"A Good Man is Hard to Find"

I wrote the syllabus for my composition class in early August. Because of the way holidays and the school's fall break fell, I wanted to fill yesterday's class with something a little out of the ordinary, before we jump into a full-week discussion of a novel next week.

So I assigned Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" which is one of several O'Connor stories in our anthology. It turned to be great timing, because I was really too sick yesterday to do much teaching--a bad cold at its peak--and so instead, I played a recording of O'Connor reading the story and also reading an excerpt from her essay about The Grotesque in Southern Literature (which you can find in the Library of America volume of her complete works).

I first heard these recordings this summer at Sewanee and had a little trouble locating them on the internet, but I found them at this blog: The Morning Oil: Flannery! It's pretty special to hear this story in her voice.

MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grants"

The so-called "genius grants" were announced today, and included among the 23 recipients named by the MacArthur Foundation was fiction writer Yiyun Li. Screenwriter David Simon was the only other writer in the bunch.

The New Yorker: "The Warm Fuzzies" by Chris Adrian

It turns out that the previous Adrian story in The New Yorker, which I liked very much, was an excerpt from the novel that he’s now finishing up. It looks like this one, which I like far less, is, too. See the Q&A with Chris Adrian.

Here we have Molly, the teen daughter of the Carters and a member of the Carter Family Band, a Partridge Family clone that sings Christian-themed songs written by the father. It’s a big family that is supplemented by foster kids, currently Paul, who prefers the name Peabo. There apparently has been a long stream of foster kids, and we get the impression that they’re always black. This one is fairly compliant—he shakes his tambourine in the band, is polite about the food—but there seems to be a connection between Molly and him. And that gets Paul/Peabo kicked out in a record short time. And it isn’t Peabo’s fault, really, but Molly looks to be heading that direction as well.

I can’t tell you how much I didn’t care. The story is too long for such a weak climax and ending. Way too long.

September 27, 2010: “The Warm Fuzzies” by Chris Adrian

New issue: r.kv.r.y

Check out the new issue of r.kv.r.y now under the leadership of Mary Akers.

The New Yorker: "Birdsong" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Set in Lagos, Nigeria, this is the story of an angry young woman having an affair with an older, married businessman. The affair proceeds somewhat predictably—it’s the sort of plot that is very difficult to do with rehashing some very tired situations—but the woman’s anger and her observations about her place in Lagos make this story work very well.

She’s stuck in traffic and she sees a woman in another car who makes her think of her lover’s wife, who lives in America. And as they sit in traffic, the narrator keeps remember aspects of the affair—that she felt hidden away (the dark restaurant they went to), invisible (the driver and the waiters don’t acknowledge her). And there are various other elements of the affair that also drive her into deeper anger. But it isn’t just the affair—it’s also her job, where she and another woman are treated poorly, and Lagos generally. “Rituals of distrust. . . That is how we relate to one another here, through rituals of distrust. . . . We know the rules and we follow them, and we never make room for things we might not have imagined. We close the door too soon.” As she’s delivering this speech, she begins to cry in front of her lover, something she doesn’t do. His wife cries, but she doesn’t cry, and so this is something of a shock—and it spells the end of the affair.

This is a very good story. And although the Q&A with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells us that she’s working on a novel, there’s no hint that this part of it. Maybe it is, but it seems to work well as a story.

September 20, 2010: “Birdsong” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

750 Words

If you write 750 words every day for a year, you'll have written . . . [stops to calculate] . . . 273,750 words, which is WAY longer than a novel. In fact, it's like 3 novels, almost 4. But 750 words isn't very much. It's about 3 double-spaced pages. You can do it! Hell, even I can do it. Most days.

I wrote 1000 words today, amidst everything else I needed to get done. It wasn't on my novel though. It was on a book review I was asked to write (that I need to cut down some, so a few of those words will evaporate). But still. I wrote a bunch of words.

And the reason I even bring this up is that I just joined this website called 750 Words. It feels a little like NaNoWriMo, where you keep track of daily output for the month of November so that you complete a "novel" in one month. At this site, you write on the page provided, it keeps count, and you get points for having completed you daily total, a little pat on the back that is probably actually helpful--it's more than you get if you're just sitting in your room writing.

Anyway. Seems like a good thing. Check it out.

SWAG Writers September Reading

The SWAG Writers Reading Series continues this month with an event on September 29th at the Darjeeling Cafe (in the new space at 103 W. Beverley, Staunton, VA), at 7pm.

This month we feature visiting poet Todd F. Davis and local essayist Janet Lembke.

