.

You can tell that I am a little bored. Vacation starts tomorrow, and I'm going hiking. I can't focus on actual work, can't do any writing, don't want to answer the phone, and wish it were tomorrow already.

The Poet of Loch Ness by Brian Jay Corrigan

An interesting novel, a mix of literary style and elements of more popular fiction such as twists and turns, secrets (from the reader), and unexpected occurrences. I have been to a workshop on novel writing by the author, and I am sure he added those elements in order to increase suspense and keep the reader turning the pages.

I can't discuss the gimmicks without disclosing plot. I do think they border on gimmicks, though, and I know that is a derogatory term, but that's my opinion. I did feel manipulated and almost lied to at times, and part of that feeling is attributable to the fact that the author uses an omniscient viewpoint for about a third of the novel, and we are inside the head of some of the characters who are keeping secrets, without those secrets being revealed to the reader. Not as bad as lying to the reader, but I still felt manipulated by the time it was all over - not the pleasant reading experience the author intended, I think.

I still recommend it though, and I highly recommend Dr. Corrigan's workshop and his book on writing the novel. He has some excellent insight into the novel that I have not seen elsewhere, especially on focus, narrative drive, and subordination.

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

The theme of this Dickens novel is imprisonment, and many of the characters are in prisons, either of their own making or forced on them. As usual with Dickens, it is long, convoluted, full of coincidences and fortunate happenstance, but still satisfying.

A South Divided by David C. Downing

Now this is an excellent history book. Engaging, understandable, readable, interesting, and novel, while at the same time offering plenty of footnotes to document the claims and a neat bibliography. Highly recommended - it's a shame more history books are not written like this.

Sherman's March by Burke Davis

Creative non-fiction. And you have to wonder about some of the sources - they seem pretty anecdotal, of the flavor of the virtuous Confederate women barring the door to the villainous Yankee invaders. How accurate can those accounts be?

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Dickens' first novel, and it shows a little in the beginning, I think. A very slow start. Throughout the novel there is the convention of the author speaking to the reader, commenting on the action. Quite old fashioned.

It's a series of anecdotes and tales, loosely linked, but it improves greatly as it progresses. I think Dickens was learning his craft, and getting better at it, as he went along.

Proslavery - A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840 by Larry E. Tise

A good reference book, but it focuses more on who the proslavery writers were than on what they actually wrote. However, the essential facts of their arguments are presented. Of course, without the actual words of the writers how can we judge how persuasive they might have been? No matter how ludicrous the facts behind an argument, the power of the argument owes much to how it is presented.

One thing I found that I never knew - most of the proslavery clergymen were Presbyterians! Maybe it was all part of the predestination thing...

Plain Folk and Gentry in a Slave Society by J. William Harris

An extensive examination of the yeoman and gentry classes around Augusta just prior to the Civil War.

Many Excellent People - Power and Privilege in North Carolina 1850-1900 by Paul D. Escott

An excellent examination of the yeoman class and its effect on politics and the Civil War.

The Civil War - An Illustrated History by Geoffrey C. Ward

An excellent book of Civil War era photographs. The companion volume to the PBS series.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The title says it all, and really, what can I add to the volumes of criticism that have been written about this novel? I can only say that the author is more concerned with the ideas of his characters than he is with the characters themselves. They seem to be mouthpieces so that the author can expound. I feel as if they are specimens under glass for us to study. You can probably tell that I didn't empathize or sympathize with any of the characters.

Gardens of Water by Alan Drew

An excellent and complex novel about loss. A muslim family of Kurds in Turkey copes with an earthquake. Their fate is intricately connected with their American neighbors. The author examines in detail the muslim religion and how the Kurdish family copes with the changes in their life. The treatment of women and their subjugation under Islamic law and the Kurdish tradition is at the core of the family's story.

Extremely well written, the author takes some risks with his storytelling. I don't want to reveal any plot-spoilers, but there are two narrators, and one of them undergoes a life-changing experience that is rare in a novel. But the author pulls it off with skill and sensitivity.

The treatment of the religion of Islam is powerful and complex. The comfort it gives the sufferers of the earthquake is clearly described, yet I couldn't help but be saddened by the barbaric and backwards aspects of the religion: the treatment of women, the honor killings, the resignation to fate and the lack of hope.

Yet the novel is not anti-muslim, or anti-Turkish or Kurdish. It is well balanced and surprisingly realistic in it's treatment of all the many religions and cultures present in Turkey.

Highly recommended.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

The author lies to the reader in the prologue, and that ruined this book for me. There is no excuse for it really, the book would have been fine without intentionally misleading the readers.

Empress of Asia by Adam Lewis Schroeder

An interesting book, on several different levels. It begins and ends with a love story. The seventy-something narrator is given a cryptic message by his wife on her deathbed, to find someone that he thought had died long ago in southeast Asia. The entire middle section of the book recounts the life of the narrator during the second world war, when he was a prisoner of war in the infamous Japanese camps in southeast Asia (think "The Bridge on the River Kwai"), and the story of how he met his future wife and married her, as well as his friendship with the mysterious man who saves his life several times. The novel is brought to a close in the final part, when we return to the current time, and the narrator solves the mystery that his wife had set for him on her deathbed.

A couple of things make the book unusual. There are no chapter breaks, only the division of the book into three parts. It is told in a very close first-person narrative, as if the narrator is speaking to his dead wife, as in "I did this, when you did that." Unusual, but not unique. Another novel that is similar in construction is  "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson. It is very effective in this case by adding a sense of urgency as the narrator is rushed from one life-changing event to another.

