Sunday, January 31, 2010

“Book Reviews - Texarkana Gazette” plus 3 more

“Book Reviews - Texarkana Gazette” plus 3 more

Book Reviews - Texarkana Gazette

Posted: 31 Jan 2010 05:19 AM PST

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"Marriage and Other Acts of Charity" (Little, Brown and Company, 224 pages, $24.99), by Kate Braestrup: In marriage, it helps to learn to apologize. Unchecked anger is bad and loving generously benefits both the giver and receiver. These are ...

Shades of Luz Author John Gorman Pays Tribute to JD Salinger - PRLog (free press release)

Posted: 31 Jan 2010 08:39 AM PST

PR Log (Press Release) – Jan 31, 2010 – (First appeared in Paper Cut blog 1/28/10 written by John Gorman)

God Bless You Mr. Salinger.

I guess this will serve as my first elegy to a great writing mentor. Salinger is the first writer I truly admired and tried to emulate. I devoured his books and actually reread them. I loved the way he got under his characters' skin and slipped under my own. I loved that he topped off by the two-hundred page mark.

Vonnegut passed away a few years ago and I meant to write about how profoundly he had and still influences me, but I haven't gotten around to it. I'm a champion procrastinator. Updike checked out last year. That didn't shake me. Frankly, I was more familiar with his criticism, book reviews, and New Yorker pieces than any of his fiction. I paid my respect by dusting off a copy of "Rabbit Run".

Salinger though is a bitter pill to swallow. Still, his death is anticlimactic. He made himself untouchable. I imagine many folks are surprised he whisked into this new decade. Fifteen years must have passed since that Esquire piece on him speculated as to his whereabouts. The cheeky scribe snarkily insinuated J.D might have been ghostwriting for Don Delillo, Thomas Pynchon or somebody else just to keep his literary chops up to snuff. Worse though, was that Salinger might have planned something more macabre, more selfish maybe he was just dumping his churned pages into his dresser drawer.

Imagine living in the Age of Twain. Anybody who ever crossed his path has long since left this mudball, but Salinger, well, he's our modern day Twain. Perhaps, a reincarnation if you go for that fluff. The thing that really shocks the pants off me though is how many souls have actually plunked down their cold hard cash to own a copy of "The Catcher in the Rye". It's mind blowing. Sixty-five million copies have been sold worldwide. To give you an idea just what that means take this into consideration. In terms of record albums, only Michael Jackson's "Thriller" has out-grossed "The Catcher in the Rye". Salinger's magnum opus has sold more copies than any two Beatles albums combined, including "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Abbey Road" more copies than Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", The Eagles Greatest Hits", the Bee Gees, Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera", Madonna's "Immaculate Collection", Led Zeppelin, and Nirvana's "Nevermind". I'm comparing apples to oranges because in this attention deficit planet of ours it's a mega phenomenal accomplishment to have your book outsell the heart of rock n roll.

But let's get down to the nitty gritty. How does "The Catcher in the Rye" stack up against hardbacks and the paperbound? Well, as you might have guessed the Bible, the Quaran, The Book of Mormon, Chairman Mao's Poems, and "Lord of the Rings" have all sold more copies. Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" and Agatha Christie's "And then there were None" rank higher than TCITR and I'm sorry but not surprised to say that "Da Vinci Code" has about 15 million copies on Holden's story. But, it is still encouraging to note that Salinger has a handy lead on Paulo Coehlo's "The Alchemist", "Anne of Green Gables", Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty", all the Harry Potters, "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "Bridges of Madison County". Salinger eclipses "Diary of Anne Frank", Tolstoy's "War and Peace", "One Hundred Years of Solitude", "The Communist Manifesto" and even "The Valley of Dolls".

Does this give me new faith of my fellow Homo Sapiens? Not a chance. More junk will be published and read, but it's a numbers game right? I digress. Sorry Senor Salinger. I went into a momentary sidetrack, perhaps I need to spend more time consulting with my local spiritual trainer to put me back onto Brahmin-track.

