Reading Notes Since the Big One

Been doing some good reading lately, ever since my heart attack about a month ago.  Sometimes it goes that way. Other times I read books and hit a run I don't really care for, but read them because I can learn from bad writing, too.  At those times, it really is work, the reading - the way the writing is work every day.

I swear I think the surge in reading interest is because of the newly unblocked blood flow to my brain. Leading up to having a stent placed in my right coronary artery, my reading list had been stuck in the mud. I'm actually embarrassed to say how few books I read in the last year.

But that's not been the case lately.  Not at all.

It started with Michael Kimball's GALAGA, which I linked to here a couple posts back or so.  Fine book. Then it was Rob McClennan's THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.  I reviewed both of these, with Kimball's appearing at The Small Press Book Review.  McClennan's review will be published July 28 or thereabouts at Necessary Fiction.

Then it was on to Shane Jones's CRYSTAL EATERS.  My review of this book (built like a brick cigar house and without wasting a single word) will be published in American Book Review in August.

In the past week, I've had the great pleasure of reading Christine Schutt's NIGHTWORK, a reread of Chris Offutt's OUT OF THE WOODS, George Saunders's TENTH OF DECEMBER, and Ben Marcus's THE AGE OF WIRE AND STRING. All of these very good reads, especially TENTH OF DECEMBER and the reread of Chris's best collection, in my opinion. In fact, I would firmly place TOD in the great category. Best use of voice I've come across in maybe forever. Saunders is pretty much a genius.

Now I'm reading MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS by Kelly Link and CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA by Frank Bill.  These two go together nicely - Link with her magical worlds in this collection and Bill keeping things beautifully grounded with some gritty realism set not far from the place and culture I write about most days.  Both are good at what they do.

On tap for reading in the next month or so: CODE FOR FAILURE by Ryan W. Bradley; COLLECTED STORIES of Amy Hempel; COAST OF CHICAGO by Stuart Dybek; TOWNIE: A MEMOIR by Andre Dubus III; BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA by Dorothy Allison; THE FAST RED ROAD: A PLAINSONG by Stephen Graham Jones.

Read hard.

ALWAYS WHERE I CAN SEE IT NOW

It’s almost like there’s a little valve in my head and if I can throw it on a given day, something will come out. It’s never planned. It’s just kind of a blurt. So in a sense my whole life as a writer is trying to find structural ways, or formal ways, to permit that outflowing so it doesn’t just look like crazy output. In other words, if it turns out that you can do a given voice, that’s just kind of inclination. But then if you can find a way to put that voice in a story so that the voice serves a purpose, then I would say that’s being a writer.

                                                                                                                     – GEORGE SAUNDERS

My Review of Michael Kimball's GALAGA

The review of this fine book is up now at The Small Press Book Review.  You can read it here

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Before I Get Distracted By Log Cabin Restaurants Again...Some Upcoming Reviews

Just finished a review of Rob McLennan's The Uncertainty Principle and it will appear soon at Necessary Fiction.

Here is a picture of Rob at Log Cabin Restaurant.  My local Log Cabin doesn't have a snack section with luscious Doritos, but we can't have everything we want.

Also, my Log Cabin and this Log Cabin may be two entirely different restaurant chains or one may be a part of  a chain and the other may not be part of a chain at all.  Or neither may be a part of a chain and both may just be restaurants called Log Cabin. I cannot at all be sure.


I'll also be finishing up a review of Michael Kimball's upcoming book Galaga, out July 1 from Boss Fight Books.  It will appear in The Small Press Book Review at some point.  Hint.  It is hot as hell good.

As you'd imagine, it doesn't even matter if you've ever played Galaga.  It doesn't even matter if you've never played a video game and pronounce video games like Hank Hill in King of the Hill and say "vidya games."  It just doesn't matter.  Read the review when it's out and see why

News for WHERE ALLIGATORS SLEEP

Ryan W. Bradley's amazing working front and back covers for my new fiction collection WHERE ALLIGATORS SLEEP, due out soon from the foxy Foxhead Books.  And, just imagine, Ryan can write just as well as he can design.  Double threat.  Double threat, people.

