Mike Emmons's recent posts
Recent public discussion board posts (showing 1-20 of 43).
When Paul Park (writer of one of my all-time favorite novels, CELESTIS, and two or three other classics) went YA it was really discouraging. I don't know if it's the marketplace or a real desire to write for young adults. Still, I just ordered a copy of this. :)
You must, you must.
A friend of mine who works at FSG says Denis Johnson's next published book will be a collection of three or four novellas. "Train Dreams" will definitely be included, and perhaps "Nobody Move" as well.
"Love in the Afternoon" was one of those stories that worked better as fiction than as film, I thought. "La Collectioneuse" is just the opposite, and for me that's Rohmer's best movie. BTW, Tosh, have you ever seen Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies"? Nothing else I can think of comes as close to capturing the crazy tone of your man Vian's craziness.
Their release of Anthony Mann's "The Furies" includes the source novel by Niven Busch, and their release of "Two-Lane Blacktop" includes the screenplay by Rudolph Wurlitzer in book form. I agree that it's a shame you can't find the six moral tales in bookstores!
The title story in this collection is the best thing by Shepard I've ever read, easily. One of the great American short stories.
I'd never heard of it before yesterday but a friend called it her favorite novel.
You sold me. Looking for a copy.
Anything else interesting coming out from LoA this fall?
Y'know I've never really thought of David Lynch and Joy Williams as similar artists, but it makes a lot of sense. She's a much stranger and more experimental and ironic writer than most readers acknowledge. She was lumped in with the "K-mart realists" (God I hate that term) back in the 80s and I think that really hurt her career and confused her reception. She's much more akin to artists like Bowles, Thomas Bernhard, Gertrude Stein, and John Hawkes than she is Carver, Dubus, Richard Ford. The real question is when will America wake up and realize there's an writer of the stature of Flannery O'Connor working almost unacknowledged in its midst?
Sorry, it's an issue that gets me all riled up!
You are correct, sir. She is a giant. Her second, criminally overlooked novel The Changeling is being reprinted soon--it definitely fits the Bowles/Lynch mold you describe. Give it a look!
Thanks for the tip, Donald. And thanks for hosting a terrific reading. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Ashbery event.
Si, Tosh! This book is extraordinary, but my favorite part of it is the list of Bunuel's films in the inside flap. I love coming back to it every year or so and checking off the ones I've seen since the last time. Do you have a favorite Bunuel, Tosh? For me it's a toss-up between Diary of a Chambermaid and Viridiana.
I think the same goes for me. Though I never did figure out the name of the Swan.
That's my plan! I learned recently that it was a favorite of Beckett, as well.
Just picked it up at the Bklyn Public Library today, hope to get to it soon.
I don't want to lead anyone astray--Stewart's not nearly as elegant a stylist as Crowley, but then again who is? Galveston to me is one of the great contemporary genre fantasy novels, up there with Little, Big, Karen Joy Fowler's Sarah Canary, Geoff Ryman's Was and one or two others.
And it gets better and better. Such a fun, rich novel, like a Southern "Little, Big." It deserves a huge audience and I'm glad it's grown by one!
Hi--does anyone know if this book is a retranslation of Cendrars's Prose of the Transsiberian? I've been looking for a copy of the latter (a favorite of Steve Erickson, William Vollmann, and Kate Braverman) for some time with no success.
Thanks!
--Mike
Her most acclaimed book seems to be The Locusts Have No King, but I think Turn, Magic Wheel is much subtler and stronger. The Golden Spur's about a hick coming to NYC in search of literary success--sounds like it's right up my alley.
