My Review of The Warlow Experiment by Alix Nathan up at Book and Film Globe!!!

The best thing that can happen when I'm reading a novel is to be reminded of reading experiences from my formative years, back when I was learning to love books. This happened while reading The Warlow Experiment, my review of which just popped up at Book and Film Globe. Joyce, Dickens, and Austen are all in there to some degree. Not bad company.

Check out the review!

Yours in laying down the law,

Art


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My Review of Things that Happened Before the Earthquake by Chiara Barzini

When I was in high school, I was disappointed that none of the assigned stories in my English classes were set in contemporary times. Literature from bygone eras felt like a dead end to me. Shakespeare, Twain, Joyce, it all, on some level, was over.

I would come around on all three of those authors, and I would also learn that it's almost impossible to write stories about contemporary times because it's hard to tell what's important about the times we live in, what merits our attention as fiction writers and readers.

We're now getting to the point where novels are starting to depict the 1990s, and I recently received the opportunity to review one such novel, Things that Happened Before the Earthquake by Chiara Barzini. My review just appeared at Los Angeles Review of Books. Come get a taste of how Barzini is portraying my (and probably your) generation.

Here's that review link again.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art


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My Review of The Grand Tour by Adam O'Fallon Price up at Electric Literature

It's been a long time since I've posted, and that's because I haven't had anything published in a while. 

Well, that changed in a jiffy yesterday when Electric Literature ran my review of the debut novel The Grand Tour by Adam O'Fallon Price. Are you an author? You will recognize some of these characters, perhaps while looking in the mirror.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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2012 Nonfiction Pieces Posted at My Website

I've posted a couple of essays at my website that have never before been available online. The first originally appeared in The Writer, and it explores the difference between fiction and non- by asking questions like, "What if Moby-Dick were a memoir?"

The second is a personal essay about my decision in 2009 not to mention a certain band's name in any of my marketing material. The essay is called "No Refreshments will be Served," and it originally appeared in Pear Noir!

So, have at 'em!

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My Latest at The Writer Magazine

It's an essay about the struggles of realistic novelists in a memoir-dominated market.

The Writer Article.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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Rock Lit Review: Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad

You'll have to make one more jump to read my blog this week, which is a review of A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Rock Lit masterpiece? Click here to find out.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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Half-Baked Novels Bring Me Down

Here we are in August, and the digital download version of Ghost Notes the Audio Book is nowhere to be found! Rest assured I'm working on it. You can always order a burned copy here.

Do you want to know my least favorite thing about reading contemporary novels?

My least favorite thing in the whole world is getting past chapter one, or page fifty, or somewhere in the middle, and feeling the quality of the prose take a nosedive.

I started a novel a couple of weeks ago and was blown away immediately. The author--a famous guy you've probably heard of if you follow these kinds of things--was clearly playing in a league of his own. The prose sparkled. It was funny, insightful, intriguing, the product of a great craftsperson. "Awesome," I thought. "A new writer to love."

Then, at around page 40, the prose took an abrupt turn down Mediocrity Street. All of a sudden, the characters weren't fully developed, the language was less-than-sparkling, the plot felt like the author was connecting dots as opposed to writing a novel.

Hey, I know how it is, man. The temptation to want--to need--the thing to be finished gets overwhelming. You get the first fifty pages polished, and all of a sudden you run out of time, patience or creative energy and decide the damn thing is done and send it off.

And the industry--agents, editors, etc.--might prefer a completely polished manuscript, but in my experience as a reader they clearly aren't committed to it.

To keep me reading, your novel need not be perfect--I've read plenty of less-than-perfect novels and haven't hated it--but there needs to be a sustained quality to the prose from Page One to The End. I need to feel like you care on page 100, 200, 300, etc. Hell, you're the writer. If you don't care, why should I?

I won't mention the title of the book that so recently took a turn for the ol' crapper--mostly because it would shift the focus of my blog to this book, which is totally unfair because I've experienced this nosedive many times when reading contemporary work--but this author can bet I won't be buying his next.

Not that he'll lose any sleep over it.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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