Interview: Keeping Secrets with Daisy Rockwell

Daisy Rockwell paints under the takhallus, or alias, Lapata (pronounced ‘laapataa’), which is Urdu for “missing,” or “absconded,” as in “my luggage is missing,” or “the bandits have absconded.” She posts her paintings regularly to Flickr, and writes for the blog Chapati Mystery. She has shown her work in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Waterloo, Ontario, and Lenox and North Adams, Massachusetts. Her essays on literature and art have appeared in Bookslut, Caravan and The Sunday Guardian (New Delhi).

Rockwell grew up in a family of artists in western Massachusetts, some whose work adorns the surfaces of chinaware and brightens up the waiting rooms of dentists’ offices, and others whose artistic output has found more select audiences. From 1992-2006, Lapata made a detour into Academia, from which she emerged with a PhD in South Asian literature, a book on the Hindi author Upendranath Ashk and a mild case of depression.

Rockwell has written The Little Book of Terror, a volume of paintings and essays on the Global War on Terror (Foxhead Books, 2012), and her collection of translations of stories by Ashk, Hats and Doctors, was published in 2013 by Penguin India. Her novel Taste was published by Foxhead Books in December 2013.

She recently took time to talk with me for a bit here at Bent Country.

SLC: You write and paint.  In fact you've published books in both art forms (The Little Book of Terror and Taste).  If you had to choose one or the other, which one would it be?

DR: I've spent a lot of time trying to choose one or the other thing, and realize that choosing makes me ill, physically and mentally. I have to do both. I can't live in a text-only world, and I also can't live in a visual-only world.

SLC: That idea of choosing between two art forms, two crafts, is something that could bring about some mental and physical anguish.  I can surely see that possibility. I think it's safe to say we are all better off that you don't.  If I had to choose between enjoying one of your paintings or reading your writing, I'd suffer some of the same symptoms.  Take some time and tell me some things about Taste, your novel out from Foxhead Books.  Tell me some things I can't find reading about it online or hearing about it around the horn.

DR:  Taste is a novel I started to write when I left my academic job at UC Berkeley in 2006. I told everyone I was going off to write a novel, such a cliché, and though I did start to write Taste then, no one heard of it until 2014. In the meantime I started painting again, and I'm sure by now, most had forgotten I had set out to write fiction. It's a very short book that took a very long time, mostly because I had never written fiction before; my academic self studied fiction and translated it, but never wrote it. It's very hard to make that switch, from critic to author, and I found it absolutely gratifying.

SLC: So I imagine you didn’t talk about your work on Taste during that period of time between 2006 and 2012?  Many writers tend to keep quiet about books they’re working on, but for others it’s just the opposite.  Is this your process, keeping an ongoing project close to you in that way?

DR: Yes, I always keep things a secret. Even my paintings; no one can see them until they're done. This does not, of course, extend to my five-year-old daughter, who can't be kept away, and longs to stand nearby and kibitz.

SLC: I remember when my kids were five.  It was this sleepless, surreal time when I had to find things to keep my creative spark going while balancing life in general.  I read writers I admired and listened to a lot of music to keep me going.  What are some things you lean to that help you stayed tuned in?  What is it about it these things that keeps you inspired?

DR: I translate a lot (from Hindi), write, and follow the news avidly. None of this while she's around, of course.

SLC: Pretend I'm a college freshman having just declared writing or art to be my main course of study and eventual career.  Now pretend that you are the only person they are ever going to hear advice from ever - a one shot moment to convey whatever you can to them.  What do you tell this freshman?

DR: Don't ever expect to earn money from what you love; learn a second career which doesn't use up too much of your intellectual and emotional energy so you'll have some left when you come home and create.

Daisy Rockwell and, also, remember Facebook?

I have a Facebook author page now.  I'm going to go "like" that page.  Say it.  Say it back to me.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sheldon-Lee-Compton/241285966062338

Also, just so you know, I'm currently interviewing writer and painter Daisy Rockwell for my next interview segment.  I will also share some pictures of her pictures and pictures of her.  One picture I'll share will be of her wearing what I believe could be green Crocs and doing just fine.

Like.  Sheldon Lee Compton Facebook page.  Say it all back to me.