Interview with John Dermot Woods
I’m pretty sure John Dermot Woods hasn’t killed any presidents, but he still opts to use his assassin name on the cover of his book, The Complete Collection of People, Places & Things (BlazeVOX 2009).
That’s a title worth remembering, but I don’t blame anyone who can’t do it. I always call it The Complete List of Stuff, even though John’s title is better. I like how he places no limit on what is included. Apparently, it is the complete collection of everything and everyone, everywhere, ever. READ MORE >
El Greed by David NeSmith
Chelsea’s post (did anyone else notice that it’s spelled “ADVENTUERES”?) reminded me that David NeSmith’s cartoon, EL GREED, is hilarious and poetic-pithy. You can view them all online, or for $4 you can order a handsome 20p chapbook from Publishing Genius.
Also, I’ll send a copy to the first three commenters who say they want one for free. Here’s a sample:
Two more after the break. READ MORE >
INTERVIEW WITH GREG GERKE
Greg Gerke is the author of THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH SVEN. His website is www.greggerke.com. He answered some questions I sent him, mostly about flash fiction, though some are about being a real life human being. Interview after break.
Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever
Having heard Justin read a few of the stories from here, and having read others in New York Tyrant, Canteen, and elsewhere, I can say that even if I weren’t friends with Justin, and a labelmate, I’d be pretty fucking excited about his forthcoming book, Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever. You don’t have to listen to me though, here’s Padgett Powell: “Mr. Taylor has perfect touch, to frightening effect, does not presume, has power, and promises us new things. There is a debt paid to Donald Barthelme… and a strange undertow of Philip Roth, which makes for a new literary beast.”
You can preorder it now. It’s under $10 on Amazon. Or you can go direct to the publisher. Yes. Excited.
Rudy Wilson’s The Red Truck
Very excited last night by an email from Peter Markus, who mentioned that the long-difficult-to-drum-up novel The Red Truck by Rudy Wilson has just been reprinted by Ravenna Press, along with another new book by Mr. Wilson. I seriously almost paid a heftier tag a week or two ago when I was about to buy the original version on Amazon used, but now the always excellent Ravenna has solved that problem.
If you haven’t read Rudy Wilson before, via this novel or in issues of Unsaid or elsewhere, here’s Peter on why this means you should be excited too:
The Red Truck is one of those late-80s Knopf books edited by Lish that I found remaindered one day in some TV appliance-warehouse-turned-bookshop that is now a place that sells tires. I took it home and immediately could feel the sensation of something new running through my hands. I think it’s a brilliant book, a one of a kind book, a book that wouldn’t have been made into a book had it not found its way into Gordon’s hands. I think the story goes behind it that Lish cut the manuscript in half (sort of what he did to Barry Hannah’s revved up Ray). I suspect what Lish did was find the core of Rudy’s Red Truck and cut away much of what a much younger Wilson thought was needed to hold the story together. For me it’s a novel that is pure hallucination and is the kind of book that I return to again and again in order to recapture that initial rush that language in its purest, most musical form can offer to us. Each time that I do Rudy’s sentences unglue me and then put me back together in new ways. I let my sister read The Red Truck, some years ago, and when she did she ended up having a major seizure. The effect that the book had on my sis is what we all want from our work: sentences that take hold of the brain and seize it up, unhinge us from the world around us, and make the body of us do some fucked-up sort of pogo to a music that Wilson’s song makes us hear inside our own heads. The Red Truck by Rudy Wilson is the realest of deals. You can get it now from Ravenna Press along with a brand new book of short fiction by Wilson called Sonja’s Blues. And while you’re loitering around at the Ravenna website, do yourself a third favor and nab Norman Lock’s The Long Rowing Unto Morning, an equally dreamy and necessary book. Thanks for listening.
You can pick up the book, also available in a package deal with Wilson’s Sonja’s Blue, now from Ravenna Press.
Now we just need all those other Knopf gems to get the same treatment…
I.E. Reader, second post: Graham Foust
This morning I was reading Wallace Stegner’s novel Crossing to Safety (in the bathtub, for those who track this kind of thing), and was struck by a chapter about a dinner party of some young English professors at the University of Wisconsin in the early middle of the last century. There is a lot in that section to grab my attention, including the academic climate just after the depression (people still cared about Chaucer and Spencer like they mattered), the drinking habits just after prohibition (capable hosts couldn’t mix a Manhattan), and the social dynamic between husbands and wives who could read Homer in Greek, and who would stand around the piano and sing hymns after dinner then listening to Beethoven A-sides in the sitting room. What fun!
One striking moment came when Sid, the party’s host, read from a volume of Housman, and everyone knew he was leading things a bit, but they indulged him as he read “Easter Hymn.” Then they discussed it in terms of what it meant for understanding the rest of Housman’s work, how it seemed too Christian for the old guy, how the two stanzas seemed out of order — and I loved reading all that. It made me 10 minutes late for work. Then I wondered if it would be possible for a contemporary poet to revisit Housman. Certainly no one today ought to go back and emulate him directly — he’s too transparent, too wrought in scansion and sentimental in thought to be compelling nowadays — but is anyone who’s any good making an update?
Well, below the fold, check out Graham Foust’s poem in the I.E. Reader, which is so primarily ahead of the surveillance that I was jolted to read it. It’s so throwback: READ MORE >
INTERVIEW WITH JORDAN CASTRO AND RICHARD WEHRENBERG JR.
Jordan Castro and Richard Wehrenberg Jr. have just released a split chapbook of their poetry, called THINK TANK FOR HUMAN BEINGS IN GENERAL. They answered some questions and here they are. I did them in split format as tribute to the chapbook’s structure. Interview after break.
Gogol search
Let’s All Fall In Love With C.E. Morgan
What do I know about C.E. Morgan? Not much. Basically, three things. (1) She wrote a novel called All The Living. (2a) Christine Schutt chose her as one of the “5 under 35” thing that the National Book Awards does. To me a Schutt recommendation is as good as gold, and knowing that one of my favorite authors admires this book is enough to make me want to own it immediately. Anyway, from the NBA page I also know that she (2a) has a master’s in theology, and (2b) is beautiful. (3a) She wrote this essay for Largehearted Boy where she provides an expansive introduction to classical music, which I have been desperate for someone to provide me with for some time. (3b) Here’s a short story called “Over By Christmas” that was published in the New York Times last year. So cheers to you, C.E.! Glad to know (of) you. Will report back to ya’ll re the book as soon as there’s something to say.