The New Yorker: "Ziggurat" by Stephan O'Connor

I’m at a loss to explain this story, although I enjoyed reading it for the suspense. So I welcome (invite!) anyone to offer an interpretation.

The best I can do is provide some background. In classical mythology, the Minotaur was a monster with a bull’s body and a human head who was kept in a labyrinth from which no one could escape unassisted. He was fed human victims. But along comes Theseus and with the help of Ariadne, daughter of the king, slays the Minotaur and also finds his way out of the labyrinth. (Thank you, Bulfinch’s Mythology.)

We also need to understand the ziggurat, the ancient temple-towers of Mesopotamia that resembled pyramids and are associated with the Tower of Babel.

So here’s O'Connor's story: the Minotaur has been hanging out in the “pine-panelled section” of the Labyrinth lately (making it sound like a bar, complete with a pool table and a beer-stocked fridge) and there’s a new girl there (new girl, as in one of the sacrifices offered to the Minotaur). She’s playing video games in the corner--Ziggurat, Panic, and U-Turn--which all turn out to be games of disappointment in which God, or the gods, frustrate human ambition. The Minotaur grows fond of “the new girl” (I like her, too, because she tries to avoid her fate by asserting her non-virgin status; it turns out, though, that the Minotaur doesn’t know what a virgin is and can’t taste the difference.) For whatever reason, the Minotaur does not eat the new girl. He also has never tried to escape—he doesn’t know there is a world outside the labyrinth until the girl tries to tell him about it. The story suggests, however, that the outside world is something that she has merely imagined, because in fact her memories are of a world inside the labyrinth.

And yet, one day the new girl disappears. The Minotaur looks for her. He builds a ziggurat, expecting that he can reach the sky. When he gets there, he discovers that the sky is made of plaster. (Did that not remind you of The Truman Show?) And he breaks through only to find himself back in familiar territory—but then it’s a labyrinth, and so that’s what we’d expect.

The Minotaur has dreams (at least I think they’re dreams). And he continues his wandering. Until he is a tiny speck.

I think we’re dealing with issues of the maze of our memories, creating worlds from which we cannot escape. Beyond that, I’m pretty much stumped here. Thoughts?

June 29, 2009: “Ziggurat” by Stephen O’Connor

New Issue: Wag's Revue

There's a new issue of Wag's Revue just up, hot off the virtual presses. This issue features an interview with T.C. Boyle.

New Issue: Sotto Voce

There's a beautiful new issue of Sotto Voce up, and it includes a terrific story by Mary Akers: "Thunderstones."

The Future of Bookselling

I've been enjoying the series of articles in Poets & Writers in which agents and editors are interviewed. In the current issue (July-August 2009), Jofie Ferrari-Adler speaks with Jonathan Galassi, president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Galassi has many interesting things to say, but here's something that jumped out at me:

Actually, at our sales conference . . . some of the salesmen were saying that neighborhood bookstores are doing better in the economic crisis because people are more interested in buying locally and supporting small businesses. I think this crisis could have a lot of good effects for the culture. It's slowing things down--slowing down the pace of change--and making people aware of what's important in life. It's not just more, more, more. But I think all of the traditional bookstore chains are in trouble. Amazon is very, very effective. But I think Amazon is a potential . . . it's a frenemy. It's not just interested in being a bookstore. So I think we have to sell our own books to people. . . We don't want to muscle out the retailers. But I think . . . the bookstores are the weakest link in the chain. . . . There are always going to be bookstores, but I don't think that's where the future of bookselling is. (emphasis added)

Agreed. The future of bookselling isn't in bookstores; it's right here, online.

Novella?

So, what is a novella, anyway? Most often you'll hear a definition in terms of length--it's a long short story or a short novel, or it's anything between 10,000 and 40,000 words. These aren't very helpful definitions. Josh Weil, writing in the July-August issue of Poets & Writers, has some thoughts on this subject. (And he should know, since he's just published The New Valley with Grove, a collection of three novellas.)

Josh says this:

Though worded as concisely as a short story, it has room for scenes to breathe. Moments can linger. The fist that squeezes the world of a short story into a few compact scenes can be unclenched a little--bits of backstory let in, descriptions filled out, characters lived with longer. But the novella embraces not too many characters, and not too wide-ranging a plot, not too vast a scope--those are the realm of the novel. A novella compresses the world with a short story's focus, but it explores that smaller space with a novel's generosity. (emphasis added)

Write that down. It's the best definition of "novella" I've ever seen.

