So, November is my birthday, and every year about this time I try to populate my reading list with only my favorite (or most-likely-to-be-favorite soon) authors and books. This year is no different. Every author represented here are among my most respected and admired. In short, November is my favorite month of the year. Here’s why…
This is Literary Lollapalooza, November Edition.
Books Read This Month:
Sunset Park by Paul Auster
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
The Walking Dead Books 3 and 4 by Robert Kirkman
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris
An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
Demons in the Spring by Joe Meno
Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain
Books Acquired:
Fiction:
Non-Fiction:
E-Books: Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain
Books Borrowed: Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King, The Walking Dead Books 3 and 4 by Robert Kirkman, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris, Demons in the Spring by Joe Meno, Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain, The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Currently Reading: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Reviews of This Months’ Books:
Sunset Park by Paul Auster
Paul Auster is a great American novelist. He has a storied career of writing about writerly-types who exile themselves into urban solitude because of a singular act of violence that has metastasized into a debilitating social phobia or general anti-socialism.
Sunset Park tells the story of Miles Heller, a 28 year old college drop-out, who is now working as a trash-out worker, cleaning out abandoned foreclosed homes in South Florida. After a devastating accident where he shoved his brother into an oncoming car, he has exiled himself from all family and most friends in a desire to start over fresh. On the side Miles takes pictures of the abandoned items he encounters in these newly empty homes, chronicling the weird and sometimes heartbreaking tales of the people who once owned them. The one bright side in his life is Pilar, the 17 year old high school student who he meets one day in a park, brought together because they are both reading The Great Gatsby.
However, things soon complicate when Pilar’s older sister learns of the affair and begins demanding gifts from Miles taken from the abandoned homes he empties (technically everything inside belongs to the bank that holds the note). In order to avoid prosecution on charges of statutory rape, Miles flees back to the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, Miles finds himself squatting in a house with Bing, a childhood friend, who runs a repair shop called not-too-subtly The Hospital for Broken Things. The other roommates sharing the squat are Alice, a grad student whose dissertation is based greatly on William Wyler’s Time of Their Lives, and Ellen, an artist whose work is getting increasingly, more personally sexually graphic. The squatter’s home brilliantly mirrors Bing’s small shop: a place for broken people.
Auster paints a great portrait of modern artistic types, broken but essentially functioning in current day New York. With his penchant for well-structured drama, and characters that leap off the page, Auster is at the top of his game here. The true standouts for the book though are Miles parents: father Morris, a book publisher, a real mensch, who keeps questioning his past mistakes. And his mother, a fairly famous TV actress, who has returned to the New York stage to play Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. (Little known fact: Auster is in fact a bit of a Beckett admirer and even edited and provided the foreword to the Grove Centenary editions of Beckett’s complete works).
Auster writes lovingly about people you either might know already or people you’d love to know. His Brooklyn is not so much a place, as a state of mind, and a very enjoyable read indeed.
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
Happy freaking birthday to me! This is what I read on my actual birthday. No fooling. Fate couldn’t have worked out better.
As many of you know, Stephen King is my favorite author and the only author I truly keep up with (as in I read every damn thing the man publishes). So a collection of stories that came out on November 9th, my 35th birthday: Couldn’t be better timed. Almost like the guy knew what he was doing. Hmmm…
Anyway, Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of three novellas and one short story. But here, dear readers: please heed the title! This is dark, dark stuff. No light, not even from the faintest stars. This collection in fact is so dark that I hesitate to recommend it.
Covering a variety of topics the four stories collected here focus mostly on the act of revenge, either physically or spiritually.
The first novella “1922” tells the story of a depression-era farmer who with the help of his teenaged son manages to kill off his meddling wife who owns their property and wants to sell it to the bank. He dispatches the wife and saves the farm, but he spends the (relatively short) remainder of his days regretting every moment of it.
In “Big Driver” a female novelist famous for writing mystery cozies about a group of elderly women who solve quaint small-town murders is brutally beaten and raped on a lonely, stretch of deserted back road. Barely alive, and shaken to her core, she manages to drag herself from her makeshift grave and back to safety. But what to do about that big, big man in the trucker cap? The one who raped her and left her for dead? The one who just might be waiting for another woman to enter his trap?
“A Good Marriage” is the last thing you want to read if you are part of a long, happy marriage. It tells the story of a terrible secret unearthed, making one wife question how well you can ever really know the people you love. A rattling, chilling tale of secrets better left hidden, and doors better left unopened.
