My Review of The Innocents by Michael Crummey up at Book and Film Globe!!!

The best part of reviewing novels is stumbling across a title as well crafted as The Innocents by Michael Crummey.

Take a look at my review for more details.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Review of Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry up at Book and Film Globe!!!

Hi, friends.

I was lucky to get the chance to review Kevin Barry's latest novel Night Boat to Tangiers at Book and Film Globe. As revealed through his book, Barry is deeply committed to the process of elevating his characters through his use of lyrical, carefully chosen language. That's something I will always get behind.

Check out the review.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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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 Destroy All Monsters up at The Believer!!!

I've been reading the music issue of The Believer for years, always hoping I might someday find my work there. 

The day has arrived.

This past week, my review of the rock novel Destroy All Monsters by Jeff Jackson appeared in the magazine. Jackson's work combines the rock novel form with the dystopia, and I couldn't get past the idea that his dark vision for a potential rock music future was somehow tied to our inability to cut the cord.

Feel free to take a look at this short review, and be prepared to scroll down to find it.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Review of THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whitehead up at Los Angeles Review of Books!!!

I'm lucky to have been granted the chance to review Colson Whitehead's latest novel THE NICKEL BOYS for Los Angeles Review of Books. A hint at what's inside:

"Whitehead creates individual portraits that are all the more evocative for their singularity. His focus allows us to fill in the rest of the world with our imaginations. Any real expansion happens one soul at a time." 

Come check it out.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Review of The Glitch by Elisabeth Cohen and Lord of California by Andrew Valencia up at The Believer!!!

I've been submitting my nonfiction to The Believer for about seven years. I love their symposium section, and I'm thrilled that--after a total of 30 submissions--they finally accepted one of my pieces.

The piece is a dual review of a two of recently published novels, The Glitch by Elisabeth Cohen and Lord of California by Andrew Valencia. The novels' subject matter fits nicely into this issue's symposium theme, "This Modern Family," and I'm glad to have my reviews mixed in with a few other really good ones on this subject. Feel free to take a look. Scroll down to mine, which is called "Left (behind) Coast."

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Review of This is Memorial Device by David Keenan up at JMWW!

I'm always excited to get rock novel recommendations.

Lewis Buzbee passed This is Memorial Device by David Keenan on to me, which he found and read while traveling in Europe in 2017. I had to wait until this past February to get my hands on it here in the States, and it was well worth the wait. I touch on what the novel does well in my review of it, which just popped up at JMWW this past week. Give the review a read, then give the book a read.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Review of The King of Good Intentions up at JMWW!!!

I love it when a new review of mine pops up, so much so that I want to make sure you know that my review of the rock novel The King of Good Intentions by John Andrew Fredrick went live this week at JMWW.

The King of Good Intentions is the first of at least two rock novels in a series by Fredrick. You all know how fond I am of rock novels in a series. Let's just say Fredrick's debut reminded me a bit of my 2003 debut Stuck Outside of Phoenix, except his is set in Los Angeles and has a narrator (and writer) boasting some serious acuity with the language. Lovely prose, lots of good honest trouble. Give the review a read, and give the novel a chance as well!

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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The Undisputed Top 20 Rock Novels of All Time, 2017

2017 was one of the worst years for new rock novels in recent memory. I found only one new title to read this past year--published in 2013--and luckily it merits Top 20 consideration or I would have no changes to my list.

The new title is The King of Good Intentions by John Andrew Fredrick, and I slot it in at #19. A review is forthcoming.

Fredrick has also published a sequel, The King of Good Intentions II, which I will take a look at soon. Here's hoping it's an early addition to 2018's list.

Until then, keep me posted on any new rock novels you might come across. There is no central place to find out about these titles, so I'm counting on you to fill me in when merited.

I've already got time set aside for This is a Memorial Device by David Keenan, which comes out in America in 2018. Let's hope for even more rock fiction next year.

