ben brooks wrote a book called FENCES. fugue state press published it. james chapman (editor) mailed it to me recently. it is fucking righteous. i read it in like two hours. i couldnt stop. most important to me was my ability to concentrate on it. lately i have a bad attention span but this book booted that lack in the throat. FENCES contains some of the strongest lines i have read in a while. it’s not a book for someone looking for a traditional story or anything. it’s more like a somewhat-narrative poem. but for real, it’s so well done. you can feel the filth of solitude from the very beginning where the narrator is “in a hole” where “nicotine eyes” stare at him. the book then seems to progress by branching off endlessly into different tracts of hopeless love, self-hatred and general dismay. this book is the message left by a burning tree blowing ash against the side of a garage where inside a man huffs gas to feel like a king. the biggest success of this book to me was how disconnected it was while remaining engaging. fuck. good job ben. don’t kill yourself yet.
For those of you unfamiliar, it’s the story of his then 15-year-old daughter’s sudden and complete descent into utter madness during the summer of 1996. To me, Greenberg sounded understandably unsure as to whether he was comfortable with putting such a personal and emotionally ravaging experience up on the screen where, presumably, that adorable Abigail Breslin would play the cutest little crazy person America has ever seen. But hasn’t he had already let the cat out of the bag by writing the book? But he’d lose creative control if he signed the rights over to a movie studio. But he’d likely get a ton of money. In a similar situation, I’d like to think that I’d walk away, but I’m not sure that’s the right move. After all, I’d really love to have the flatscreen and signed Michael Vick Eagles jersey. Oh, and a butler. Actually, I’d probably hire Blake to be my butler, cause that’d be funny, right? Blake the Butler! Oh, and…
I came across