Todd teaches creative writing, environmental studies, and American literature at Penn State Altoona and in the MFA program at Penn State University Park. He has published three books of poems: The Least of These and Some Heaven (both from Michigan State University Press) and Ripe (from Bottom Dog Press). His work has appeared in numerous journals and he has received the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize.

Janet lives in Staunton and has published 18 books of nonfiction about the natural world and literary translation. Her most recent book is Because the Cat Purrs, which deals with human relationships with other species.

The event (sponsored by the Staunton Waynesboro Augusta Group of Writers, a subgroup of the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Virginia Writers' Club) is free and open to the public. We hope lots of people will come out to enjoy the work of these two wonderful writers.

[The wonderful poster is designed by Lindsay Curren of the Curren Media Group.]

Prime Number Magazine News

We had a busy weekend at Prime Number Magazine. Not only were we reading lots of wonderful submissions and working on editing the next full issue of the magazine (scheduled for October 19), but our staff grew by 50% when we added Margaret MacInnis as our Nonfiction Editor. Margaret joins me and Val Nieman (Poetry Editor).

But besides that, we put the finishing touches on the latest update to Issue No. 2 -- that would be Prime Decimals 2.5, which went live this morning. The update includes short work by Susan Tepper, Cezarija Abartis, Glenn Cassidy, and Lauren Reed.

Please read and enjoy!

The New Yorker: "The Landlord" by Wells Tower

Wells Tower fans aren’t likely to be any happier with me than they were when I discussed his last story in The New Yorker. Lots of people loved that one; it left me cold. Kind of like this one, only worse.

Is “The Landlord” a novel excerpt? I don’t know. I do know from the Q&A with Wells Tower that Tower is working on a novel, and I also know that this isn’t satisfying as a story, so I hope for Tower’s sake that it’s an excerpt.

The “story” is in the point of view of the landlord, who has suffered large losses as a result of the economic downturn. But he’s still collecting some rent and is considering some asset sales to reduce his debts. In the course of the “story” we see him interacting with some of his tenants and employees and also with his daughter. He’s not particularly good in any of those relationships—he’s something of a pushover (reminding me a little of the lawyer narrator of “Bartleby the Scrivener”) and it’s not hard to see why he’s fallen on hard times. Each of the vignettes in the “story” is interesting, especially the one that frames the piece—his dealings with Armando Colón who seems to be trying to make good on his arrears. And then there’s the daughter, Rhoda, and it’s what is left out about her that makes me suspect this is drawn from the work-in-progress. And in the middle of it all are Todd, the violent carpenter/debt collector, and the big, young newcomer, Jason. Interesting, but do they really move this story forward? What story?

Okay, there’s some good writing here, and if this is from a novel it seems like it might be pretty readable. But as a story I don’t think it works.

September 13, 2010: “The Landlord” by Wells Tower

The Book Club : The New Yorker

The New Yorker's Book Club is considering Jonathan Dee's The Privileges this month. (Dee was my thesis advisor in my MFA program.) I've heard very good things about this book, and it's on my TBR shelf (which is, in reality, a whole bookcase), but I just don't think I'm going to get to it in time to participate in the discussion. Seems like a good idea, though.

The Book Club : The New Yorker

Book-clubbed x 2

Since my book, In an Uncharted Country, came out about a year ago, I've visited several book clubs that have chosen it to read and discuss. I attended two just this week! I love it. I'd enjoy doing more, and judging by the lively discussion in even the smaller groups, my book seems to make a good choice for clubs.

The first visit this week was to a book club in Harrisonburg consisting of women connected to James Madison University. There were 14 or so women there--including a couple of writers--and most had read the book very closely, leading to some probing questions: Is there really a sun-worshiping cult in the Valley? Which story is my favorite? Since the stories all stand alone, was it originally conceived of as a book? What happens at the end of "The Nymph and the Woodsman?"

The second visit was to my own book club, or rather the club that The Sacred Circle Bookshop has been running for the past year. I've been a participant since the beginning and so I was honored when the store chose my book for this month's discussion. Although this group was smaller than the other club, the people who came had obviously also given the book a careful read and also asked great questions. One woman asked about the fact that the women in the book seemed particularly flawed--was I saying something with that? But I asked if she thought the men in the book were any better, and on reflection she realized that they weren't. I wasn't trying to invent any heroes in the book--just people who were as real as I could make them, and everyone I know has flaws. Except you, of course. You're perfect.

It's a little embarrassing to be the center of attention like that, but it is enormously gratifying to speak with people who have read the book.

