Books I Read September 26th, 2023

Reading has slowed somewhat this month, in part because I've started working in a kitchen again and in part because I spent the bulk of it trying to work through William H. Gass's magnum opus.

Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette – An assassination attempt offers a bourgeois father opportunity to escape his conventional existence, kill several people. One of Manchette's best.

The President by Simenon – An aging French premier reflects on his career, corruption, the nature of political service, etc. One of Simenon's seemingly endless works of slim excellence.

The Last Time I Saw Hell by Simon Quinn – While working my way through the Tunnel (below), I gave myself permission to read whatever pulp crap I could find. This book, the second in a series about a spy working secretly for the pope, which I picked up off a swivel rack at Bart's Books in Ojai, fit that bill to a T. (It's even written on that old fashioned 70's paper that crumbles apart like flaky pastry.) Actually considering everything it wasn't bad, it's complete nonsense but it moves fast and doesn't get in its own way.

Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea – I picked this up for the same reason, though to less effect. A Jack Vance/Fritz Leiber knock-off of the sort which spends three pages describing a demon who gets killed on page 4. A worse slog than the Tunnel ended u being.

Books of Blood by Clive Barker – The kind of horror which somehow works despite you knowing where every story is going to go from the first page. Unoriginal but effective, I find myself wanting to read another.

The Tunnel by William H. Gass. – The bible-length culmination of 26 years of work by one of the 20th century's most talented writers of prose, The Tunnel is a Big Book, of the kind which resists easy estimation, an attempt to mine the darkest corners of the human psyche for...something? We'll get to it. Our Underground Man is Frederick Kohler, a middle-aged, morbidly obese, pencil-dicked, pro-Nazi who begins writing an embittered exploration of his awful, banal existence, while also (metaphor alert!) digging a tunnel in his basement. After 50 odd pages off an impenetrable introduction of the sort which seems de rigeur in post-modernist texts, it settles into a fairly comprehensible autobiography: long episodes of self-flagellation, recollections of failed love affairs, character sketches of our anti-hero's hateful wife, idiot children, false friends, drunken mother, bigoted father, etc., along with an enormous amount of attention paid to flatulence and micropenises.

There's a game I like to torment myself with when I'm reading this kind of mind-scalding opus, which is, basically, if I didn't know that a genius wrote this, would I think a genius wrote this? With Gass, at least, the answer is yes – line to line the man is a marvel, almost any page will have a phrase or throw-away metaphor which seems ineffably original, a genuinely new use of language. Those rare bits of text not mired in grotesque despair are beautiful, and even the larger portion of the book given over to excavating the banal horridness of existence is insightful.

The question, then, becomes whether you want to spend what will be many hours of your life in the company of so unpleasant a character as Gass creates, rather than, say, baking a cake, or watching football or going for a walk. Most of these sorts of post-modern masterpieces, books aiming to encapsulate an enormous swath of the human experience, allow for more levity and joy than The Tunnel, which is quite monochrome compared to the prismatic tableau of Ulysses or Petersburg. Still, at bottom Kohler is a cautionary tale, and Gass is attempting to obliquely demonstrate life's value by the minute inscription of a creature so incapable of appreciating them. This is not a nihilistic book in any sense, with Kohler's insistence that his experience represents the universal human reality ringing deliberately hollow.

All of which is to say, I suppose, that while I'm not sure it was worth a quarter-century of effort, or that I would casually recommend it, I enjoyed this and would consider it a success.

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings by Paul Reps (Editor) and Nyogen Senzaki (Editor)

Books I Read September 12th, 2023


Autumn in LA, which is a real thing, is peeking its head through the endless sun. Cross your fingers for me, I got stuff going.

Fair Play by Tove Jansson –Continuing with my summer of re-reads, I picked up Jansson's brief, luminous meditation on art, nature, and the quiet joys of a long term love affair. I always enjoy spending time in Tove Jansson's brain.

Confidentially Yours by Charles Williams – A small town real-estate agent is framed for the murder of his new wife.