If anything at all Jerome David made me wish I was a neighbor of the Glasses. He was somebody I would trade all my Mickey Mantles to sit down and chat with the guy. I really would have loved to tell him how much I thought he pushed personality and time bomb-ticking sentiments over the edge. He plumbed into a new layer of youthful unconscious giving us unfiltered, wry frankness— a hairline between tragic comedy. There's that part in "The Catcher in the Rye" when Holden admits that Somerset Maugham is a pretty good writer, but isn't the kind of guy he'd want to call up on the phone to shoot the breeze with, but Thomas Hardy, now there's a guy I'd love to ring up. Salinger's characters drop bits of insight as if leaving behind a trail they will someday need to get out of the woods. Before the reader knows any better he's foraged lifetime's worth of confessions. We're torn between hoarding it or mouthing it off to whoever. Certainly not J.D because he enlisted to be a hermit and I'm not saying that in a bad way I really love my solitary confinement.

In "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" there's a dwarf camped in the backseat of the limo Buddy Glass is riding in along with the estranged bridal party. Our eyes are glued to that stovetop hat propped on the dwarf's head as if the supreme adaptive edge for all mankind is hidden beneath the ill-fitting Brobdingnagian-sized hat. It's as if Salinger wanted to defy the Chekhovian maxim show and shoot. One who has chronicled the Glass family through their many incarnations saw the gun go off in "A Perfect Day for Bananfish". But while there is a whiff of self-immolation in much of his confessional prose Salinger, the writer, sweats it out through his unbearable lightness of being. He doesn't Hemingway, Plath, or Foster Wallace his way off this mudball. He goes on. No public readings, podcasts, barnstorming tours, no Charlie Rose or Oprah interviews.

Just think of him as the complete antithesis of failbetter. Where do you set the bar after the Glasses and the Caulfields? Lit scholars can mock him worship him he deserves stones and psalms, but whatever you do you cannot put down one of his books and not mumble to yourself, bastard.

If you nuked his popularity and served his prose as a cold burrito you are still left with raw sustenance— moon juice. He's on a quest to reveal the sound of one hand clapping. He is the crown prince of people. If Michelangelo forever changed the way we looked at the human form then Salinger dug under the skin and showed every foible. He examined the stuff of humanity under an electron microscope. In "For Esme— With Love and Squalor", the young soldier makes a little boy furious then want to kiss him on the cheek. Sure that soldier's motivation was to get his big sister in the sack, but this is Salinger's brilliance. He's a writer of love letters. Brothers write love letters to sisters, mothers, brothers, his epistolary style stretches ad infinitum.

Some years back, I actually traded messages by way of the bathroom mirror as sort of a tribute to "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters". "Emulation is one of the highest compliments, but it is also juvenile" writes Stephen Kuusisto in his seminal memoir "Eavesdropping". My copycat impulse reified. Instead of swiping J.D's words I enacted scenes. Maybe I don't judge a man by his suitcases, but I pass judgment on the books he palms, the way he orders his coffee, and what type of haircut he wears. I'm not only suspicious of phonies I have my own silent restraining order imposed on them.

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New and Notable book reviews - AZCentral.com

Posted: 24 Jan 2010 07:15 AM PST

'Small Wars'

Sadie Jones

(Harper, $24.99)

Words that describe Jones' writing - smart, thorough, purposeful, patient - are decidedly unsexy, which is unfortunate because her novels (this and 2008's "The Outcast") are seductive in the best way. She gives her readers everything they need in order to become immersed in the story she tells. Never self-indulgent, she doesn't resort to bells or whistles. She just makes us want to know what will happen next. Here she follows a young family as the husband, Hal Treherne, a major in the British army, is posted to Cyprus in 1956, just as terrorist acts by Greek Cypriots against the occupying British forces intensify. There are scenes of violence, and of the stress on Hal's marriage to Clara, whose role in Cyprus (they have twin toddlers) is different from Hal's but no less difficult. After an explosion kills one soldier and maims another, three of Hal's men shoot a Cypriot and rape two women. In the aftermath Hal makes a decision that changes everything. It's an arresting book about right, wrong and the price of choosing between the two.

'Just Kids'

Patti Smith

(Ecco, $27)

In 1967, 20-year-old would-be artist Smith arrived by bus in New York City. Eventually she would write poetry and rock journalism and, more famously, would become a major part of the punk-rock movement of the 1970s. But in 1967 she had no work or money, so she roamed the streets and took in the atmosphere, imagining the presence of Henry James characters as she walked by Washington Square. If that's a surprise - that an influential rock star once loved the novels of Henry James and Louisa May Alcott - then there are many more in store as you read this tender memoir. It's full of stories about being free and hungry in New York, and about people she knew there (Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Allen Ginsberg). But its main focus is her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whom she met on her first day in the city and loved until he died of AIDS in 1989. They were kindred spirits who became artists together. Now, as she promised him, she has written their story, and she has done it very well.