Man Booker Prize 2010 shortlist announced

Man Booker Prize 2010 shortlist announced: Man Booker Prize news

The six books, selected from the Man Booker Prize longlist of 13, are:

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)

Emma Donoghue Room (Picador - Pan Macmillan)

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room (Atlantic Books - Grove Atlantic)

Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)

Andrea Levy The Long Song (Headline Review -
Headline Publishing Group)

Tom McCarthy C (Jonathan Cape - Random House)

In an Uncharted Country in Mid-American Review

The following review of my short story collection In an Uncharted Country appears in the current issue (Volume XXX) of the Mid-American Review. It is reprinted here by permission.

In an Uncharted Country

by Clifford Garstang

Winston-Salem, North Carolina: Press 53, 2009

204 pages. $14, paper.

Clifford Garstang’s debut book, In an Uncharted Country, helps decipher a familiar world, a country that many dwell in and yet may not know. With recognizable plotlines and characters who might live next door, the prizewinning author transforms the ordinary view into a rare vista.

Almost all of the stories that comprise In an Uncharted Country have previously appeared in literary journals. But the collection presents these stories at their best—as the intricate concatenation they are. Garstang offers a short story cycle that follows the tradition of Sherwood Anderson, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. As is the modus operandi of his predecessors, Garstang binds his collection with many threads. Characters reappear. The young Tim and Teddy of the first story are grown by the last.

            

The stories are thematically linked, each revealing another version of grief, a reconsideration of gender and familial roles. The book charts generational reminiscences and resists the idea that “adult” and “child” are distinct identities. Its characters try to gain a secure footing as they tread the same ground—both metaphorically and literally. The stories share a location: the fictional town of Rugglesville, in western Virginia. This setting is a living force, dynamically shaping those who populate this book. A porch serves as an emotional threshold. A flood wipes out a bridge and hinders people’s ability to navigate. A burning tree spreads its flames and offers a sign, an embodiment of startling youth. The weather ebbs away, concurrent with a wife’s faint breaths. The sky helps narrate a relationship in the lines, “He just looked over at her once in a while as if to make sure she was still there. Wood smoke drifted through the open windows. The night sky was dense.”

Yet, as much as the stories bear resemblances, this is not a collection of assembly-line creations put together with the same fundamental parts. Rather, Garstang’s techniques are varied, and each character speaks with a distinctive voice.

Read Garstang for his handle on craft, his ability to imply. Read the book because it’s a navigational tool. With clear-eyed precision, it maps the unseen: It draws out how we locate ourselves in a world of knotty relations and turbulent climates. It accesses the unreachable parts of an identity. It grants sight of others’ private days. In a sense, the book trespasses for us, enters an off-limits site. Follow it.

—Janelle Adsit

The Micro Award - 2011

It's time--or, ALMOST time--for The Micro Award. The Micro Award is given for the best flash fiction (under 1000 words) published in the previous year. Nominations are open from October 1 to December 31. Check the website for details.

Andre Dubus on writing a novel

Andre Dubus on writing a novel:

If there's anything I have to say to anyone who's starting a novel, it's this: Finish it. One thing, of course, is certain: Unless you finish it, it'll never be published. But there's another thing which is perhaps more important: In many cases, you'll never know whether your novel is good or not until you've finished it. 

I believe most writers, while working on a novel, are attacked by doubts; they go to bed at night and wonder if what they're working on is really worth the effort. I always feel this way; I assume I'm like most people, not utterly alone in this, and others are going through some variation of the same difficulty. 

The easiest course is to stop working on the novel, to tell your wife or husband and closest friends that it was actually a bad idea and you've decided to lay it aside and think of something new. And since that's the easiest course, it's probably also the most suspect. Because finally writing a novel takes a lot of endurance, and if you can find an honorable way to stop, then you'll feel much better. 

A friend of mine once said, I believe in inspiration, but it comes on page 10. He was speaking of short stories and he was saying that most of the writing is pure hard work, that finally--with, God's blessing and luck and whatever else--there might be some period of respite, when words, and even pages, come easily. 

The problem is, of course, enlarged when you're working on a novel which may take a year or two or more to finish. You are faced with a succession of days of hard, rarely inspired work which must be approached with the discipline of a committed athlete. There is another side to this, though: Because the work is tough, because it drains you daily, because you are always un-certain about its value, your own commitment to it becomes heroic. This is perhaps more than a consolation; it may be the very reason for getting up each day, for working and living. 

Which brings me to the final and--I believe--most important point. Novels are written in the same way that farms are made productive, or houses are kept clean, or baseball pennant races are won: with steady work each day. This means that you get up every morning uninspired, perhaps annoyed by a cold or bills or what have you, and work. 