Download First Chapter for Free

Visit Ron Currie Jr. to download for free the first chapter of Everything Matters! The book got a great review from Janet Maslin in the New York Times last week.

Wisconsin Review 43:2 Spring 2009

My contributor copies of Wisconsin Review have arrived. The issue includes my story "Counterpoint."

Warning Labels on Books?

A group of parents wants to remove Sherman Alexie's YA novel, The Absolute True Diary of a Part-time Indian, from a reading list for high school freshman. A spokesperson for the group thinks books like this (books that won the National Book Award?) should carry "warning labels." How about, "Beware: Great Writing Within -- May Cause Mind to Expand."

See the article in the Chicago Tribune.

H/T Kathy

updated (6/23): no banishment, apparently: Publishers Weekly

New Issue: Memorious 12

There's a new issue of Memorious: A Journal of New Verse and Fiction, and it looks good. Check it out.

The New Yorker: "Idols" by Tim Gautreaux

Now that’s a story. My favorite of the year so far, I think. As protagonists go, Julian Smith is not very likable (proof, in my book, that likability isn’t an important factor). He is a typewriter repairman (someone has to be, I suppose, even in the day of computers, because the writers aren’t yet completely without purpose) who is proud of his heritage, even though his only connection to that heritage was his arrogant, pretentious mother. Still, when he inherits the family mansion (it’s the Godhigh family, which couldn’t be any further removed from the Smiths, and Julian plans to change his name when he gets a chance) and a little money, he moves to Mississippi from Memphis. He discovers a rundown mess that he’s determined to restore to glory, and to that end he hires Obie Parker to help, because Julian can’t fix anything other than a typewriter.

Obie is a good deal more likable than Julian, but he’s got one problem. He’s covered with tattoos, “idols,” that he has to have removed in order to reunite with his religious wife. That’s why he’s working for Julian, and all his money goes to tattoo removal. But then Julian’s money runs out, Obie’s tattoos are gone, and so is he. Until catastrophe strikes the mansion, and Julian needs him.

Although Julian has changed in some ways, in others he hasn’t, and he ends up returning to Memphis worse off than he was before (he’s even lost his ancient car). Just as Obie had his idols, Julian had his—the house and his heritage, not to mention his precious typewriters. And while Obie intentionally removes his, Julian has his taken from him.

Best of the year. So far.

June 22, 2009: “Idols” by Tim Gautreaux

Edited (6/21/09): As noted in the comments, Julian in the story is, in fact, a character from Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge", and the stories should be read together.

New York Times Reviews

As hard as it is to get reviewed these days--declining space for book talk in print publication--it is wonderful to see reviews in The New York Times in recent days of books by three friends.

Two weeks ago, Anthony Doerr reviewed Josh Weil's The New Valley, a collection of three novellas: Hill Country Blues. Among other nice things, Doerr says, "Keep writing novellas, Josh Weil, because you write very good ones. You think on it, and we’ll watch."

Then Gaiutra Bahadur reviewed Laila Lalami's Secret Son, her new novel set in Morocco: Vulnerable in Morocco. Bahadur says, "Secret Son is a nuanced depiction of the roots of Islamic terrorism, written by someone who intimately knows one of the stratified societies where it grows."

And now we have Janet Maslin's review of Ron Currie Jr.'s Everything Matters, due out next week: The Sky is Falling Soon! (And Junior is Agitated). "Mr. Currie is a startlingly talented writer whose book will pay no heed to ordinary narrative conventions. His thoughts on cosmic doom somehow take the form of a joyride. He survives the inevitable, apt comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut and writes in a tenderly mordant voice of his own."

I have some very talented friends!

The New Yorker: "Old Wounds" by Edna O'Brien

One more story from the summer fiction issue (and one that is readable online only if you're a registered subscriber).

This one, by Edna O’Brien, has an old-fashioned feel to it. The narrator reconnects with her older cousin Edward after many years, and the two of them set aside hostilities that had resulted from some falling out between the families. They both seem to have a fascination with the family graveyard on an island in the Shannon River, and as the two become better acquainted, and even fond of one another, Edward suggests that the narrator might want to be buried there when the time comes. It isn’t entirely clear to me what caused the rift between the families, although Edward’s wife apparently kicked his mother out of the house at some point. The narrator relates how that happened and says, “But with so many dead, there was no need for estrangement anymore,” suggesting that it was related to the estrangement.

