The New Curtis Sittenfeld Book

The Reader's Advisor Online notes that the new Curtis Sittenfeld book, AMERICAN WIFE, will be among the new fall releases coming to stores this week (or tomorrow, to be exact).

I happened to notice this review of the book in the NY Times, which caught my eye not only because I read Sittenfeld's last book, PREP, and enjoyed it, but because it included so much discussion of PREP. And I was terribly happy to see that someone other than myself (Joyce Carol Oates, no less) had noticed that Lee Fiora, the protagonist in PREP (contrary to what some of the book's blurbs would have you believe), was not a female version of JD Salinger's Holden Caulfield in any way, shape or form--hell, she was Holden's complete opposite, if she was anything. Holden was an outsider who rejected the prep school "in crowd"--Lee wanted to belong to the "in crowd" so badly, she treated her down-to-earth, Midwestern family like shit when they visited her at one point.

I'm just so glad someone else noticed--and used the opportunity of reviewing the author's next book to point this out.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cliches

This was an amusing little item I found on Sarah Weinman's Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind about a particular over-used phrase. I love the article's last line. How many situations can you think of in which you've wanted to say that?

Are Books Really an Endangered Species? (Or Who the Heck is Cindy Weaver?)

Some people, like Cindy Weaver (the person quoted in these articles) would tell you that "the audience for books consists largely of the middle-aged and elderly while 'most people in their 20s and 30s... will tell you that books are so 20th-century.'" For this and other reasons, Weaver contends that "'there is every reason to think that books will be a thing in [sic] the past in the next 10-20 years,' to be replaced by multimedia stuff that places less and less value on text."

Weaver notes that "the vast majority of people who read books today do not find their information on books via the web. Most readers of books are 45-plus," then goes on to make that remark about books being "so 20th-century." Apart from the questionable assumption Weaver makes that old people don't use the Internet to find information on books (which the article calls her on), I'm really not sure what the heck that has to do with anything. I mean, I thought we were talking about reading books (which younger people are doing--I've seen it with my own eyes), not finding information online about them (which older people are doing--me being one of them).

Let's add to that the fact that I have no idea who Cindy Weaver is or why I should take her opinions seriously. Neither of the articles I've linked to in this post tell me anything about her or why I should care what she thinks. And while my casual observations don't amount to a scientific sampling, they do show that younger people out there are, in fact, still reading books. In fact, a commenter on one article pointed out that the Harry Potter phenomenon would seem to fly in the face of Weaver's position. I would follow that up with the popularity of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events books and countless other children's books, too numerous to mention.

While I fully recognize that the publishing business must adjust to new developments, such as the ebook, Kindle, Web publishing and all that, I suspect the rumors of print publishing's demise may be somewhat exaggerated. What say you?

Oh, and the proper expression would be "a thing of the past," not "a thing in the past." And you'd know that, Cindy, if you picked up a book now and then.

'The Ivory Grin': A Hardboiled Treat

Review of THE IVORY GRIN (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard ed. 2007)
Author, Ross Macdonald

Ross Macdonald was nothing if not a gifted stylist when it came to writing prose. THE IVORY GRIN starts off with a tension-filled meeting between the protagonist, private eye Lew Archer, and an unpleasant (in attitude and looks), but well-dressed, woman who wants to hire him.

You know the kind of person Archer's dealing with when he says that she "looked up at me with the air of an early bird surveying an outsize worm," then goes on to state that after giving him a handshake "as hard as a man's . . . she placed [her hand] behind my elbow, ushered me into my own office, and closed the door behind her." She then "seated herself in an armchair by the door and looked around the waiting-room. It was neither large nor expensively furnished, and she seemed to be registering those circumstances."

Right away, with a few short lines and a modicum of humor, we know quite a bit about this woman. And Archer. And we know any business between them won't go easily.

The woman wants Archer to find her former maid, who she says has stolen jewelry from her. The woman gives a name (Una--no last name, just Una), but won't give her address. Archer doesn't like Una or believe her story (right down to her name). However, (to paraphrase The Maltese Falcon) he does believe the hundred dollar bill she tosses his way to do the job. Archer sticks the bill in his wallet, "where it looked rather lonely." Despite his low cash flow, he almost returns it to Una as he gets to know and dislike her further.

He does, of course, take the case. But what Archer is hired to do and what he actually ends up doing are quite different.

The story mainly takes place in two small Southern California towns and involves such a tangle of characters and plot lines, I sometimes felt like I needed a score card (better yet, a flowchart) to follow what was going on.

But that's okay, because Macdonald was such a superb writer. He could deliver a wicked (often funny) turn of phrase that summed up character, situation, mood and/or viewpoint in a few well-chosen words. He had a flair for great dialogue, as well as for writing about dark issues from people's pasts, and a way with metaphors that rivaled Raymond Chandler.

Besides, at one point in the story, Archer describes his client being "in a spiteful rage, less than half a woman now, a mean little mannish doll raving ventriloquially."

Now "ventriloquially" is a real word (I looked it up in Webster's online dictionary), but how many writers would have the gumption to actually use it?

Addendum: I'd like to thank the people at Vintage Crime/Black Lizard for reissuing this and several of Macdonald's other Lew Archer novels, which had previously been out of print. They are classics and it's great to see them back in circulation.

Whooo~hooooo! Here we go again!

The coffee table is stacked, they're strung from a clothesline on the back porch, and they're ready to fly free! Selected original works available again....Just follow us to Just Give Me Peace at Etsy where the hippie parade continues....Peace~love and all that hoo~hah!

So Good, It's Criminal

I like to read a variety of books, but must confess that I tend to favor crime fiction, since that's what I write. I think it's good to read other types of work (freshens the literary palate, you might say), but crime fiction is what I'm most into right now. And there's an amazing amount of good stuff out there.

I've just started getting into Italian noir (there's not a whole lot of it at my public library, which means I must commit to a purchase before I can read many of those books . . . and there are so many good books to read at the library . . . it's a dilemma), but here's an article about how the genre seems to be faring rather well.

Plus a few items from The Rap Sheet, a blog authored by Jim Winter, a person I happen to know (hi, Jim!) who apparently likes Reed Farrell Coleman (hi, Reed!) as much as I do and has done a very interesting interview with him.

Jim also mentions a book or two (or more) that you may have overlooked for your TBR list.

So Many Books . . . Part Two

Leo of Zen Habits shares his list of "50 Amazing and Essential Novels to Enrich Your Library," many of which I've either read and enjoyed or at least heard of.

And in her Work-in-Progress blog, Leslie Pietrzyk remembers L. Rust Hills, whose name and writing I'm not familiar with, but who sounds like he's well worth a look, too.