Matthew Simmons—
Tao, when you are 73, I hope you get arrested for shoplifting from American Apparel: Seniors. (And I mean that with the greatest affection.)
6
SMIZE: Tyra Banks is Going to Write The Best Book Ever
Did you hear? The news broke late last week. Tyra Banks is going to become a YA author. For those of us who (used to) watch America’s Next Top Model, this is excellent news because now she will bring her signature flair to the written word. If you go to the website of her imprint, BANKABLE BOOKS, she helpfully explains how to pronounce the title of her first novel, Modelland. If you’re curious, that is Model Land. She also says, “I think Modelland is going to really touch the dreamer in all of us, whether you’re aged anywhere from 8 to 80.” This is good news for all of us.
Since the announcement, I’ve seen a lot of snark and garment rending and the sort of reaction that arises any time a celebrity or other literary untouchable (blogger) dares to dip their unanointed toes in the holy waters of literature. How dare they sully the serious work of the serious writer! Yes, I recognize that this is a fairly ridiculous situation–Tyra Banks with a three-book deal while we toil in obscurity is certainly frustrating but do any of us write anything remotely similar to Modelland? Does her book deal mean we won’t get one? Why do we so often begrudge certain writers their book deals? Is anyone else as excited as I am?
NEW MARTIN AMIS
“This remarkably tedious new novel by Martin Amis…” Awesome. If Kakutani hates it, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll love it. Only Liesl Schillinger, whose sour-smug review of Peter Hoeg’s magnificent The Quiet Girl breezily and speciously claimed its narrative “lurches toward pedophilia,” annoys me more as far as NY Times reviewers go. Can’t wait!
Sequel to Less Than Zero
Bret Easton Ellis’s Imperial Bedrooms
Forthcoming from Knopf
Ellis explores what disillusioned youth looks like 25 years later in this brutal sequel to Less Than Zero. Clay, now a screenwriter, returns at Christmas to an L.A. that looks and operates much as it did 25 years ago. Trent is now a producer and married to Clay’s ex, Blair, while Julian runs an escort service and Rip, Clay’s old dealer, has had so much plastic surgery he’s unrecognizable. While casting a script he’s written, Clay falls for a young, untalented actress named Rain Turner, and his obsession and affair with her powers him through an alcoholic haze that swirls with images of death, mysterious text messages, and cars lurking outside his apartment. The story takes on a creepy noirish bent–with Clay as the frightened detective who doesn’t really want to know anything–as it barrels toward a conclusion that reveals the horror that lies at the center of a tortured soul. Ellis fans will delight in the characters and Ellis’s easy hand in manipulating their fates, and though the novel’s synchronicity with Zero is sublime, this also works as a stellar stand-alone.
–from Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
14 eaters of itter leeps (stove smoke)
1. Holy fuck the WET cover gallery is the crystal bomb.
5. Are women writers really inferior? (This link blown-out so forget it. I’ll get the Francine Prose essay in later)
3. Percival Everett wins The Believer book award.
2. Fearlessly and courageously is the best way to break-up with anyone, eat boiled crayfish, write the first draft of a poem.
14. Wicked Aaron Burch/Lucy Corin discussion over EWN.
7. Best way to network is beer. If you don’t do beer, do softball. If you don’t do softball, survive something intense and dangerous together. If you can’t survive I and DT, try not to be an asshole, daily.
9. Bears.
The Evolutionary Revolution
Lily Hoang’s new book, The Evolutionary Revolution, is now available from Les Figues Press via SPD. Super excited for this one…
What if evolution was decided by committee and revolution by mere chance? What if man was a subspecies? What if man, as a subspecies, was woman, with tiny red wings on her thighs and pasted shut eyes? What if she flew in the sky or slept on the moon, and what if the earth was a saltless water world filled with forgetful, vengeful two-headed mermen? Welcome to THE EVOLUTIONARY REVOLUTION, a fabulist story of sense-making for the 21st century. In this twinning tale of freak shows and prophets, tract homes and impending doom, award-winning author Lily Hoang collapses time and narrative into a brilliant novel of beginnings and ends, where sentences undo each other and opposites don’t cancel each other out. As Anna Joy Springer notes in the book’s introduction, “In literature, as sometimes in life, it’s a scary kind of fun to be manipulated by a pretty girl, who changes the game on a whim.”
excerpt at The Collagist * audio reading at Apostrophe Cast * excerpt at Harp & Altar
Loneliness
Haven’t really read anything beyond “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner,” but read that a while back and enjoyed it thoroughly. So, here’s one for Alan Sillitoe, to mark the old man’s passing. It’s Tuesday, go right ahead:
Mike Young—
Spooky kudos to Nick Antosca, whose book Midnight Picnic is a finalist for a 2009 Shirley Jackson Award in the Novella category. If you’re wondering how to deliver your own congratulations, Nick likes swimming and Cuban sandwiches. Good work, Nick!
James Greer Book Tour
James Greer, author of the most recently released, The Failure, from Akashic, is on the road. If you’re nearby, don’t miss this one. James is a force, and Steven Soderbergh agrees: “James Greer’s The Failure is such an unqualified success, both in conception and execution, that I have grave doubts he actually wrote it.”
Quimby’s Bookstore–CHICAGO, IL–1845 W. North Ave.,
*Featuring Zach Dodson, author of Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring, and Natalie Edwards
Wed., May 5, 7pm–CINCINNATI, OH–Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 2692 Madison Road
Thurs., May 6, 7:30pm–DAYTON, OH–Books & Co., 350 E. Stroop Rd.
*Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices (the band in which James once upon a time also played) will introduce James!Sat., May 8, 10am-4:30pm–COLUMBUS, OH–Ohioana Book Festival, State Library of Ohio, 274 E. First Ave.
Tues., May 18, 7pm–NEW YORK, NY–Bluestockings Books, 172 Allen St.
*Featuring Maggie Estep, author of Alice Fantastic and Joseph Mattson, author of Empty the SunWed., May 19, 7pm–NEW YORK, NY–Center for Fiction, 17 East 47th St.
*Akashic spring book party featuring Arthur Nersesian, Cristina Garcia, Bernice L. McFadden, and James Greer and Joseph Mattson, author of Empty the Sun, with cohosts Melvin Van Peebles and Johnny Temple! AN EVENT NOT TO BE MISSED!Thurs., May 20, 7pm–BROOKLINE, MA–Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St.
*Joseph Mattson, author of Empty the Sun