The Missionaries by Phil Klay – The effects of the US's decades-long policy of permanent warfare as explored through the lives of combat journalists, child soldiers, drug kingpins and military attaches. It's a diverse but well-realized cast, sympathetic and complex portrayals matched by a thoughtful dissection of the broader political situation. Klay does a masterful job of exploring how good intentions on the part of imperial powers invariably leads to horrifying results, never resorting to straw men or easy answers. Shades of Graham Greene, great stuff.

The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be a God And Other Stories by Etgar Keret – Brief accounts of surrealist-stricken Israeli man-children. Re-reading Keret for the first time in a long while he reminded me of Nick Hornby, with his not-completely-unsympathetic focus on the relationships and rituals which define modern masculinity. I really liked the one about the guardian angel who is a shitty friend.

Professor Bernhardi by Albert Schnitzler – Antisemitism, faith, the disputable merits of an uncompromising moral code are the topics of what turned out to be a play and not a novel by the writer of the recently re-discovered Late Fame, a favorite of mine. I don't read a shit ton of these but for what it's worth I thought it was on the nose.

The Fierce and Beautiful World by Andrei Platonov – In the harsh light of later history it's difficult to imagine the enormous burst of optimism which the establishment of communism in Russia must have been met by many. The hope that a rationalist technocracy would not only improve the economic circumstances of the average citizen but catalyze a cultural and even spiritual evolution, and the realization of how false that hope would prove to be, are the themes of these suite of stories. I confess my feelings are mixed. It's slow going. Platonov's plots are deliberately bare, and his language reputedly impossible to effectively translate. But there is a tenderness and beauty to them which crosses language barriers, and by the end of these eight stories I found myself touches and wanting to continue.

Hatful of Tigers: Reflections on Art, Culture and Politics by Sergio Ramirez – A paean to the early days of the Nicaraguan revolution and the stalwart support of Julio Cortazar. I really like Ramirez, he's a fascinating and laudable political figure and an interesting writer.

The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone – Ruminations on a childhood dominated by a talented, mercurial, narcissistic father and the bitterness it engendered in the author. Touching and well-realized and a little long.


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Books I Read August 28th, 2023

Back in blistering, beautiful LA. Read the following.

City of Bohane by Kevin Barry – This story of saudade-riddled gangsters warring for a ruined city in a dim future Ireland remains a personal favorite after a second read. The language is fabulous, the action is brutal, it's lyrical and funny and sad and quick and lots of fun. Definitely check it out if you haven't.

All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby – A black sheriff battles white supremacy, serial killers in a small Virginia town.

Ronin: A Novel Based on the Zen Myth by William Dale Jennings – Another favorite which, on re-read, remains as good as I remember. Cheers for you, Danny! Thanks, Danny. Cheers also for William Dale Jennings, an early gay rights activist and occasional writer who tossed off this absolute gem of a book, about a monstrous thug and the boy samurai who seeks vengeance against him and the impossible entanglements of human fate. The language is very finely wrought, with no tossed off words and every sentence practically a koan. A book desperately demanding re-discovery.

A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy – The murder of a the son of a policeman in South Central Los Angeles serves as a vehicle to explore America's indifference to violent crime in black neighborhoods. Compelling in the sense of both 'readable' and 'makes a strong argument.' Excellent literary non-fiction.

Pavel's Letters by Monika Maron – An investigation into lives and deaths of the author's maternal grandparents, pseudo-Jews caught up in the shoah, as well as her mother, a prominent member of the East German government against which Maron was a vocal dissident. A thoughtful meditation on the opacity of memory, inter-generational betrayal and the necessity of forgiveness.



Books I Read August 21st 2023

I spent the week in bay-swept inlets, at Methodist sing-alongs, inspecting prize-winning chickens, and reading the following.

The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn – The fractured testimonials of a mixed crew of humans and androids going mad on a spaceship in a distant galaxy. Weird and funny and sad.

Not Russian by Mikhail Shevelev – A loosely fictionalized apologia for the crimes of post-Soviet Russia by a dissident journalist.