'It All Changed In an Instant'

Edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith

(Harper, $12)

This is Smith magazine's third volume of "six-word memoirs" chosen from 200,000 submitted by people who have condensed their lives into autobiographical grains of sand. As usual, many are lame, but those that aren't make up for it. My favorite, which is in the introduction, came from a third-grader: "Life is better in soft pajamas." How can anyone beat that? And yet they try. Some are funny ("Bachelor party. YouTube video. Wedding cancelled."), others enigmatic ("Stranger in Sudan made everything possible."). A few are lofty, and therefore boring: "Only I define who I am," writes Montel Williams, and really, who wants to argue with him? Other familiar names show up. Novelist John Banville: "Should have lived more, written less." Ann Coulter: "Some are left alive, quick reload." John Grogan ("Marley & Me"): "That dumb dog sure paid off." You'll find that the memoirs of common folks are just as clever. Nothing is more leveling than six little words.

'The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. IV'

(Picador, $18)

I've been reading this since it arrived late last year, slowly, and always interspersed with the reading of other books. That's the perfect way to go, because reading writers' thoughts on their work is enhanced by simultaneously reading the sort of work they're talking about - one enlivens the other. There's an inherent decadence to the Paris Review interviews, which are meandering conversations with writers, both past (in this case, William Styron, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Jack Kerouac, E.B. White, P.G. Wodehouse) and present (John Ashbery, Maya Angelou, Paul Auster, Philip Roth, Stephen Sondheim, V.S. Naipaul, Haruki Murakami, Orhan Pamuk, David Grossman and Marilynne Robinson). Many questions are specific to a writer's work and career. Others are as universal as, "What was the first book that meant something to you?" or "How many words do you turn out on a good day?" It's a treat for people who read, write or simply love language. The introduction is by Salman Rushdie.

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Book reviews: History and Humor - DAILY KOS

Posted: 24 Jan 2010 01:55 PM PST

A couple of 2010 paperback editions have been released of 2009 hardcovers I never got around to reviewing that are well worth a read:

Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal
By Kim Phillips-Fein
W.W. Norton & Co.: New York
Paperback, 360 pages, $16.95
Original hardcover, January 2009; Paperback, January 2010

Money quote:

... if one looks beneath the surface of the postwar years, it is clear that the "liberal consensus" on matters of political economy was never absolute. Even at its zenith, liberalism was far less secure than it appeared to be. And one of the main challenges it faced began with those few prominent business leaders who were outraged by the New Deal, which they saw as a fundamental challenge to their power and their place in American society. Their antagonism toward the economic order it created never fully abated. Rather, these impassioned, committed individuals found ways to nourish their opposition, to resist liberal institutions and ideas, and to persuade other to join in fighting back, until the liberal order began to falter and they could help to bring about the slow and pervasive revolution that would culminate in Reagan's victory in 1980.

This book is about those determined few, those ordinary businessmen (and I use the word advisedly, for they were mostly men) from companies of different sizes and from various industries, who worked for more than forty years to undo the system of labor unions, federal social welfare programs, and government regulation of the economy that came into existence during and after the Great Depression of the 1930s. These were the men who supported and helped to formulate the economic agenda of the conservative movement.

Author: Professor, teaches 20th century American history at New York University's Gallatin School. Has written articles for The Nation, Washington Post, The American Prospect, the London Review of Books, among others.

Basic premise: From the outside, the alliance that emerged between the corporate world and the religious right, which fueled the Republican Party's most recent resurgence, has seemed like one of the most blatant cases of strange bedfellows ever. But Phillips-Fein takes a closer look and finds that the two seemingly dissimilar groups actually share a basic, rock-bottom animosity toward government; the business leaders want to be free to operate in a non-regulated, non-restricted environment, and the the religious right chafes at any restrictions on its ability to proselytize or enact its "Christian nation" agenda. Tracing the corporatists' "invisble hands" at work in the 20th century is like following clues to a mystery, a task at which the author excels.

Readability/quality: Quick, easy read--almost like a broadside or pamphlet, but packs a lot of solid history into one volume. Good stuff.