Edward isn’t well, but neither is his wife, and she dies first and is buried in the graveyard, even though she had previously said she wanted to be buried near town. My guess is that Edward has told her that the narrator will be buried on the island, and this has opened an “old wound” of jealousy. But the narrator’s failure to come to the funeral appears to have upset Edward as well, and nothing is the same after that.

And then Edward becomes ill. The narrator tries, but is rebuffed in her attempts to restore their relationship, until finally it is too late. But maybe she succeeded; she hopes so. In the end, she recognizes her ties to the graveyard, a bond that is ultimately unbreakable.

June 8 & 15, 2009: “Old Wounds” by Edna O’Brien

Laila Lalami on Bat Segundo Show

Bat Segundo Show #291

Happy Bloomsday!

What are you doing to celebrate? Dublin ignores recession to celebrate Bloomsday.

The New Yorker: "The Tiger's Wife" by Téa Obreht

More from the Summer Fiction Issue.

Congratulations to Téa Obreht, a recent MFA grad, for placing this fiction in The New Yorker. It seemed well done, one of those possibly allegorical pieces that The New Yorker runs from time to time. In this case, the tiger wandering around Europe might just be a tiger, but it might also be something else. Fascism perhaps? Islam? But wait. The contributors’ notes tell us that Obreht has a novel coming out in 2010. A quick search of Publisher’s Marketplace reveals that, indeed, THE TIGER’S WIFE was recently sold to Dial Press. It is described this way: Téa Obreht's THE TIGER'S WIFE, set in war-torn Yugoslavia, where a young doctor strives to unravel the mystery of her grandfather's death, and to understand why, in his last days, he went looking for a mythical figure called "the Deathless Man." So, I’m guessing this isn’t intended as allegory, but it’s hard to know since we’re dealing with another novel excerpt and not a short story.

The excerpt is about a tiger who escapes from a zoo during a German bombing raid in WW II. Having been raised in captivity, the tiger isn’t sure how to hunt, and he isn’t very good at it, and this part of the story is beautifully imagined. He eventually comes to a village where he is aided by the “Muhammadan” wife of the butcher, who comes to be known to the villagers as “the tiger’s wife.” But the story of the woman is twice filtered. The narrator is the granddaughter of a boy who lived in the village. Not only is he not central to the excerpt’s action (judging by the description in PM, the books more about his life), but he has passed along a story that he has probably embellished, or that time has altered. It’s hard to know.

Having said that, unlike many excerpts we read in The New Yorker, this one holds up reasonably well as a story, and I'll be looking for the novel when it comes out next year.

June 8 & 15, 2009: "The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (The story isn't available online except to registered subscribers.)

Cream City Review 33.1

I think everyone should run out (or hop online) and buy a copy of the Spring 2009 issue of Cream City Review, which includes my story "Hunger" (and some stuff by other people).

New Issue: Bound Off #41

There's a new issue of Bound Off available. Take a listen to stories by Matt Leibel and Lilly Gray.

Support Your Local University (Press)

You may recall that we've discussed comments emanating from the Virginia Quarterly Review blog concerning financial pressure being felt by university presses and literary magazines, including New England Review at Middlebury College and LSU Press and The Southern Review at Louisiana State University. And, of course, they are not alone in feeling this pressure. For readers and writers, the value of these magazines is abundantly clear, and so it falls upon us to make the case. VQR's comments are right on and welcome.

How can the rest of us help? Subscribe to literary magazines. It's easy, it's not terribly expensive, and it is both clear evidence of a magazine's base and also provides much needed income. You can also buy books from university presses, often directly from the press itself.

And here's another way you can provide direct support. If you happen to be connected to a university that has a press or a literary magazine or both, and if you happen to be in a position to make donations to your university, you may be able to earmark those donations so that they benefit the press or magazine. I'm a graduate of Northwestern University which publishes fine literary fiction (and other things) plus TriQuarterly magazine through Northwestern University Press. I was able to designate that a recent contribution should support the press. (Of course, one can always make a contribution directly to the press, but it's a little trickier if you are participating in an annual giving program with the university.) The press was so appreciative that they asked me how I wanted the money used, so I know it's going to a good purpose.

The New Yorker: "Good Neighbors" by Jonathan Franzen

The Franzen story is the main event in the Summer Fiction issue, and it’s typical, breathless Franzen, filled with wonderful long sentences and lists of details. It’s an entertaining story, if not a great one.