The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell – Burnouts, bereaved fathers, brutalized woman and Civil War monsters occupy this selection of shorts from the Ozark's (favorite?) child. Woodrell is an excellent writer, effortlessly shifting between genres, with a sympathetic if judgmental eye for the flaws and tragedies of his cousins and characters.


Fatale by Jean Patrick Manchette – The eponymous wreaks havoc on a town of bourgeois monsters. Still lots of fun.

The Last Day of the Terranova by Manuel Rivas – The closing of his bookshop in a small Gallician town occasions reminiscences on revolution, woman, drugs, nostalgia, etc. I liked it page by page but found the end too neat.

Mightier than the Sword by KJ Parker – A princeling in an alternate world Byzantium investigates a series of pirate raids, considers the importance of literature.

Books I Read August 13th 2023

Spent a lot of this week on a beach, and some of it watching a meteor shower. I set myself the peculiar task of re-reading these reviews from back when I started doing them some 7 (!) years ago, which partially explains the re-reads.


The World a Moment Later by Amir Gutfreund – A recapitulation of the history of modern Israel as told through the lives of a number of dissidents, lunatics and burn-outs. This is something of a sub-genre within literary fiction—most obviously 100 Years of Solitude but also Alaa Al Aswany's Yacoubian Building and Olga Tokarczuk's Primevil and Other Times and probably about 10 more I can't remember off the top of my head. These days I tend to be less enthusiastic about this sort of sprawling, multi-character novel, maybe because I've read a lot of them, but in part because the characters in these tend to feel more like wacky collections of improbable attributes rather than fully fledged humans.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke – I was not surprised to discover this was as good as I remembered it being. What's interesting is that Clarke, whose previous work sits so squarely within a specific literary tradition, here creates something entirely new and strange. The language is spare and beautiful, the narrator's voice imbuing the world with enormous vitality and kindness. I appreciate enormously a book which leaves me with a feeling of hope. A real favorite of mine.

Duplex by Kathryn Davis – A surrealistic exploration of girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, the suburbs, climate change, disappointment, nostalgia, other things. The language is striking and weird – it reminded me a bit of William Gass, every sentence requires careful parsing as a collection of words one has never previously seen on the page. It's pointless to discuss it in terms of plot and barely more in terms of theme (at least in the context of this brief review) but I enjoyed the mood and thoughts this evoked.

Little Lumpen Novelita by Roberto Bolano – Still great.

Innards by Magogodi oaMphela Makhene – A suite of short stories depicting life in a Soweto ghetto from apartheid to the near-future. Really good. Written in a mix of English, Afrikaans and (I think) isiZulu, the stories are raw and break in unexpected directions. Makhene's characters – betrayed women, drunken elders, quisling professors, a post-apocalyptic Boer – are distinct and interesting. I dug this, I'll keep an eye out for her next work.

Books I Read August 7th 2023

Howdy. Spent the last week sitting on beaches and reading books and thinking about other times I sat on beaches, reading books.

Guston in Time by Ross Feld – A short essay detailing the author's friendship with the eponymous neo-expressionist painter. Art criticism is pretty far outside my balliwick which is probably why I tend to enjoy reading it.

The Liar by Martin A. Hansen – A schoolmaster on a small Danish island intrudes in the lives of the inhabitants. Spare, slim, sad, pleasant.

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby – The South's best get away driver takes on one last job, struggles with the curse of generational violence. Good stuff. It moves quick, the language is sharp and action punchy but still carries some kind of real human weight. I picked another one up by him right after so that's praise.

Old Calabria by Norman Douglas – A ruminative travelogue of a largely forgotten piece of post-unification Southern Italy. Douglas seems mostly famous these days as a pederast (which is quite an accomplishment, given the competition from other 20th century English writers) but this is fun all the same, interesting if not always coherent takes on the Italian history and culture.

Heat of Fusion and Other Stories by John M. Ford – There's a lot of poetry in here that brought the average down.

My Darkest Prayer by S.A. Cosby – An ex-cop investigates the murder of a shady preacher in a small southern town.

