« My Lost Car, My Fainting Spell, My Split Lip | Main | Fahrenheit 9/11... And the Terrorist Named George Bush »

June 19, 2004

Recommend Reading, Anyone?

Last week, my housemates and I trekked over to the Brookline Booksmith (one of the world's greatest indie bookstores) to hear David Sedaris read from his new book, DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM. Not my favorite of David's titles, but he was as explosively hilarious as ever, especially when reading his diary entries after the selection from his book.


What impressed me most, however, was the sincere and enthusiastic recommendation-session that David gave between his reading and the Q&A session from the worshipful audience. He held up a copy of the book RANDOM FAMILY by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, and gushed about it for nearly ten minutes. It was obvious that he was swaying a lot of people to go upstairs to the store and buy the book. (Apparently, David also has been doing this on the radio with AN OBEDIENT FATHER by Akhil Sharma.


I've always admired David, but now my high opinion of him has tripled. What a great thing for someone so powerful and popular to do. Imagine if all the widely read and influential writers--or, for that matter, the occasional sports heroes, movie stars, or ridiculous teen pop idols--did this sort of thing with books? Good lord, we'd all be rich after publishing a novel, instead of wallowing in misery and poverty.


While I have nowhere near the pull and reach as David Sedaris, I'm going to list a few random contemporary books here, in hopes that if anyone reading this might value my opinion, he or she might want to spend the 10-15 bucks on one of these:




Darcey Steinke: JESUS SAVES. The book I always recommend to anyone who asks. Totally "up my alley" in the way of gorgeous eerieness in both description and subject matter. (By the way, that quote on the cover of the paperback, though not credited directly to me, is from my glowing review of the book in the Vilage Voice!)


The recent IN THE CHERRY TREE by Dan Pope. A really evocative and warm first novel--reading it is like hanging out with an old friend for the first time in ages.


HULA by Lisa Shea. Also a first novel; she hasn't written another yet. This one is so economical and strange and gorgeous; I didn't want it to end.


THE WHISTLING SONG by Stephen Beachy. Or DISTORTION by the same author. A writer who's been sadly ignored when he should be huge, huge, huge. Expansive and risky and super intelligent and scary.

The hilarious, quirky, and astonishing COMPRESSION SCARS by Kellie Wells. A collection of stories. I went to school with Kellie, and we're still great friends although I owe her a phone call and many emails and there's no excuse for my bad behavior... but even if I didn't know her well, I'd still be floored by these stories. If you grew up an outcast, or have always been fascinated by the slightly sinister or curiously odd, you can't help but find connection with nearly all of the pieces in this book. And can any book that won the Flannery O'Connor award for short fiction be anything less than stellar?


ANYTHING by my absolute favorite Joy Williams... stories or novels, take your pick. The first, STATE OF GRACE, is flawless. The second, THE CHANGELING, is totally rare and hard to find but worth every penny if you ever find it. I can't even start on the stories because it would take forever to describe how I feel about them.


Another story collection: if you like literary fiction AND horror/mystery stuff, the creepy genre-bending STRANGER THINGS HAPPEN by Kelly Link.


THE MUSEUM OF LOVE by Steve Weiner. Will make any imaginative person jealous--it made me feel like a boring writer.


Michael Lowenthal, AVOIDANCE. Yes, he's my boyfriend / best friend / whatever. I don't care-- it's simply a really important and vibrant and exact novel with perfect characters.


Ken Siman: PIZZA FACE. Hilarious and bizarre first novel set during the Jimmy Carter years. For all of us who still haven't gotten over our high school traumas.


Laren Stover: PLUTO, ANIMAL LOVER. I recently re-read this small, odd, blackly humorous freakout, and remembered why I loved it in the first place.


This beautiful little gay love story / coming of age novel called THE BOYS ON THE ROCK by John Fox. It won't take very long to read, but it's stayed in my head all these years after I finished it. It was Fox's only book, as he died not long after, but it's so beautiful and sweet and incredibly, expansively heartbreaking. I think it and DREAM BOY by Jim Grimsley and, for slightly different reasons, CLOSER by the always sublime Dennis Cooper are the best "love stories" for those of us of the "queer persuasion" ever written.


TOMATO RED by Daniel Woodrell. Voice, voice, VOICE. A writer who needs more attention from the world.




So, yeah. Anyone who knows me personally is probably wondering why I haven't included my obvious favorites, ie the Flannery O'Connors and Richard Yateses and Cormac McCarthys. I just wanted to list books that for me haven't gotten nearly the amount of attention they deserve. I'll keep doing this weblog town-cryer thing from time to time, especially when I read something new that, like these on the list, disrupts or enraptures or scatterbrains or stalls or upsets or challenges or thrills my life to such an extent that I have to tell people about it.