“Fair Extension” is the shortest and lightest story of the collection. A welcome bit of gallows humor, this story shares much in common thematically with the Bachman novel Thinner. A guy stops to see a roadside vendor offering “Fair Extension”, but what exactly is he selling? Faced with the onset of a particularly aggressive cancer, our main character has little hope, but what if he had the chance to extend his life? First he must make it “fair”, i.e. he must swap his fortune with someone he hates. A skeleton grin of a darkest night campfire tale, this wry story asks just what you would do for another chance.
This is the darkest of King’s writings in a decade. This collection more comfortably fits under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman, the guy who writes unflinchingly awful stuff that is undoubtedly human, yet horrific, the nasty bits we care not acknowledge about the human heart. The fact that King chose not to publish this under his more blood-thirsty pseudonym is telling. Perhaps he finally wants credit for the worst thoughts of which he is capable, or maybe he is just owning up, saying look, I don’t like it either, but sometimes people are just sick, awful human beings. The fact that he felt the need to apologize to his readers, says much about his state of mind after completing this collection. This is in many ways a much more mature King, choosing to face the darkest facets of our reality rather than creating a fantasy of monsters. Not for the squeamish, but you Bachman fans out there (you know who you are) will find this hard to put down.
The Walking Dead Books 3 and 4 by Robert Kirkman
This continuing story of a group of survivors in the aftermath of a full-blown zombie apocalypse is one of the best written and drawn comic books out there. Read this series, in any form necessary, and then tune in to AMC to watch the brilliant TV series adaptation by Frank Darabont (The Mist, Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile).
While the TV show has had some weak writing moments in the first season, the pilot remains one of the best of all time, and rumors have it that Darabont has fired the writing team for season two and while planning writing episodes himself is also farming eps out to freelancers, ala Doctor Who.
But never mind television! Get back to reading this riveting tale of the zombie apocalypse! Author Kirkman is threatening something like 700 issues of the monthly comic. I can’t wait!
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris
I can’t lie. David Sedaris is a superstar to me. The essayist and NPR contributor is one of the funniest, wittiest, and warmest of writers out there. His bestselling collections of essays cover many topics, most notably his wacky family and upbringing (including wacky sister Amy, star of Strangers with Candy, and brother Rooster, who well, really…needs no further qualification). He is such a superstar to me that when he visited the downtown DC Borders to sign copies of his book When You are Engulfed in Flame I was a stuttering, spluttering mess, jerkily turning pages and applying “autographed copies” stickers to the stack of books before him. Luckily he was gracious enough to pretend that I was not freaking out. He just asked me questions about my life, and told me funny little stories in his soft-spoken way.
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunks is a charming little collection of stories that for some reason remind me of Mr. Sedaris himself and the way he entertained an audience of me, one afternoon, over Sharpie fumes in the Borders café. With illustrations by children’s picture book author and artist Ian Falconer, this is a collection of anthropomorphized animal tales. Perhaps fable is not too unlikely a term? Much like the ancient tales of the fox and the crow and mouse and the lion, these modern tales of hubris are told through the guise of animal friends, but the sad, funny, and often meaningful outcomes of the stories are all too human. In searching out the little ways we embarrass ourselves, or belittle one another, or love the most unlike ourselves, Sedaris has created a gem of a modern bestiary. Fables for a modern generation, this collection can be devoured in an afternoon. Then you can spend a year poring over all the glorious little details, and the gorgeous illustrations to your heart’s content.
An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
This new novel by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) is about the inner workings of the fine art world. Martin, an avid art collector since the early 90’s, here recreates a New York art scene through the eyes of a young idealistic art writer and the beautiful, smart, and ambitious object of his desire, Lacey Yeager. Covering the years between 1990 and the present, Martin follows the exploits of his flawed and engaging main character as she makes her way to the top of the NYC art world, from Sotheby’s flunky to fledgling collector to modern art gallery owner; we see the world changing around us.
From the beginning of the art boom when classic paintings began selling for extraordinary amounts of money, to the opportunistic 2000’s when the next big thing was bringing equal numbers just based on the promise of greatness, to the crash of art futures with the collapse of the financial markets in 2008, this is a veritable modern art history class in novel form. So great is Martin’s depth of knowledge on the topic, that he seamlessly weaves in subtle distinctions in art style and class by including numerous full-color illustrations of the famous (or semi-famous) artists he references. By the end this is as edifying a read as it an enjoyable one. I know more about art and about what drives the whims and desires of the art collector, than I could’ve ever imagined. From market variations, to small imperfections in notorious works, the inner workings of the art world are laid bare for the unitiated. This book quite simply, does for the art world what The Devil Wear’s Prada did for high fashion.