20 The Last Rock Star Book, Or: Liz Phair, a Rant by Camden Joy


19 The King of Good Intentions by John Andrew Fredrick


18 Big in Japan by M. Thomas Gammarino


17 You Don’t Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem


16 A and R by Bill Flanagan


15 Saguaro: The Life and Adventures of Bobby Allen Bird by Carson Mell


14 Wise Young Fool by Sean Beaudoin


13 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan


12 Wonderland by Stacey D'Erasmo 


11 Great Jones Street by Don DeLillo


10 Vexation Lullaby by Justin Tussing


9 How the Mistakes Were Made by Tyler McMahon


8 Losing in Gainesville by Brian Costello 


7 The Blue Bourbon Orchestra by Carson Mell


6 The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta


5 Never Mind the Pollacks by Neal Pollack


4 Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta


3 High Fidelity by Nick Hornby 


2 The Commitments by Roddy Doyle


1 Banned for Life by D. R. Haney


Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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Stuck Outside of Phoenix and Ghost Notes going out of Print!!!

Happy fall, y'all.

I'm busy finishing Novel 4, which is called Nineteen Ways to Destroy Your Rock Band. The novel is in its final stages. I want to say it will be done in four months, but with a final read-through it's probably going to be more like six. It always takes longer than I want, but in the end if it's not top-notch, what's the point? Know that I'm working on it daily, and that it's coming.

Also, I've recently decided to take both my first novel Stuck Outside of Phoenix and my second novel Ghost Notes out of print.

Why?

The plan is to re-release the two novels as one book sometime in the future. I also have a short story called "The Move," featuring Hote as a 16-year-old, and I hope to include this story in the collection as well. That would be all the Hote I've ever written, and also everything I have to show for my first decade as a fiction writer. I think this would make a great collection, so I'm pulling everything from the market now to accrue some time between now and this projected re-release--which would fall sometime after the publication of Nineteen Ways. Again, don't hold your breath, but that's the plan.

Stuck and Ghost Notes have already started to disappear from places like Amazon, and by 2018 they should be gone everywhere. I do still have them both for sale at my website for now, and at the ridiculously low price of $5 each, while supplies last, but I'll take them down from there eventually as well. Should you want or need a copy, now's a good time.

For the record, none of this affects my third novel Badge, which is and will continue to be available everywhere.

I think that's it. Have a great holiday season, everyone, and as always, feel free to touch base.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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New Short Story "Nello's Liner Notes" Published by The Wax Paper!!!

I got to meet Hans and co., the fellas who put together the broadsheet lit mag called The Wax Paper, at AWP last February. This mag had accepted my short story "Nello's Liner Notes" for publication a week before, so it was great to get the chance to thank them in person and to get to know them a bit.

When I heard one of them was from Chicago, I of course had to ask, "Cubs or Sox?"

One said, "Sox."

The other, "Indians."

So, we didn't talk much about baseball after that.

These two have put together a fantastically cool lit mag, and if you subscribe, you'll get to read the lost liner notes of one Nello Van Hansen, the finest budding songwriter in southwest North Dakota, whose magnum opus Havi-g Said That never quite made it to press. Where's the "n," you ask? You have to subscribe and read the story to find out!

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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My Piece on the Writing and Publication of my Story "Waiting for the Answer" (City of Weird) up at Necessary Fiction!!!

I'm always fascinated by the elements that make a story go--whether it be a book, a film, a TV show, an essay, or something else--and I'm at least as fascinated by what's missing when it doesn't quite.

The latter was the case with my story "Waiting for the Question," also known as my Alex Trebek story, which I worked on for years until it finally came together and was published in the brand new anthology City of Weird, brought to you by Portland publisher Forest Avenue Press.

Necessary Fiction has done me the honor of publishing my short essay on the process of writing and publishing "Waiting for the Question," which includes details of how Forest Avenue's Laura Stanfill and Gigi Little emailed Alex Trebek to get his permission to publish the story in the anthology. Yeah, that's gonna work, right? Read on, my friend, and be amazed.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Forest Avenue Press's City of Weird anthology.

Because What's Weirder than Alex Trebek?

About five years ago, I sat down to write a story about Alex Trebek.

This story would be different from so many of my other short stories because it would come from an idea.

I didn't write from ideas. I didn't like ideas. Everyone had ideas. I wanted to be different.

My idea was I wanted Alex Trebek to show up to an apartment complex, squat down, and sort of study the distance from this position. Think of it as a contemplative pose. He'd grab his lip, absent-mindedly pinch it, look off into the distance, and stay there for a long time. I just wanted his presence in this pose in this story, kind of like the old man in "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," but I wanted it to be Alex Trebek, and I wanted him to be squatting, and I wanted to see what would happen.