Or, if you have a job, you cut your cocktail hour to a quarter of an hour so your head will be clear, and after dinner you go to your desk and stay there for two or three hours. Two or three hours doesn't seem like much, but when you're doing it five or six days a week, for a year or more, it's plenty. 

My editor at Dial Press once told me that the prolific writers are those who turn out 500 or 1,000 words a day; even if most of it isn't good, he said, you're ahead of the game. I think that's absolutely true. But the point here is not to talk about being prolific. It's to discuss the beginning and completion of one book-length manuscript. And to do this, most writers have to stick to a definite schedule and allow nothing--or very little--to deflect them from it. 

In an interview, Robert Penn Warren said something like this: A writer must work every day, realizing that most days will be bad ones; he must sit at his typewriter or under a tree with his pencil and paper, and take the awful responsibility of wasting time. 

And I'm sure Mr. Warren didn't really mean that writing unsuccessful pages was a waste of time. Because whether the particular pages of a particular day are good or not, there is still you, all of you, bringing to that work and that day everything you have. And when you're doing that, you're a writer. 

Andre Dubus, a distinguished writer of short stories, won the PEN/Malamud Award for short fiction and received fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations. In addition to his short fiction, he wrote a novel, The Lieutenant, and a collection of personal essays, Meditations From a Movable Chair. Film adaptations of his stories include In the Bedroom and We Don't Live Here Anymore. He died in 1999.

--from The Writer archives

Pushcart Prize Rankings -- 2011 (coming soon)

The literary magazine ranking I create each year based on the Pushcart Prizes has become very popular, I'm happy to say. It's not meant to be anything other than a quantitative measure of a magazine's success over the past decade, one that writers may find useful in deciding where to submit their own work. That's how I use it.

The new Pushcart Prize anthology should be available some time in November, at which point I'll update the rankings as quickly as I can. I've got some improvements in store this year that I think will make the list even more useful -- a more complete list of the magazines that appear to have died, a better indication of which entries are Presses rather than magazines, and hotlinks to the magazines' websites.

I've been urged, also, to expand the list to include non-fiction and poetry. We'll see. I may begin that in a limited way this year and then expand it in future years.

Stay tuned!

The New Yorker: "An Arranged Marriage" by Nell Freudenbeger

I’ve enjoyed some of Freudenberger’s work in the past, but not this “story,” and I use quotation marks because this is either an excerpt or is in some way drawn from a novel she’s working on: The Newlyweds (as we know from the Q&A with Nell Freudenberger).

The protagonist is potentially interesting, but I don’t find much in this story that is appealing and the character ultimately falls flat. Amina is from a struggling Bangladesh family—struggling, apparently, because of the father’s incompetence—and she goes online to meet a man, moves to the US, and marries him. In fairly rapid succession she disobeys her mother by giving her virginity to the man, spends a day with her future husband’s cousin buying a wedding dress, and then gets married. At the wedding the big excitement is that she forgets she’s supposed to kiss the groom, or she momentarily forgets where she is, or . . . something.

Briefly there is conflict with the mother, but it is easily brushed aside. Briefly there is what appears to be a possible conflict with the mother-in-law, but that goes nowhere. And in the end, Amina and George are married and, it seems, happy. One clever bit is how Amina learns the word “dumbstruck” but that can’t make up for the rest of this fiction. 

September 6, 2010: “An Arranged Marriage” by Nell Freudenberger

Virginia Quarterly Review

Anyone who reads literary blogs like this one has probably heard about the situation at the Virginia Quarterly Review. No need to go into that here. However, I did just see this very thoughtful commentary by Steve Almond, and it's worth passing along.

Let Us Now Raze Famous Men - The Rumpus.net

Judging a Magazine by its Cover

Maybe because I've been thinking about "covers" for Prime Number Magazine, which is an online magazine and so doesn't really have covers, or maybe because I've been looking at a lot of magazines lately, this morning it occurs to me that there are some magazines that just LOOK better than others, and so I'm more predisposed to read them. I'm probably that shallow in judging books, also. People, too, most likely. And ironically.

But some magazines just do a much better job than others with their covers. For example, I happen to think that Gettysburg Review consistently has the most attractive covers of any of the very many magazines I've subscribed to over the years--which is long list indeed.

New England Review is also consistently good. For some magazines, like One Story and the Sewanee Review, covers are beside the point. The former, at least, uses a different color for each of its small issues.


Do you have favorites? Who does the best covers?