Walter and Patty are early gentrifiers in a rough neighborhood of St. Paul, where they raise their children Jessica and Joey. Patty is a little too good to be true—which causes resentment among the neighbors—and Walter is nearly invisible. But cracks appear in the façade when their son, who has always resisted their authority, begins to sleep with the daughter of a neighbor Patty considers inferior. Indeed, Joel is too young, but there doesn’t seem to be anything Walter and Patty can do about. In fact, when the boy turns 16, he moves in with the neighbors, and Patty’s clash with them escalates. And escalates. And escalates.

Unlike a lot of New Yorker stories lately, this one has a fairly classic structure with its rising tension, climax, and denouement. And while I enjoyed most of it, the resolution, I thought, felt flat: Walter and Patty move away. That’s it? After all the marvelous details and the convoluted characterizations, I wanted more.

June 8 & 15, 2009: “Good Neighbors” by Jonathan Franzen

The Collagist

A brand new magazine (and member of the Dzanc Books family): The Collagist.

New Issue: Freight Stories

Freight Stories No. 5 is now live, with fiction by Michael Martone, Alicia Gifford, and others.

So long, Readerville; Hello, BookBalloon

I think I was a member of Readerville, but I never participated there. But any site that promotes reading and books is a good place, in my opinion, and so I'm sorry to hear of its demise.

For the past year, I've been participating in Bookballoon, which is something of a spinoff of Readerville (since the founders of the former were active participants in the latter). Bookballoon's Gary Glass has this comment: Readerville, Adieu.

I'm not sure I would want to be a member of more than one such site, but I am grateful for Bookballoon, and enjoy the discussion of books there. If you are bereft by the loss of Readerville, but just like the idea of discussing books with like-minded folks, give it a try.

End of Residency

I'm heading home today after my two-week residency at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. It's been a good, productive time, and I've met some very nice people--the other residents and also the staff, Denise and Pat. I recommend it if you're considering applying for residencies.

Last night, the four current residents went out to dinner and then, joined by a former resident who is in town to do an art installation, presented our work to each other. The three visual artists all showed slides of work they've done before--some very impressive stuff--and I read some short pieces from a work in progress (but not the novel I'm working on here). That was great--that's one of the things I enjoy most about residencies.

Orange to Robinson

Marilynne Robinson has won the Orange Prize for her novel Home. The prize is awarded for the best novel by a woman. From the Guardian:

The victory will mean a sales spike for Robinson and the result has been welcomed by bookshops. Jonathan Ruppin, of Foyles, said: "Robinson is simply one of the outstanding prose stylists of recent years; she will undoubtedly come to be seen as essential as Nabokov or Conrad. In picking this as this year's winner, the judges have made a real statement about lyrical power of fiction, beyond its basic function to tell stories."

I liked Housekeeping, but I haven't read Robinson's other work yet; this is the first I've heard that she's on a par with Nabokov or Conrad, though. It's a little early for that judgment.

For a different take on the awards event, take a look at what Tania Hershman, a writer considered for a different prize, the Orange Award for New Writers, has to say about the evening.

Residency Report

Just 2 writing days left (here at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center.

Last night, the 4 remaining artists watched "Badlands" in the TV room--1973 film starring Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen that was based on a murder spree that began up the road in Lincoln, Nebraska. With all due respect to the screenwriters, the dialogue was . . . funny. And I don't think it was supposed to be. It was fun, though. Sheen played a very bad guy.

There were thunderstorms last night and rain all day today, but at least it cooled off considerably. I got some work done today, but . . . could have done more. It's looking like I won't be able to visit any of the local sights.

Nothing else to report. I think we're doing open studios tomorrow, which should be fun. Because I think wine is involved.

Orson Scott Card's "Boot Camp"

I confess I have not read Orson Scott Card's work, and I didn't realize he was local. He apparently teaches at Southern Virginia University--a Mormon college in the town of Buena Vista, not far from where I live. This came to my attention because I just heard about Uncle Orson's Writing Class and Literary Boot Camp which is taking place this August on the campus of SVU.

I don't think it's for me, but I'm interested that such an event is taking place so nearby.

Andrew's Book Club June Picks

I love it when Andrew picks a book I already have, and he's done that this time with Josh Weil's The New Valley. That's his "big house" pick for June. His university press pick is Midge Raymond's Forgetting English, which also looks good. I'm looking forward to reading both.

Press 53 Open Awards 2009

Congratulations to the winners of the Press 53 2009 Open Awards.