Chamber Four

Put aside everything you’re doing and read The Knife Thrower and Other Stories, by Steven Millhauser, immediately. (See the other entries in this series here.)

For the record,  my favorite, favorite book ever and a book I truly think any reader should drop everything for is Lolita. But I’ve harped on it on this site again and again already. I read a lot of books, though, and there are a ton I think every reader should read. Steven Millhauser has written a number of these and The Knife Thrower and Other Stories is my favorite of his. Read it now.

Millhauser was one of a handful of excellent professors I had in college, so I’m a little biased. If you’re reading this site, I’d be a little surprised you’ve never heard of him. But if somehow you haven’t read him, you should. He is undeniably one of the most precise and imaginative writers writing today. He is a fabulist and a natural storyteller with a knack for writing stories that are at once cerebral and accessible. …
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Author: Steve Almond

2010 (self-published)

Filed Under Literary, Short Stories, Nonfiction

(Note: to the best of my knowledge this book is only available through on-demand publishing via an Espresso Book Machine. There is one at the Harvard Bookstore)

This is a tiny little book, split into two parts of about 40 small pages each. It really won’t take but a minute to read, well, maybe an hour. One side is titled “Essays” and the other “Stories” and they are flipped 180 degrees, so neither (or both I guess) comes first. There are three separate covers to choose from, and Almond has already revised it once since the initial printing. I think I’m a fan of this new fangled on demand printing thing.

Seeing as I really only know of Almond as a fiction writer (I very much enjoyed his 2005 collection, The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories), I opted to open with the “Stories” half first.  These are all short shorts, none longer than 4-5 paragraphs. There’s no plot thread connecting these and not much of a thematic line. Short shorts aren’t really a form I’m all that into. I read it like I do poetry, mostly for language and not so much for substance. I enjoyed these, but it’s not really the type of thing I tend to go back to. Almond is a talented writer, and the language is quite good:

This is where the cranes come to sleep, the ripped out yard-by-gravel mile between the bus terminal and the freeway still unconstructed, its fading gray ramps into nothing. They bundle here under night, clanking, steel thread and iron, the hard things of this world. Neglected by their soft owners, the cranes huddles and murmur old jokes, somber, worn, from the duties of lifting and sniffing on each other the perfume of oil going black. They know not to nod their giant necks, not to run their hooks against loose rebar. This is the hour of rest, when nothing is built or remembered. The wind through their loose parts is idle syncopation and notes whistle up, a song made with every measure of grace, as where honest labor has been done and fellowship means beast and machine. Sleep, good citizens, it is not yours to hear this sweet offering.

The “Essays” side of the book is the one I’d assumed I’d like less. Almond, however, surprised me with one of the best guides to writing I’ve come across to date.

Unlike the stories, Almond’s essays follow a sequence of questions and answers, almost as if he’s inserting his own responses into a writerly catechism.  It’s really written for students (enrolled in a program or otherwise) of writing. But anyone who entertains writing fiction or is interested at all in the writing process should defintiely give this a read. And, speaking from many dreadful workshop experiences: writing teachers should read this, as well as a few of the books I’ve suggested below.

Almond’s now-recognizable voice comes through especially clear in these essays. He reminds me a lot of George Saunders: biting and sarcastic and a little insane, yet undeniably wise. He writes in a funny yet serious tone that screams authority but doesn’t demand it. Writers should read this book, and everybody should read Steve Almond.

Similar Reads: Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut (Vonnegut), On Writing (King), Eats, Shoots, & Leaves (Truss), The Evil B.B. Chow (Almond), The Braindead Megaphone (Saunders)

[2010 Edgar Award nominee for Best First Novel By An American Author---see reviews of other 2010 Edgar noms here.]

Author: Heather Gudenkauf

Mira, 2009

Filed under: Literary, Mystery

The Weight of Silence follows a relatively simple mystery, at the center of which is seven-year-old Calli Clark, who hasn’t spoken in three years. When Calli’s father drunkenly grabs her and drags her into the woods early one morning, the entire town sets about trying to figure out what happened to her (and her friend, Petra, who also wandered off that morning).

Most of the book deals with the people in Calli’s and Petra’s lives, and the relationships between them, as they appear in the light of crisis. When Gudenkauf tries to formulate a plot, though, it works for a little while, but eventually fizzles out in a two-fold ending full of underwhelming misdirection.

Silence features some phenomenal suspense and some engaging characters, but the actual mystery is lackluster. Most of the time it’s a real nail-biter of a book, even if all you wind up with is ragged nails.

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Put aside everything you’re doing and read The Emigrants, by W.G. Sebald, immediately. (See the other entries in this series here.)

I was waiting for a professor of mine who was meeting me for lunch.  He was running a few minutes late, but I hardly noticed or cared.  I had The Emigrants open in front of me.  I’d just started it on the bus that morning, so I didn’t quite know what I was in for yet.  The slow unfolding of the first chapter, the long paragraphs, liquid with shifting voices, and the curatorial attention to detail all gave me the feeling of floating through a small British village submerged in saltwater and preserved in light.  I didn’t realize my professor had arrived until, standing right next to me, he said, that’s a great book. …
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This is the second installment of our new series, “Read This Book Now.” Put aside everything you’re doing and read Reap immediately. (See the other entries here.)

Reap, by Eric Rickstad, is a coming of age story set in rural Vermont, where life is bleak and there is little hope of a future.  Jessup Burke, an easily distracted, over-trusting youth stumbles into the company of Reg Cumber, a callous ex-con who introduces him into a ruined and paranoid world of drug trafficking.