Who should read it: Anyone interested in: the unraveling of the New Deal and contemporary resistance to its initial enactment; the political evolution of the religious right; corporate activism, both overt and covert; current conservatism.

Bonus quote:

On the whole, most of the scholars who have dealt with religion and ideas have looked at the activism of conservatives as roughly analogous to that which built the civil rights and labor movements--the work of ordinary people on the ground, carefully organizing through personal contacts. This book suggests that there is something about the conservative movement which fundamentally distinguishes it from the movements of the left: the role played by business.  There have, of course, been businessmen who have given financial and political support to liberal or even left-wing causes.  But the extent of businessmen's involvement in post-war conservatism, as funders but also as activists, and the role of the workplace as a site of conflict seem to set conservatism apart from other social movements.

One of the more intriguing shifts in alliance that Phillips-Fein follows down the rabbit hole and back out again is that of the suburban Southerner. Democrats were losing favor in the South due to the party's civil rights stands in the 1960s and 1970s--at exactly the same time the nation was becoming more suburban/exurban. The middle class professional class that was emerging in Dixie was educated and sophisticated enough to be uncomfortable with blatant racist jargon, and the cover that was provided by the free-market, freedom-from-regulation crowd allowed them to have their cake and eat it too. After all, they told themselves (and each other, and social scientists), it's not that they were segregationists or white supremacists when they opposed busing or affirmative action, it was because these policies "violated principles of meritocracy and private property rights," according to Phillips-Fein.

Yes, we can thank the business community for helping shape the language that today, still, allows racists to believe they're not racist.

I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man and Dog
By Diana Joseph
Berkley Trade, New York
224 pages, $15.00
Original hardcover, March 2009; Paperback, February 2010

Money quote:

It had been Career Day at school, and that's what got him riled up: the future. His future. He was excited about his future. After listening to some of the speakers--an investment banker; a certified public accountant; Jacob's dad, who owns a Saturn dealership--he decided that when he goes to college he will major in business, he will specialize in purchasing and acquisitions, he will make a buttload of money, and it was all I could do to keep from putting down my foot and dashing his dreams and telling him over my dead body you're going into purchasing and acquisitions ....

"So does this mean you're a Republican?" I said. "Over my dead body. Not as long as you live in my house."

The boy wondered out loud if it was hypocritical when a Democrat makes her son into a political prisoner. "You're mean," he said.

"And another thing," I told him. "I won't pay for you to be a business major. Not one dime."

The boy said he was going to report me to Amnesty International.

Author: Came out with well-received short story collection in 2003 (Happy or Otherwise), teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Minnesota State University in Mankato.

Basic premise: Memoir. Some of this genre you read because the person is famous and extraordinary (Dreams from My Father)) or they relate a truly bizarre personal story (Running with Scissors: A Memoir). But the most powerful, for me, have always been those that convey ordinary lives in a way that evokes immediate recognition -- of things you've thought, done, dreamt of doing. Joseph does this beautifully, with tales of her working class childhood, questionable relationship choices, single-parenting and (yes) pet ownership. The main draw is that she's funny as hell. I mean that: Funny. As. Hell. And totally un-PC and at times quite appalling.

Readability/quality: Did I say she's funny as hell? Lots of quick sketch dialogue, crazy inner thinking we all can recognize. Quick, fun and (very strangely) heartwarming.

Who should read it: Moms, definitely. Dads, too. Wives, most assuredly. Husbands ... probably. Daughters and pet owners, yep. Sluts? Required reading.

Bonus quote:

My thirteen years of parenting this boy can be summed up in three sentiments:

I adore you.

What the hell do you want from me now?

I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!

Like most pitch-perfect humor, I'm Sorry You Feel That Way contains a lot of down-to-earth truths hidden right beneath the surface. The push-pull of the drag of responsibility of parenting versus the absolute love that comes with it is probably the most prominent in the book, but the difficulty of sustaining healthy romantic relationships is another. But the least humorous, and most haunting, essay in the book is an account of the author's relationship over a decade with an alcoholic department head, who by turns was delightful, supportive, sloppy drunk, mean as hell, companionable, adoring, undermining and ultimately self-destructive. Anyone who's had to deal with important people in their lives who are in the throes of addiction will recognize this particular carousel and just how hard it is to get off of it.

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