What to do with du Maurier?

I’ve mentioned the wtfuckery that abounds in Daphne du Maurier’s collection of “lost” short stories, The Doll. I’m only halfway-ish through the book—that’s six stories down—and each one of those stories has a half-baked feel I can’t shake off, and majority simply has me scratching my poor head. That is: None of these is the du Maurier short fiction I’ve come to know. Though her always-to-die-for prose is present, all of the stories—with the [begrudging] exception of the title story—simply feels like du Maurier had an idea, picked up some loose leaf, and ran with it. If I were a snide little gremlin, I’d say something like: Oh, is it a wonder these stories were lost? [Currently reading.]

01142013: A book pile to cleanse the palate

I picked up The Drawing of the Three, the second book in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, because I wanted something hefty that would take me away from the bad juju flying around today. And so when Ronald wakes up at the beach (where The Gunslinger, first book, ended) and starts being eaten by the scariest, most ridiculous demon lobster in literary history—the man gets two fingers and a toe eaten, for fuck’s sake—I was thankful for someone to sympathize with, someone who made me think, “Well, he’s more fucked than you are, girl.” See, after being all, “I see serious problems ahead,” at page twenty, Ronald goes, “I jerk off left-handed, at least that’s something.” Yeah, let the Gunslinger remind you look for the bright side, Sasha. [Continue reading.]

Let’s get the duds out of the way

I think I’m learning how to take bad and mediocre books in stride. That is, I’ve decided that 2012 will be when I don’t take it as a personal offense that the book I just read dared be craptastic or so-so. That sounds wise of me, I know. So. Five books into the year, and [...]

“Stories can wait.”

In his introduction to Mavis Gallant’s short story collection, Varieties of Exile, Russell Banks offers us a quote from the other herself— Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. [...]

Kerfuffle

Anyone who’s trolled this blog long enough will notice that, as much as possible, I’d rather not let the real world and its pesky issues in. [A rare exception goes down Semi-Blathering Ranty Avenue, as was the case when I tried to comment on supposed “moral responsibilities” to furthering a gender’s and a nation’s literature—bullshit, [...]

On Alice Hoffman, and her latest

It wasn’t until I took a pencil to her booklist that I realized: The Red Garden is the sixteenth Alice Hoffman book that I’ve read. Sixteenth. I don’t know how she stands with the other [as prolific] authors whose work I keep returning to, but my goodness, sixteen books. Then again, I don’t know why [...]

On “A Year of Grace,” short story from Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn by Harvey Swados

Does every reader have the compulsion to seek out authors on the hopes that you’ll find traces of your long-favorite authors in their work? Say, you’ll swear by Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, by the short fiction of Raymond Carver, of Elizabeth Hardwick—that you’ll willingly flirt with F. Scott Fitzgerald, with Anne Tyler, or the [...]

Stuck, with Ali Smith

For Short Story Month 2010, I read Ali Smith’s collection, The Whole Story and Other Stories. I thought it was okay. I thought it was an uneven collection, mis-stepping several times yet quite lovely, with “fluid language that still manages to escape artsy-fartsy convolutedness.” I especially liked how that collection was dedicated to books and [...]

Standing Witness

I’ve read much of Amy Bloom and consider her one of the most skilled and personally affecting contemporary short story writers I have ever encountered—but reading her latest collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out, was still a surprise. That is, I was jarred by how good she was. Why have I forgotten? Why [...]

Moments of Miscomprehension with Andrej Blatnik

The Moment of Decision The man decides things can’t go on like this. The man realizes all the women he knows only want to be friends; even the ones who sleep over only sleep over because they’ve been rejected by his best friend. The man quits his job, leases his apartment. The man goes abroad. [...]