Reg and Jessup’s worlds intersect when Reg nearly runs down Jessup with his car.  Reg, a mechanic by trade, pledges to resurrect Jessup’s inoperable Vega.  Lured by prospect of finally being able to visit his out-of-state girlfriend, Jessup agrees to work for Reg, unaware at first that he’s getting paid for harvesting and transporting drugs.  Despite sudden moments of fear and unease, Jessup welcome’s Reg’s company, and soon the older man is introducing him to abusing booze and weed.

Rickstad captures the youth and innocence of Jessup, his habit of daydreaming and mooning over his girlfriend, Emily, without being sappy or sentimental.  Jessup’s character undergoes complex changes as he is gradually corrupted.  As Jessup sheds his adolescence, Rickstad (with wonderful directness and careful prose) allows him to grow increasingly aware of some of his circumstances while retaining a boyish obliviousness to others. …
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This is the first part of our new series, “Read This Book Now.” Each week, for the next few months, one of our contributors will recommend a single book. Put aside everything you’re doing and read it immediately.

I found The Autobiography of Malcolm X on the sale table of an Orlando bookstore. Years earlier, a friend of mine had read it for class—he called it the greatest thing he ever read—and told me it should be at the top of my reading list. I took his reaction for hyperbole, and ignored his suggestion. But when I saw The Autobiography of Malcolm X on sale, I thought, “What the heck? For $4.99, why not?”

I like books, but I have never reacted to a book the way I did to The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It was all I could think about. For weeks, my conversations with co-workers all started with the phrase “When Malcolm X was….” I carried the book in my back pocket and read it whenever I had a free minute. It took over my life in a way that no book ever had, or has since.

I wasn’t sure why the book captivated me the way it did. There are very few similarities between Malcolm X and I, and he doesn’t seem like a person with whom I would immediately identify. Yet I did.

In retrospect, I believe that my love for this book came from my background in literature. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the closest thing to an epic we have in American literature, and Malcolm X is the closest we have to an epic hero. (I know, you’re going to make the case for Moby Dick or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and you may have a point. But this is my review, so I stand by my assertion.)

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Author: Robert Stone

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010

Filed under: Literary, Short Stories

In this collection, Stone is at his best when he’s dallying. Whether it’s an old lush sitting around, freaking people out, or a foolhardy suburban warrior stumbling drug-addled toward some quixotic goal, Stone excels at the second act. He runs into problems after that.

For most of these stories, Stone uses an odd pattern to build twisting, dogleg plots. We start with a man, a lawyer or a writer or a professor, who’s an incorrigible womanizer and a drunk or a druggie. After a length of time establishing a premise (and dallying magnificently), the story veers off in some wild way and leaves that premise—and often the main character—behind.

Sometimes the veering off involves a new point of view, sometimes a new location, sometimes an entire set of new characters. A couple of the stories here, most notably the title piece, “Fun With Problems,” succeed (more or less) with their cutback plot twists. More often, though, the narrative runs off the track, gets lost, and then lays down and dies.

So, while Stone’s writing, and especially his dialogue, are characteristically excellent, Fun With Problems is unsatisfying because the stories’ arcs so often bewilderingly abandon their first halves.

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Author: Ninni Holmqvist, translated by Marlaine Delargy

Other Press, 2009

Filed under: Literary, Sci-fi

Broadly, The Unit is relatively straightforward science fiction about a fascist society in which logic and a sensible bottom line are prized more highly than quality of life. The title—which sounds military to me—actually refers to the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological materials.

In this society, if you are not a solid cog in the economic machine and if you have no children, you are designated “dispensable” and are conscripted into the Unit. For women, the deadline for becoming a productive citizen is age 50, for men, age 60. For all, the fate of residing in the Unit is grim: your organs are harvested and, in the meantime, you’re used a human guinea pig for any number of physical or pharmacological experiments.

Let me put on my nerd glasses for a moment and nitpick one aspect of the premise: when we live in a world becoming more overcrowded by the second, the idea that a government would threaten people’s lives in order to make them procreate makes the whole novel feel a little bit out of date.

There, now that’s done, let’s get to the rest of what is a quite interesting and mildly entertaining, not dazzling, novel. …
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Author: Austin Grossman

2008, Vintage Books

Filed Under Literary, Fantasy

In Soon I Will Be Invincible, the world’s greatest villain, Dr. Impossible, has once again escaped from prison and the diabolical genius is about to embark on his latest scheme to take over the world. As usual, standing in his way is a league of superheroes, in this case the Champions. Nothing terribly original so far, right?  Wrong.

Austin Grossman does nothing short of re-invigorate the superhero story and takes great strides in legitimizing the comics genre as a subject worthy of literary pursuit. Grossman greatest achievement is adding depth and richness to his characters in an arena where characters are usually reduced to superficial props that set a stage for epic battles and the showcasing of ludicrous powers. As is evident in the title of the book, and the chapter titles within, such as “Riddle Me This,” “Welcome to My Island”, and “But Before I Kill You”, there is a good deal of playfulness and send-up at work, but Grossman’s use of comic book clichés is more an act of celebration rather than of subversion. …
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Author: Paul Harding

Bellevue Literary Press, 2009

Filed under: Literary

Tinkers is an extremely well written book. Its sentences and paragraphs are beautiful and precise, and a pleasure to read.

The plot and story of it, though, don’t stand out the way the language does. Tinkers is an excellent book to read slowly and savor, like a book of poetry. It’s not one to plow through in a day, and it’s not a page-turner that will keep you up late; however, it’s definitely worth the time.

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