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand – A sometime photographer and current casualty of the NYC punk rock scene becomes embroiled in a mystery on a secluded Maine island. The voice is strong and the plot moves quickly.

Books I Read July 24th 2023

Hope you're not melting.

Last Call by Angus Wilson – An intelligent but frustrated grandmother must reinvent herself when she moves to a live with her intellectual son and his family. There aren't enough books about old people, because books aren't really marketed to old people and young people generally don't like being reminded that they are growing old, which is too bad because there's a lot of territory to be mined here. Wilson's depiction of unexceptional but admirable people requires a lot of talent, and I found myself enjoying this.

Forgotten Journey by Silvina Ocampo – Eerie children murder / are murdered in many of the 28 very short stories by Argentina's rediscovered matron of the surreal. Silliness aside I love Ocampo, and these works of enigmatic microfiction (few run above 1,000 words) had me puzzling over every sentence, trying to find the throw away sentence explaining each narrative riddle, sometimes coming to the conclusion they were deliberately inexplicable, and rarely caring either way, so masterful is the language and tone. Apparently she wrote a ton of stuff, I hope more is translated quickly.

Vernon Subutex 1 by Virginie Despentes – Gen X's last great wastrel falls into penury, catching hold of a wide spectrum of French society on the way down. Combining a not-quite-completely-black satire of French society with the nostalgic anarchy of The Savage Detectives. Really, really fun, there are apparently two more of these and I'm excited to jump in.

Books I Read July 16th 2023

Turns out not waking up at 3 AM has really improved my reading habits.

The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White – A tedious and unnecessary epilogue to the classic work of YA fantasy. You should never, never read a late sequel to a beloved work of literature, especially YA, but I had never heard of this and saw a nice edition in a fun book store in Joshua Tree (shout out Space Cowboy Books) and took a foolish chance.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward – Mysteries abound behind the boarded up windows in this disturbing nightmare of a novel.

A Private Affair by Beppe Fenoglio – A partisan tries to save a potential romantic rival in this sensitive and sincere-seeming portrayal of the last days of the Ducce regime. In the minor details and the broader themes, the author's experience speaks out. Good stuff.

The Right to be Lazy by Paul Lafargue – A paean to sloth by an early communist. The eponymous essay didn't do much for me but the accompanying 50 pages slamming Victor Hugo was worth the price of admission.

The Printer of Malgudi by R.K. Narayan – A directionless writer becomes the beneficiary of a lively, chicanerous printer. Beneath an entertaining light comedy (of the kind Indian literature tends to excel) lie thoughtful observations about the limitations and pointlessness of the artistic/creative life. I liked it.

The Hive by Camilo Jose Cela – In a cast of hundreds thronging post-Civil War Madrid, you would think the writer would manage to find a single redeemable soul. Alas. This reminded me a lot of Curzio Malapart, in the sense of being well-written but pitiless in the way that makes you think the author was probably an asshole. Also, they were both fascists.

Books I Read July 10th 2023

Sun has arrived and LA is resplendent. In a few weeks everyone will start to complain of the unending light but for the moment we're enjoying the lobster tans and long evenings. As always, such beauty is peculiar contrast to the slow moving political crisis that is American society, more on that over at the LA Times.

Growing Up Weightless by John M. Ford – The prodigious children of the rulers of the moon rebel against the confines of their future society. Ford is a really interesting, peculiar writer. His language is strong, the plotting is complex and he has a human focus which tends to contrast with the genre as it has come to exist, but at the same time he like wrote a bunch of star wars tie in novels? Anyway, this was good and smart and affecting and I liked it.

Japanese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn – Retellings (and, one suspects, outright reimaginings) of classic Japanese folklore by an early European settler in Meiji-era Japan. After a while you do get a bit like 'no don't fall in love with the pale maiden you met beside the tomb!' but mostly these are lovely and evocative.


Against the Wind by Martin A. Hansen – A collection of short stories from an early 20th century master of Danish fiction. Small town farmers go mad with greed and stand up to the Nazis and occasionally find God in a cruel but redeemable world. Good stuff.


