Almost forty years after moving to Manhattan, author Richard Morris has achieved if not stratospheric renown then at least the accomplished career...
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Jun 21, 2011
David
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Richard Morris is a writer who prides himself deeply in his own personal honesty. Like Hemingway he believes that his job as a writer is to write one true sentence after another. Like Norman Mailer he believes that he must guide himself toward madness, to glimpse into the abyss and then write about what he sees resident there. Unfortunately, Norman Mailer chose to become a social clown existentially acting-up to promote his books and both writers may have been better served to understand Hemingw
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Jun 01, 2009
mark
rated it:
PERFORATED HEART (2009) by Eric Bogosian is a fascinating study in obsession for pussy, money, and fame. In this instance that obsession revolves around the life of a middle-aged, successful, American Jew writer in New York who reflects back on his path via his journal from the mid 70’s, as he struggles in the present (2006-7) to reclaim his place atop the literary field. This is an intensely honest story and I could identify with it completely. I agree with most all of the positions the main ch
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Jul 18, 2011
William
rated it:
Eric Bogosian, the terrific playwright and hilarious actor, totally brings it with this novel. The book, much like Bogosian's play Talk Radio, lacks any real heroes, but you are so intoxicated with the journey of our depressed, neurotic, sometimes misogynistic, often drunk narrator, through two different time periods no less, that you don't want to admit the truth.
Bogosian does a great job balancing the Richard (the main character) from 1976-1979 with the Richard of 2006/2007. To say More...
Bogosian does a great job balancing the Richard (the main character) from 1976-1979 with the Richard of 2006/2007. To say More...
Jun 08, 2009
Jason
rated it: 
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
As regular readers know, I'm a particularly big fan of a type of literary trope I call the "anti-villain," which like it sounds means nearly the opposite of the more well-known term "anti-hero;" that is, instead of the main character being someone who seems fairly desp More...
As regular readers know, I'm a particularly big fan of a type of literary trope I call the "anti-villain," which like it sounds means nearly the opposite of the more well-known term "anti-hero;" that is, instead of the main character being someone who seems fairly desp More...
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May 18, 2011
Erin
rated it: 
For the first half of the book, I was prepared to give it two stars. I wasn't really enjoying it but the writing was interesting enough and the storyline, contrasting a journal of a writer in the present to his journal thirty years earlier, was holding my interest enough to continue. Around the midway point, though, it just became repetitious and uninteresting. I decided to read this book because it was listed as one of the best book covers of 2009... I guess it's true what they say about not ju
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Oct 27, 2009
Jennifer
rated it: 
This one took some patience...at first I really thought it was going nowhere, but in the end it turned out to be nicely structured. Man in his 50s finds his diaries from the 1970s and we realize what a completely different person he has become. Nice touches evoking NYC in the 70s.
Nov 24, 2009
Eric
rated it:
A decent read. Plot was a bit cliche -- the aging writer looks back at his life and failed romantic entanglements, but entertaining nonetheless. A quick one.
Jul 11, 2009
I went to hear him read last night....he's a dynamic and interesting guy. I met him on the Red Line one night on my way home from work about 9 or 10 years ago. He was real nice, asked me what I was reading...one of Dennis Lehane's books so I told him a little about Lehane being from Dorchester and what I liked about his writing...pre Mystic River...Anyway, it was cool to hear him talk about his writing and although I knew he was pretty prolific and had his hand in a lot of pies, I don't think I
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Dec 24, 2009
Glenn
rated it:
A well crafted book. An aging successful writer retreats to his CT summer home to recuperate from heart surgery and brings his 30 year old journals to read. The rest of the book is alternating journal entries from the young and old writer, as he wrestles with his craft, fame, women, and mortality. It's the same Bogosian character from his monologues--the hard drinking New York street intellectual, but here you see the guy looking back at himself with amazement wondering how could have ever be
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May 15, 2009
Ken
rated it:
Vivid about 70's New York. Main character makes self-absorption an expression of art.
Sep 08, 2009
Doug
rated it:
I liked it in the beginning than grew tired of it. I wonder if it's auto-biographical.
Dec 08, 2011
I too, also stopped reading this book. Not because it wasn't worth the time, just... because.
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