This is why writing is so wonderful. You decide you want things a certain way, and that's the way they are. At one point, the story was called "A Very Old Game Show Host with Enormous Wings." I just wanted it that way, and it was so.

So, I wrote the story, and I liked much of it, and didn't like other parts of it, so I rewrote the other parts several times over the course of about five years, and eventually I had a story, now called "Waiting for the Question."

That was when I heard about Forest Avenue Press's City of Weird anthology.

(There's a whole section that should go here about the acceptance of this story by City of Weird, but that portion of the tale is coming out later this month at Necessary Fiction, so you'll just have to understand it's coming down the pipe, and I will check back in here when it's up.)

What you need to know now is Forest Avenue Press's City of Weird anthology is available for sale, and it's where you can read my Alex Trebek story "Waiting for the Question" and 29 other stories all set in Portland, and by some very respect fiction writers. It's a real honor to be included, and I think, somewhere, Alex Trebek is happy about it too.

So, please buy the anthology and read my Alex Trebek story and get 29 other Portland stories to boot.

Also, there is a series of readings coming up to celebrate this offering, and I'm participating in two of them. However, the official launch party is this Wednesday at Powell's on Burnside, where my writing compatriot Mark Russell is reading with three other City of Weird contributors. I won't go into all of the revelry scheduled for the event, but let's just say it feels very much like you won't want to miss it.

So, don't miss it!

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Forest Avenue Press's City of Weird anthology.

Farallon, My Wayward Son

Just received my copy of Issue Six of the Farallon Review, which includes my short story "Tree Limb Chair" among seven other tales by the likes of Mary Volmer, John Gifford, Julie Woodside, Joey Garcia, Tigh Rickman, Dominic Foser, and Elena Mauli Shapiro. The issue is available by mail, at readings, special events, and the Avid Reader in Sacramento. See their website for details. 

If you take the plunge and regret it, I'll eat a bowl of bass guitar picks.
 
Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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Short Fiction Forthcoming by Me!

I spent the first decade of my writing life focused entirely on long fiction, but I was originally drawn to fiction by the short story. A few years ago, I started dedicating time to this genre, and it's now starting to yield results.

I have two such stories forthcoming. One is called "Tree Limb Chair," and it will see the light of day in The Farallon Review. The other is called "Reunion Tour," and it was just accepted by a lit mag called Uno Kudo. Both feature the same rock protagonist, Billy, who's trying to find his way forward after having a successful stint in a rock band. (Where do I come up with this stuff?)

I'll keep you posted on when and how you can read these stories, but know they're coming.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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New Piece on Writing up at HTMLGIANT!!!

Helloo,

One of my favorite pieces on writing ever just popped up on HTMLGIANT. It's about the futility of a writer trying to get away with hiding behind a narrator. Anyone who enjoyed my pieces on fiction v. memoir a couple of years ago at The Writer will get something out of this.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

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Stuck the Movie Update/The Writer Article

A brief word about Stuck the Movie.

Producer Nico Holthaus is waiting for some funding to come through for the editing process, and he should know something within two weeks. For now, he continues the behind-the-scenes work necessary to make this movie a reality. Hard to believe it's come this far, but there are hurtles to jump before it's finished. It's slated for a September release in Tempe.

Also, I'm proud to have another piece in The Writer magazine this month. This one explores the difference between fiction and nonfiction, posing questions like: What if Moby-Dick were a memoir? Available at most bookstores.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Try Stuck Outside of Phoenix in print form for just $5.

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What Fiction Is and Isn't

For a while now I've wanted to write about the nature of fiction. In light of some of the things that have been said about Stuck Outside of Phoenix the Movie, now seems a good time.

When someone writes about anything, he can draw from exactly three places. He can write:

A) facts; for example, "George Washington was the first president of the United States;"

B) things he's experienced or that people have told him; for example, "When I was seven I went to Florida on vacation," "Bob said he fought in the Vietnam war," etc.; or

C) things he makes up; for example, "A man from Mars came to dinner last night."

These three areas aren't just the primary places writers pull from, they're the only places she can pull from. If someone can name another place where a writer can draw from to write, please let me know.