The Promise by Silvina Ocampo – Drowning in the Atlantic, a woman recollects her life in a series of character description and brief vignettes. Lyrical, evocative, surreal. I'm a big fan of Silvina Ocampo but that's nothing much new.


Rovers by Richard Lange – Two undead brothers scuzzing immortal through the American West run afoul of love, bikers. Blunt, fast-paced, and well-written, Lange and I share an affection for deglamourizing vampires .

Books I Read June 30th, 2023

Last week marked the end of my year in a bakery. I learned to do this...

But didn't read very much, so it's been fun getting back on the wagon.

A Man of Shadows by Jeff Noon – A down on his heels private detective pursues an heiress through a a city of perpetual light. The setting was striking and weird.

The Scholars of the Night by John M. Ford – A history professor finds himself embroiled in cold war shenanigans. It's a little life if Three Days of the Condor wasn't the dumbest fucking in the world.

Cowboy Graves: Three Novellas by Roberto Bolano – As someone with a Cesarea Tinajero poem tattooed on his chest, any return to Bolano's world of heart-struck pimps, would-be-revolutionaries and lost pimps is welcome, but on balance this is probably only for completists.

The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov – A camel ride to the cemetery offers a Kyrgystani everyman the opportunity to contemplate communism, tradition, family, mankind, in this classic of Central Asian literature. There's also a weird sci-fi component. It's heartfelt, I liked it.

I Spit on Your Graves by Boris Vian – In this remarkably odd work of allyship by the man primarily responsible for bringing jazz to Paris, a light-skinned black man seeks savage revenge on the white race. Violent, erotic, horrifying, weird.

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson – An intimate autobiographical account the years of domestic bliss the author spent with her young family in rural Vermont. Yes, that Shirley Jackson. Apart from the ongoing incongruity of not having a Shirley Jackson book end in horrible tragedy I found it kind of dull.

A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East by László Krasznahorkai – The grandson of Prince Genji wanders through a decaying monastery, contemplates the fallen nature of existence in sentences that go on for a very, very, very long time. In an of itself that doesn't bother me (nor does the complete lack of plot) but at bottom there just really didn't seem much to this.

Books I Read June 12th, 2023

This is a bit more like it. Thanks to the folk at Borderland books in Haight-Ashbury for having my book, John M. Ford's books.

Living Pictures by Polina Barskova – Faintly interconnected vignettes (both fictional and non) interweaving the author's past with the siege of Leningrad and the fates of various artists. Intermittently effective.

Tentacle by Rita Indiana – In post-apocalyptic Santo Domingo a down-and-outer rewrites history/saves the world. Shades of sci-fi Bolano (which is maybe just to say Bolano), slight but very much its own distinct thing. I'd say I dug it.

The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford – I read this book when I was maybe ten or twelve, during a period of time where I was probably reading a couple of hundred fantasy/sci-fi books a year, the vast vast majority of which either have been or should be forgotten. This one stuck in my mind, however, not so much for the general premise – elves/magic have re-entered the world, brought about a minor apocalypse, and now like to cosplay gangland Chicago – but for its lyrical wistfulness, peculiar pacing and a BDSM subplot. When I pieced together that this half-remembered work was by John M. Ford, writer of the really excellent The Dragon Waiting, I was pretty sure that a re-read would prove it to be that rare example of a work in which my past and current self would find agreement. Huzzah! This is urban fantasy done right, pulpy and fast-paced but also moody and vibrant, a world you want to live in even though you might have your heart broken or get eaten by a dragon.

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson – A high strung co-ed attends a woman's college, is stifled by the patriarchy, descends into madness. A compelling and low key depiction of insanity. I can't exactly say that I enjoyed it but it was excellent, Jackson has an imitable capacity to for unassuming menace. This is a bit more like it. Thanks to the folk at Borderland books in Haight-Ashbury for having my book, John M. Ford's books.