On the other hand, it is a little more difficult to read and absorb than a more normal novel. The lack of chapter breaks, or of any break, doesn't give the reader much time to pause. The very close narration is sometimes confusing - what is going on exactly? I had to re-read several pivotal scenes to make sure that I had understood exactly what had happened. The long middle section, as the narrator is captured, escapes, re-captured, shipwrecked, and so forth is possibly too long. We lose track of the love affair, which is only a small part of this section.

It is an excellent read, and the surprises of the final part of the book, as the narrator learns the truth about his wife and the mysterious man who saved his life are very satisfying. I highly recommend it.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

I can see why this Austen novel is not so popular. It's a re-telling of Cinderella, but the glass slipper doesn't fit. And Cinderella (Fanny) doesn't want it to fit. And Prince Charming (Mr. Crawford) runs off with one of the evil stepsisters (cousins). At least the evil stepmother (aunt) gets punished in the end, sort of.

Seriously though, Austen has a very adult, insightful, take on the old story. Well worth reading. I'm trying to read (or reread) all of her novels in conjunction with the Masterpiece Classic Jane Austen season on PBS.

Update: Watched the PBS video, and it was pretty bad. Who was the screenwriter? He trashed the novel. Left out the ball - turned it into a picnic - maybe he was the victim of budget cuts, but what good is a cinderella story without a ball? Also left out the entire trip of Fanny's back to her real mother's, which was extremely important to show the change in Fanny's attitude towards Mansfield Park. I watched it with my wife, and I had to constantly explain to her what was going on, since she couldn't follow the story based only on the screenplay. Oh well.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Reading this novel makes me want to go take a book-binding class. It's the story of a Hebrew prayer book that survives through the centuries, and the people who created it and helped to preserve it. The book travels from Moorish Spain to Italy to Sarajevo. The narrative alternates between a modern archivist, which is told in first person, and historical sections told in third person omniscient.

I'm a big fan of Brooks. I loved March and her plague novel. This one is not quite as engaging. It's a little slow to develop - give it time. The omniscient sections were a little distant and sometimes hard to follow. Some details of the story toward the end seemed a little contrived - it might have been better to gloss over a lot of the details throughout the book. Readers are so willing to suspend disbelief as long as writers don't be obvious in explaining things.

But I loved it. Highly recommended.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

An interesting novel, part polemical, pointing out the abuses of the Chancery Court, part first person narrative of a young woman whose life is caught up in a famous suit before the court. Sections from the omniscient viewpoint alternate with first person.

Dickens is a master at painting the culture and times, from the lowest classes to the highest. His characters are excellent and memorable. The fog of the Chancery Court does not really detract from the enjoyment of the novel.

And there are a couple of mysteries hidden in the massive text. Who is Esther's mother and who committed the murder? Both serve to move the novel forward.

My only complaint with Dickens, and it is pretty obvious in this novel, is that his female characters are sometimes difficult to believe - their actions seem so unnatural. Perhaps it is a difference of the times, but the author seems to have less insight into the motivations of his female characters like Esther.

Geraldine Brooks talk at Margaret Mitchell House

Laurie and I went to hear Geraldine Brooks talk about her new novel last night. She is one of my favorite authors. I just loved March and The Year of the Plague. She is an outstanding speaker, so clear and focussed, much like her writing. Very intelligent, and passionate about her book and her writing. Quite an inspiring talk, maybe the best author talk I have ever heard.

2007 Reading - Year End Wrap-up

I read ninety books last year - seems incredible. How did I find the time to do anything else? I read at night before bed, and at lunch. In fact, when the weather is good I walk and read at lunch, between the downtown connector and Peachtree Street, from North Avenue to 10th street. I'm sure people look at me like I'm nuts.

Here is the list of what I read in 2007, courtesy of librarything and published with Google documents.

FIrst draft of "Life Portraits" is done

Sixty-two days. 116,599 words. The first draft of the novel code named "Life Portraits" is done.

Here are some stats:

• 116,599 words


• 62 days


• average 1881 words a day


• twelve "zero" days - no writing


• 38 chapters


• 96 "scenes"


• shortest scene: 131 words


• longest scene: 4219 words

Of course, these boring stats tell you nothing about whether the novel is any good or not. I don't know - it's too soon to tell, and I am too close to it at the moment. Now I need to let it sit for awhile before reading it to see what kind of a mess it really is. But I have high hopes for it - I think it may be my best yet.

Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons

An intriguing book, written from the viewpoint of a ten-year-old girl who has been abandoned, orphaned, and abused. She seems to be the only one in her family with any morals, the clear knowledge of a child of what is right and what is wrong. The novel follows her as she stays with various relatives and finally ends up in a foster home.

One intriguing characteristic of the narrator is the way she misuses words and figures of speech. For instance, when she is talking about her mother, why she married her father, and how sick she is, she says, "You see when she was my size she had romantic fever I think it is called and since then she has not had a good heart." Excellent writing...

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

A rambling re-telling of the Eastern band of the Cherokee's efforts to remain in Western North Carolina, as told by the fictional Will Cooper, who is a stand-in for the real Will Thomas. Anyone who has read the history of Tsali (called Charley in the novel) and the Cherokee removal will be familiar with this story. And Frazier has probably written the first fictional account of it, and has come as close as anyone could to capturing the feel of the times and the people.

It does ramble, though. The love story is opaque and hard to get excited about, as opaque as the female character in the tale. We never find out what she is thinking, and why she seems to come and go without much emotion for Will. In a sense the novel reminded me a lot of David Copperfield, in that it was a coming of age novel, but it is also comic in parts and just plain nostalgic in others.