Category: creative-process
- My Elmore Leonard ProblemOut of Sight from Four Later Novels by Elmore Leonard. Library of America. 961 pp. $40.00. I’m coming to the end of my Elmore Leonard period. I never thought, when I decided to look into his Detroit novels because my son now lives in Detroit and I’ve gotten to know the place a little, that I ...Read more
- Time is a What?A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Anchor Books. 340 pp. $16.00. ***** I’m aware as a writer that many people I read are more talented than I, but now and then I’m pulled up short by a writer who does something I couldn’t even aspire to. I felt that way about War and ...Read more
- Grad Student from HellThe Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy. Grove Press. 338 pp. $16.00. The Ginger Man was one of the famous dirty books from my youth, published by Olympia Press and occupying the shelves alongside Tropic of Cancer, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and My Life and Loves. My freshman college roommate in 1966 showed up with everything trendy in ...Read more
- Master Craftsman Having FunFour Novels of the 1980’s: City Primeval, LaBrava, Glitz, Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard. Library of America. 1010 pp. $37.50. Elmore Leonard began to relax into his craft when he entered the decade of the eighties, when he would turn 60. He had stopped drinking, for one thing, spoke openly about how that affected him. He ...Read more
- Bake a Motherfucking Cake as Fast as You CanPatti Cake$ a film by Geremy Jasper. With Danielle Macdonald, Bridgette Everett, Cathy Moriarity, Siddharth Dhanajay, Mamoudou Athie. **** I should admit up front that I’m not a rap fan. I’ve tried—my nephew once made me a tape of rap’s greatest hits—but I couldn’t get into it. I like the rhythm at first, and the whole ...Read more
- Servants of LifeIn the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman. Picador. 497 pp. $17.00 ****1/2 This is the last book—the last of many—that my friend Levi recommended to me. He always recommended books as if to say: Go buy this and start reading it tonight (though I never did that). He went on and on ...Read more
- Living DeliberatelyHenry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls. University of Chicago Press. 615 pp. $35.00. This is one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. Right at the moment I can’t think of a better one. And it comes at an ideal moment for me. The official occasion is the bicentennial of Thoreau’s birth, in 1817. ...Read more
- Notes on a Remark by Elmore LeonardHow He Gave Up Booze and Learned to Relax “By then I was in AA and perhaps not taking myself so seriously. I do think my writing began to improve at this time, mainly because I wasn’t taking the writing so seriously, either. I learned to relax and not think of it as writing.” One of the ...Read more
- Lives of CrimeElmore Leonard: Four Novels of the 1970’s. Unknown Man No. 89, The Switch. Library of America. 809 pp. $37.50. I’ve begun to decide—as I read one Elmore Leonard novel after another (that’s one of the advantages of the Library of America; you get to soak yourself in a single writer) that he wasn’t a crime novelist ...Read more
- The Coma Was a Come-onThe Big Sick a film by Michael Showalter. With Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano. ***** The Big Sick is so much the best movie I’ve seen this summer (I was happy just to find a movie I wanted to see), so unique as a romantic comedy, so perfect in the way it’s put ...Read more
- Going DutchFifty-Two Pickup, Swag from Four Novels of the 1970’s by Elmore Leonard. Library of America. 808 pp. $37.50 Elmore Leonard wrote great—I would almost say groundbreaking—dialogue, but the rest of his writing was ordinary, even pedestrian. Let’s the opening of Fifty-Two Pickup. “He could not get used to going to the girl’s apartment. He would be tense, ...Read more
- And Gets Back Up AgainEmpire Falls by Richard Russo. Vintage. 483 pp. $16.95. **** Richard Russo has done it again, written a book where I was full of a kind of mild admiration through the first half, seeing how he had set up an interesting situation, sketched in some sympathetic characters, done some writing that was mildly humorous, then somehow, ...Read more
- He Cared Too MuchStories by John O’Hara. The Library of America. 860 pp. $40.00 John O’Hara was an Irish Catholic and doctor’s son from Eastern Pennsylvania who believed—apparently for much of his life—that he would have been a happy man if he had just gone to Yale. That didn’t keep him from getting booted from three prep schools, one ...Read more
- The Wonder of WomenWonder Woman a film by Patty Jenkins. With Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright ***1/2 Arrival a film by Denis Villeneuve. With Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker ***** A Quiet Passion a film by Terence Davies. With Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle, Duncan Duff *** I’m as happy as everyone else that we finally have a movie about ...Read more
- Academic HackStraight Man by Richard Russo. Vintage Contemporaries. 391 pp. $14.00. **** I read this book because of Jennifer Senior’s review of Richard Russo’s latest book, in which she called Straight Man a better academic novel than David Lodge’s Campus Trilogy. I was so impressed by that remark, and the general tenor of Senior’s review, that I ...Read more
- The Dharma of F.M. AlexanderThe Alexander Technique: A Skill for Life by Pedro de Alcantara. The Crowood Press. 128 pp. I have never thought of the teachings of Buddhism and Taoism as the esoteric observations of a few ancient teachers. I think of them as the truth about life. The first canto of the Tao Te Ching, for instance, comes ...Read more
- Pip Pip Hooray!Purity by Jonathan Franzen. Picador. 598 pp. $17.00. ***** I had an odd and unique experience reading Purity. I got slightly bogged down in the book’s first section, which focuses on the title character; her name is Purity but she goes by Pip. She seemed clueless and helpless, living with a collection of strange roommates, burdened ...Read more
- Alcoholics PreposterousColossal a film by Nacho Vigalondo. With Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Austin Stowell. *??? There’s a mind state called suspension of disbelief, where we overlook an unlikely aspect of a work of art because it is a premise of what we’re watching. The idea that James Bond would always do the right thing at the right ...Read more
- Doc, Ya Gotta Level Wit MeFull Frame Documentary Film Festival 2017 My Lineup: Whose Streets? / Still Tomorrow / The Good Postman / Abacus / Zaatari Djinn / Tribal Justice / Strong Island / Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities / Quest / The Force / May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers At ...Read more
- Old Corn-Drinking MellifluousAbsalom, Absalom! By William Faulkner. 315 pp. $15.95 I’m obsessed with the subject of telling stories. I’ve spoken before about how all stories are false, or all stories true; they are, in any case, human fabrications, which may have little to do with what actually happened. We love them nevertheless. Human beings tell each other stories, ...Read more
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Unfinished LivesAmerican OriginalLosing ItKeep an Eye on IgorAnd Is He Pissed
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (215)art (113)Buddhism (169)Christianity (125)creative process (246)death and dying (139)meditation (123)movies (160)music (36)race (105)religion (187)sex (170)spirituality (170)the art of narrative (252)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)