Books I Read June 4th 2023

I attribute the stark collapse in my reading, as well as the concomitant lack of reviews, to working three nights a week in a bakery, an intoxicatingly exhausting activity which leaves little time for anything besides a bit of writing. Hoping the second half of the year will see a return to form. In any event, these are the scant few books I managed to read over the course of this year.

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay – The story of a group of girls who disappear during a day trip in the Australian outback is one of those unclassifiably brilliant novels which functions as supernatural thriller and evocative literature. One can see its influence in innumerable later works but this remains as fresh and weird as the day it was written. Read it, but don't read the forward. Best to go in knowing as little as possible.

Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart – 'However tall trouble is, man must make himself taller still, even if it means making stilts.' The story of three generations of woman growing up in Guadalupe remains one of my favorite works of literature, a haunting, tragic, inspiring paean to the necessity of hope.

The Turnout by Megan Abbot – Tragedies strike an incestuous ballet studio.

Lady Joker Vol. 1 by Kaoru Takamura – An attempt to blackmail a large beer consortium exposes the corruption endemic to modern Japan.

Monsieur Monde Vanishes by Simenon – A bourgeois businessman abandons his Parisian existence to live as a lower class scoundrel in Marseilles. One of Simenon's innumerable but excellent explorations of the stifling limitations of modernity/existence.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes – An ex-junkie and her sloth familiar track a pop star through a supernatural (although essentially authentic) Johannesburg. A sharply written noir-fantasy mashup, right up my alley.

The European Guilds by Sheilagh Ogilvie – Not exactly sure what compelled me to read a 1500 page academic history of the European guild system, but Ms. Ogilvie makes a compelling case that they were a cartel system which stifled development and had no particularly positive benefit for the continent writ large. So, yeah, glad we don't have those anymore. Would have really hindered my walking into a job at a bakery.

Don't Know Tough by Eli Cranor – A well-meaning football coach's attempts to help his troubled star player escape life of impoverished abuse in this excellent, bitter black noir. Strong debut.

The Trees by Percival Everett – Everett tries his hand at blaxploitation with mixed results.

Dr. No by Percival Everett – Another of Everett's genre re-workings.

The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende – Harry Potter by way of Herman Hesse, a re-working of the then nascent 'chosen one' trope which has swallowed the Y/A and fantasy genres. Weirder and more interesting than I anticipated, I can see why the author was so pissed about the films.

Deadwood by Peter Dexter – A fictionalized retelling of the murder of Wild Bill Hickock and the high days of the Black Mountains. At once engaging and deeply melancholic n the best traditions of the genre.

Mood Indigo by Boris Vian – Tragic romance as surrealist farce by the man responsible for bringing jazz to Paris. Memorably weird.

Divorcing by Susan Taubes – The eponymous separation leads the author's thinly veiled surrogate to mine her memories in an effort to re-define her identity.

Catastrophe and Other Stories by Dino Buzzati – Uncanny fables chronicling the rise of Mussolini and the fracturing of mid-century Italian society. Buzzati has a talent for making haunting stories out of very simple premises.

The Wounded Age and Eastern Tales by Ferit Edgu – Interlinked microfictions inspired by the author's experience as a teacher in war torn Kurdistan. Excellent.


Books I Read

Happy New Year. I had some wins in 2022 and I took some lumps. I suspect you could say the same. I don’t predict 2023 being any easier on any of us. Hold on to whoever you have to and prop up whoever you can.

The Rat on Fire by George Higgins – Harried detectives pursue a miserable fixer who’s hired a detestable arsonist to rid his decrepit tenement of unsavory tenants. Nasty, smart, George Higgins at his more George Higgins-ish.

