And the winner is . . .

Visitor number 100,000 stopped by this evening at 10:51pm from Lakeland, Florida. There's no prize but my deepest gratitude.

CliffordGarstang.com

As if this blog weren't enough of a web presence for me . . .

Please visit my new website, CliffordGarstang.com to learn more about my forthcoming book, In an Uncharted Country. It will be published in September and is not yet ready for pre-order, but I'll let everyone know when it is. Believe me.

New Issue: The Short Review

There is a new issue of The Short Review, which includes a review of Mary Akers's Women Up on Blocks and an interview with Daniyal Mueenuddin.

American Shakespeare Center: Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor is one of the easiest of Shakespeare’s comedies to understand. There’s deception, of course, and one character dons a disguise, but otherwise it’s all pretty straightforward. Sir John Falstaff makes advances on two married women, Mistresses Ford and Page. The women, disgusted by the fat knight, cook up a plot to humiliate him. When Frank Ford, Mistress Ford’s husband, misinterprets his wife’s attentions toward Falstaff, he becomes jealous, eventually undertaking his own scheme by donning the disguise of Mr. Brook. Meanwhile three men seek the hand of Anne Page, and she and her parents all disagree as to whom she should marry. At the height of the plot against Falstaff, Anne manages to evade both the men chosen by her parents in order to run off with her own choice.

It’s all good fun that isn’t much more complicated (or meaningful) than a TV sitcom (as the Director’s Notes tell us, but is far more entertaining. In this American Shakespeare Center production, that’s due to the flawless performances by the ASC resident company. First, there’s James Keegan as Falstaff. The fat suit helps, but Keegan is a dominant force when he’s on stage, and he makes the “roguish knight” larger than life, as he should be. And yet, when Falstaff is humiliated, he seems to shrink and fade. As he should. Then there are the Merry Wives, Sarah Fallon as Mistress Ford and Denice Burbach as Mistress Page. Fallon is well known to the Blackfriars faithful, and this is another fine, fine performance. She is cunning and playful, a great foil for Falstaff. Burbach is a welcome newcomer to the company and makes a delightful Mistress Page.

And the husbands: Luke Eddy (most recently with the touring company) is a charming George Page, who is set on seeing his daughter Anne (Victoria Reinsel) married to the foppish (and rich) Master Slender, played hilariously by Chris Johnston. But Mistress Page has chosen Doctor Caius, a French physician, for Anne. Caius is played for major laughs by newcomer Daniel Rigney. (The accent sounds more French Canadian than French, I think, but no matter; Rigney does a terrific job in this very funny role.) The third suitor is Fenton, played by another unfamiliar face, Tobias Shaw, and he is clearly going to win the day. John Harrell plays the jealous Frank Ford who visits Falstaff in the disguise of Master Brook, and, as usual, nearly steals the show.

I should also mention a trio of ASC veterans who, with considerable comic skill, aid and abet the action. Alison Glenzer is Mistress Quickly, who for some reason is helping all three of the suitors; René Thornton Jr. is Shallow, the old (and lascivious) man who is promoting Slender’s case, Chris Seiler is Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson.

This terrific production is highly entertaining, and since it will be with us all summer and fall, I’m looking forward to seeing it again.

New Pages

I've often referred to NewPages.com on this blog because it is exceedingly useful to writers and readers. But I've just been browsing there and it seems after a recent facelift it is better than ever. It's clean and uncluttered, it's well-organized and easy to navigate, and I can't think of anything else I would want for it to include (unless it wanted to compete with the also indispensible Duotrope and include submission information and tracking systems). In any case, it's an excellent resource.

New Blu

Issue #2 of Blu Magazine, the Shenandoah Valley's Free Monthly, is popping up around the area. It looks great, and I'm not just saying that because there's an article by me on page 14 about the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. There's other great stuff, too.

Newsweek's Meta-list: The Top 100 Books

Lots of talk in literary circles this week about the current Newsweek issue. Here's one part of it: Newsweek's Top 100 Books.

How many have you read?

Forthcoming Books

The Millions highlights some highly anticipated books coming out in the second half of this year in Most Anticipated: Rounding Out 2009 -- An Epic Year for Books There are some very good looking titles here. I noticed they failed to mention my book, In an Uncharted Country, which will be published in September, but I'm sure that was just an oversight.

Andrew's Book Club -- July Picks

Andrew's Book Club has posted its July choices of short story collections: Misfits and Other Heroes by Suzanne Burns (Dzanc) and Do Not Deny Me by Jean Thompson (Simon and Schuster).

100,000

At some point in the next couple of days, this blog will have its 100,000th hit since . . . a few years ago. I began the blog on January 1, 2005, but didn't add the sitemeter hit counter until some time later. I don't remember when and don't know how to figure it out. But no matter. There weren't very many hits to count in those early days, anyway.

100,000 seems like a pretty big number to me.

The New Yorker: "Childcare" by Lorrie Moore

This fiction is almost certainly from Moore’s forthcoming novel, and in my opinion it does not work as a story. There’s a bit of tension, but nothing sustained, and no conflict that I can see. Tassie, a small town girl living in another small town where she’s in college, is looking for work as a babysitter. She’s smart enough, but socially backward. Still, she’s hired by a woman who is adopting a baby, and she wants Tassie to be present every step of the way. Well, that’s nice. Not much tension there. It’s not even very odd.

What is odd is that the woman’s husband isn’t gone, but he isn’t present in the story either, and Tassie’s father is somehow important, but he isn’t present either. He’s a hobbyist farmer and . . . well, that’s nice, too. So Tassie goes with Sarah to meet the mother whose baby will soon be adopted. The woman, a pretty girl with no teeth (a meth addict?) who is on probation for whatever it is she’s done, isn’t very happy with Sarah. At the end, it isn’t clear that the girl will give Sarah the baby after all.

The end.

Okay, this is nice writing, but it isn’t even interesting enough a set up to persuade me to buy the novel when it comes out. It looks like Sarah will get some kind of baby and Tassie will be provide childcare. And . . . what else? Please tell me there’s more to it than that!

July 6 & 13: “Childcare” by Lorrie Moore

New Issue: Hobart July '09

The new print Hobart (#10) is on its way, I'm told, and the new online issue is up: Hobart for your reading pleasure.

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.