But this book is so much more than high glam expose, and so much more than the story of a small town girl in the big city. Lacey Yeager is the most difficult of protagonists: she is ambiguously written. We are never sure if she is an innocent in the grips of an evil influence, a seductress willingly using men to reach her goals, or just a girl doing what it takes to make it in the world, and that is the beauty as well. Because she isn’t any one of those things, she’s all of them. A beautifully complex character that isn’t afraid to be written honestly, warts and all, Lacey is the rarest kind of modern hero: one who isn’t that heroic, or admirable, but somehow beautiful in her singular ambition.
I loved this book immensely. Whereas Martin’s previous forays into literature (Shopgirl, The Pleasure of My Company) felt like amusing little heart-touching trifles, here he digs down and writes a great character and a great story full of wit, gravitas, and emotion. A genuinely gorgeous novel, this is not to be missed.
Demons in the Spring by Joe Meno
Joe Meno is probably one of the most unique writers writing today. His books always verge on the bizarre and focus on the sad, stolid lives of somehow broken and unhappy people.
How odd then, that I always leave Meno’s work feeling so joyous. Demons in the Spring is Meno’s 2nd short story collection, but the first I have read of Meno’s short fiction. Like Meno’s novels that I have read (The Boy Detective Fails, Hairstyles of the Damned, and The Great Perhaps) the stories collected here almost all occur in a universe that is slightly off. Almost all are inexplicably bizarre, and haunting: tales of a broken world and the lost, lonely people who inhabit it.
In Meno’s world it’s not out of the ordinary for buildings to disappear, or for people to turn into clouds, or for a woman’s internal organs to be replaced by a miniature city of lights. Despite these sometimes odd and off-putting worlds, what Meno knows and nails is the sense of loneliness and loss we all feel at one or another time on this crazy planet. Meno is at his very, very best in this collection of twenty stories (collected here with illustrations of 20 of the best cutting-edge illustrators in the business). Each story is its own sad little Metropolis, and despite all the best hope, there is no Superman.
Meno writes what it’s like to be human, from that sad mournful place, where we all find ourselves from time to time. The only difference is Meno doesn’t offer solutions, only more malaise, every so often turning into indifferent whimsy and ridiculous fun.
So why am I smiling again? Joe Meno, like Tim Burton, can only infuse his darkest visions with elements of fun, leaving an indelible impression of joy with every instance of loss.
Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain has gone from being a cook, to a groundbreaking author, to a travel writer, to a celebrity chef, to a Top Chef guest judge and veritable television star. What Bourdain really is, besides being a professional observer and provocateur, is a writer.
The hugely-popular New York Times bestselling expose of the cooking world, Kitchen Confidential, was published nearly twenty five years ago. Since then Tony Bourdain has been known more as a traveler and commentator than as an actual cook. These twenty-five years later Bourdain published what is the greatest companion piece to that earlier piece-de-resistance: Medium Raw is a love letter to the art of cooking and to those who still devote themselves to it.
While acknowledging that his “chef” days are far behind him, Bourdain creates a quite comprehensive look at what his life is like post-kitchen: he travels, he writes, he drinks, he reminisces, he raises a family. His priorities have completely changed, he has mellowed and softened, and he’ll gladly admit that he couldn’t even make it to the finals of Top Chef (on his BEST DAY), nor does he want to. For Bourdain, life is pretty good. He gets paid to travel and eat and record what he does.
Sure, he can still hurl a few untoward syllables in the direction of Food Network from time to time, and while he’ll not end up on Rachel Ray’s guest list anytime soon, the Bourdain that emerges here is a much older, much wiser, much more circumspect Bourdain than we encountered even a decade ago. He no longer feels the need to bad mouth TV celebuchefs, after all how bad can they be? We are all after-all just making a living, right? So what if so-and-so has 14 cookbooks, they’re not hurting you, so why hurt them, right?
But alas if you think Bourdain has gone totally soft, never fear, Tony is still pissed off. And he’ll still proudly list his heroes and his enemies, with reasons for each. And he’ll still proudly declaim food writer Alan Richman a douche bag. (Trust me, after you read the chapter titled “Alan Richman is a Douche Bag”, you will, too.)
What’s great is that after years writing for books and for TV Mr. Bourdain now writes like he talks (or talks like he writes). Either way, reading this is a joy simply because for the week that you read this you’ll have Tony Bourdain talking in your head constantly. The test though, is if Tony continues talking in your head long after you put the book down.
For me, Tony is now a constant voice, always offering his insight on what might be a great or a terrible meal, or even on the sunset now turning soft shades of purple and pink.
And that, ladies and gents, is why November is my favorite month. Tune in next month not only for the December ‘Palooza, but also for my year-end wrap up where I name my favorite books read this year. Good night, and keep reading!