An Area of Darkness by VS Naipaul – Naipaul visited India, a homeland which he had never seen, passed down through the decayed myths of his immigrant family, when he was 30, having already earned a reputation as one of the most astute critics of the post-colonial world. He didn’t like it. He thought it was unhygienic and overcrowded, he detested the subcontinental tendencies towards prevarication and insincerity. He felt, in short, that the interplay between native Indian society and Western imperialism had let to an intellectually and morally sterile landscape. Naipaul didn’t like India, but in fairness he didn’t like Trinidad (or anywhere else in the West Indies), he didn’t like Iran or Indonesia, he was lukewarm, if memory serves, on the American south. Naipaul spent 70-odd years staring at the world and, to judge by his writing, came away with the impression that he had seen little of beauty or value. I like to think (or I would like to think that I like to think) that he is wrong. I suspect Naipaul is destined to be forgotten by future generations; he stands in too dramatic counterpoint to the received wisdom of our well-meaning, guilt-obsessed age. But on the opening day of 2023, I find I can’t condemn a man for looking out over our burning planet with some honest measure of disgust.

Ti Amo by Hanne Orstavik – A chronicle of the death by cancer of the writer’s husband. Sad, lovely.

Brenner and God by Wolf Haas – A well-meaning quasi-moron provokes, solves a kidnapping. Good, fun, weird.

The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter by Malcolm Mackay – A small-time hit man kills a small-time drug dealer on behalf of some small-time villains. Quick, low key, smart.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius – Hey man, quit bitching cause your fucking arm got cut off, OK? It’s no different than a clay pot breaking. Look at the big picture, if the gods had wanted you to have an arm they’d have let you keep your arm. You think you’re the only one who ever got his arm cut off?

Ride a Cockhorse by Raymond Kennedy – Still really funny.

Books I Read December 5th, 2022

Took about 3 years but I finally got smacked with the plague this week. I didn’t have the energy to read anything difficult, but I did manage to plow through some light stuff.

Trust by George V. Higgins – A shiftless ex-con gets over-clever trying to pay back a favor to the mob. It gets kind of into the weeds on the specifics of selling used cars but the final act is top notch.

The Jesus Cow by Michael Perry – A cow with the a birthmark of the face of Jesus is born in a small mid-western tow. Light satire ensues.  

Kennedy for the Defense by George V. Higgins – The misadventures of a street-wise middle-class middle-aged lawyer, loosely based presumably on the writer. I liked it less than the other stuff I’ve read by Higgins.  

The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind – The arrival of a pigeon in his apartment building throws an idiot into existential despair. It was OK.   

Monkey Sonatas by Orson Scott Card – A collection of wide-ranging shorts. Uneven and sentimental, but there were some effecting and odd ones likewise.  

The Digger's Game by George V. Higgins – A thuggish bar owner tries to pay back a gambling debt. Brutish, short and fun.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card – I wrote a glowing book report on Ender’s Game in the second grade, and more than thirty years on I can say it stands up. Though the essential conceit – ‘super-special child gets chosen to go to a super special school to save the species’ – remains the most dominant plot in y/a, never again was it done with such poise, thoughtfulness, and above all, brevity. Card’s prose is simple but entirely lucid, the sort of simplicity which speaks of technical talent. His world-building is deft and his characterization effective. Ender’s Game is one of those rare books which both succeeds on and subverts its story. Page to page it is great, pulpy fun to watch our sympathetic protagonist defeat a series of increasingly more terrible enemies – bullies, teachers, space aliens – while the undercutting themes of co-operation and acceptance are delivered without mawkishness or sanctimony.

Books I Read November 28th, 2022

Happy belated. Thanksgiving. I read these books last week.

Rainy Season by Jose Eduardo Agualusa – A semi-fictionalized account of the author’s experiences during Angola’s long and bloody post-war history intertwined with an also possibly fictionalized biography of Lidia do Carmo Ferreira, an Angolan poet and intellectual who disappeared in 1992, just before a resurgence in combat.  A compelling and peculiar attempt to make sense of a tragic epoch.

Autumn Rounds by Jacques Pouline – A recluse and some friendly hippies drive a bookmobile around rural Quebec.

Cogan's Trade by Eddie Higgins – The robbery of a mob-protected card game and the fallout thereof. Higgins’s was a crime reporter and defense attorney and it shows in his uncannily excellent ear for dialogue, which makes up the vast majority of the book. Higgins has a gift for conversation which is at once thematically perfect and feels completely authentic to the characters. Excellent.