So, let's call these three places a writer's palette. If I'm going to write something, I'm going to draw from them. They're the only choices I have.

If I draw my material entirely from category A, facts, what kind of work would I be creating? Nonfiction for sure, right? Probably history.

How about Category B, things I've experienced or been told about? The material from this category is probably most closely aligned with memoir.

And Category C, things from my imagination? That's where fiction comes from, right?

Wrong, or at least incomplete.

The notion that fiction comes (entirely) from the imagination is inaccurate. Sure, much of fiction comes from made up things, like my Martian friend, but a good dose of fiction comes from the first two categories as well. We can't help but draw from facts, and things we've experienced or heard about, when we write fiction.

Imagine sitting down and trying to write entirely from your imagination. Look at my fictional sentence above: "A man from Mars came to dinner last night." Didn't happen, totally made up, and yet look at the concepts within the sentence. "Man," "Mars," "dinner," "last night." These are all things that come from fact or things I've learned about through experience. Even fictional categories like science fiction and fantasy can't avoid elements from our world. If they did, we wouldn't be able to understand them.

So, the real world is always a big player in any fictional one.

In light of this, why would someone choose to write fiction? This is where the painter's palette metaphor comes in handy. If you write history or memoir, you're limiting the possibilities of things you can use in your writing. For example, you can't say, "A man from Mars came to dinner last night." (Unless of course he did.) In these two genres, there are colors on your palette you simply can't use. You might want to, but you're writing in a category that doesn't allow it. You can see the red there on your palette, but you can only use yellow and blue.

But if you're writing fiction, you can choose any color you want: red or blue or yellow, or combinations of the three. This is the beauty of fiction.

Not only is fiction the most liberating category (for me), I also believe it's where the richest stories come from. I could name a few hundred examples, but I suspect you can fill these in.

So, what does this all have to do with Stuck Outside of Phoenix the Movie?

I've stated many times that the novel--and the screenplay based on the novel--are fictions, but if you think fiction consists of things that are entirely made up, you might not believe my claim. "Wait, I recognize elements of this person," or "I remember that club," etc. When I call things fictions, I'm not claiming I made them all up. I'm saying I'm drawing from all three of the above categories throughout.

Why would I do that? Why wouldn't I just give you the story of my life in the Tempe music scene in the early 1990s and be done with it? Because I wanted to tell the best story, and frankly, the story of my early 1990s in the Tempe music scene isn't all that compelling. As a writer, I don't want to waste the reader's time. It tends to make them testy.

So, I write fiction because I want to write with the largest palette, which in my opinion creates the best stories.

There are of course other, more nefarious reasons to write fiction. You could want to get back at people by using elements of their personalities in your fictional characters, and portraying these characters in some negative light. This happens, and I suppose there are always going to be people who want to believe it's happening with Stuck. People will think whatever they want to think, and I can't claim perfection, but with Stuck--both the novel and screenplay--I tried simply to tell the best story I knew how to tell at the time, using the categories above. Producer Nico Holthaus and I agreed early on that Stuck the Movie would be the story of a kid trying to get out of Tempe--with the Tempe music scene of the early 1990s as a backdrop--and would not be a dig at anyone or anything.

So read Stuck, or (soon) watch the movie, and if you notice elements of the real world in them, don't assume it's meant to represent or reflect upon those elements in the real world. Like a painter who mixes blue and yellow to make green, it's more complicated than that.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Try Stuck Outside of Phoenix in print form for just $5.

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Dana Spiotta Review, plus Steve Almond Trailer

I'm going to try (no promises) to make my posts here a little more substantial during the last quarter of the year.

There's a steady stream of rock fiction coming from big publishing these days, and you can bet I have an opinion on all of it. First up is my review of Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta at elimae.

Also, Steve Almond has a new collection of short stories coming out called God Bless America. I've already read and reviewed it. I could tell you how much I love it, but let's wait for the review to come out. Until then, take a gander at the book's trailer, which is as funny as any you'll see.



I'll let you know when my review of the book is up.

Thanks, folks.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Try Ghost Notes, the award-winning novel, in print form for just $5.




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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

Try Ghost Notes, the award-winning novel, in print form for just $5.




Try Ghost Notes the Audio Book as an unabridged digital download for just $4.99.



Or try Ghost Notes the 99 cent Ebook.