The Middle Passage by V.S. Naipaul – A blistering investigation into the psychosis of the post-Colonial West Indies. I thought the stuff about Naipaul’s own island of Trinidad was stronger than much of the rest, but apart from that I’m still working through my larger thoughts on Naipaul. I know you’re all waiting with baited breath, just hold out another week please.  

Books I Read November 21st, 2022

So about six months ago I talked my way into a job in the bread department at a commercial bakery.

This is my excuse for falling off on writing these reviews and reading generally.


Magic Terror Peter Straub – 8 stories straddling the line between explicit genre thrills and the sort of quasi-nihilistic depictions of human despair which one might find in say, Ian McEwan. To be absolutely blunt I tend to prefer the genre end of these things more, a bit of the impossible makes all the darkness feel if not more palatable, at least a bit less tedious. Plus I admire the structural chops necessary to make a horror story work, it’s always easier to just let the thing careen into the general horridness of the human condition rather than come up with a genuine sting. Like I said there’s a bit of both here—his depiction of two monstrous, monosyllabled English thugs is genre enough that Gaiman wholesale lifted it for the heavies from Neverwhere, while the one about the horrific childhood origins of a serial killer reads like something from the darker end of Joyce Carol Oates. A talented guy anyway you look at it. RIP.

Party Going by Henry Green – A group of awful English elite get stuck in Paddington Station waiting for a train. It’s not Green’s fault that I kind of never want to read another book about the aristocratic England, or that I grabbed this without know what the plot was. That shit’s on me.

The Samurai of Vishogrod: The Notebooks of Jacob Marateck by Jaco Marateck – Cheeringly rambling reminiscences of life in turn of the century Poland for an unconventionally boisterous Jew. Odd and fun.

Angel of Oblivion by Maja Haderlap – Memories of a childhood and life spent in the shadow of the author’s family’s wartime efforts as Slovenian partisans. Intimate recollections of a bucolic rural existence shot through with grief and trauma and intertwined with uncompromising if sympathetic character studies. Good stuff.

Literary Occasions by V.S. Naipaul – A series of essays primarily interesting as offering a formal autobiography of the author’s Trinidadian background. I’m doing a Naipaul re-read, so far it’s been fruitful.

A Useless Man: Selected Stories by Sait Fai Abasiyanik – A collection of short stories from the decades long career of (apparently?) Turkey’s most beloved short story writer. I really only have the back cover to speak to that but if it’s true, it’s not undeserved. These are really stellar, vibrant, curiously written portrayals of a lively, multi-ethnic, pre-WWI Istanbul, and of the long shadow left by the tragic loss of that existence. It reminded me a little bit of Robert Walser in its depictions of the strange of an urban setting, but there’s a seriousness and a darkness at play here which is very much it’s own thing. Lovely. Good on Archipelago books for bringing this, and a lot of other stuff I’ve been reading lately, to a larger audience.  

Books I Read September 4th, 2022

I should have read more, given how much time I spent on the beach the last few weeks. Alas.

Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka – Part satire, part noir, Nigeria’s favored son’s blistering rejoinder to the hopes of post-colonial African society, portrayed herein as having degenerated into an orgy of hyper-capitalist excess covered with a patina of national custom. Soyinka’s concerns are distinctly but not exclusively Nigerian, and while cannibalism and kola nuts may be foreign to a western audience, his essential thesis—that it has become impossible or perhaps only futile to live morally in modern society—will resonate with rational readers of any nation. (One recalls that in addition to being tormented by successive generations of Nigerian regimes, Soyinka destroyed his green card in 2016 after Trump’s election.)

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner – A precocious genius storms the 70’s NY art scene, meets some radical Roman revolutionaries. Of a type.

The Dunciad – Alexander Pope shitting on his rivals in rhymed verse. It was funny if unsurprising to be reminded of the universal pettiness of writers as a class, but in retrospect I’m not sure why I read this.