David Abrams's Blog, page 112

Soup and Salad: Michel Faber's Last (?) Novel, The All Things Oz Museum, Karen Russell's Talk-Talk Solution, The Hemingwrite, Jennifer Weiner on Writers vs. Reviewers, The Writing Life in 1991, Writers' Sheds, Writing on the Rails (U.S. and French versions

On today's menu:

1.  “I wanted this to be the saddest thing I’d ever written,” the writer Michel Faber said over coffee last month in Midtown Manhattan, looking tired and disoriented.  That’s from an article in the New York Times in which Faber (author of Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White ) says his latest novel, The Book of Strange New Things , will be his last.  As a fan of The Crimson Petal and the White, I hope this isn’t true, that these are only words spoken...

Trailer Park Tuesday: The Remedy for Love by Bill Roorbach

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.




On the Richter scale of my book love, the needle swings wildly, scribbling in wide arcs across the paper, when it comes to Bill Roorbach's new novel The Remedy for Love .  My feelings for this book run so deep and strong that they rumble bedrock, crack the earth, topple buildings.  If you think that's some unchecked Overpraise, then just wait until you read The Remedy...

My First Time: Sara Lippmann

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Sara Lippmann, the author of the story collection Doll Palace , now out from Dock Street Press.  Leesa Cross-Smith at Sun Dog Lit says, “Lippmann is one of those authors who can get away with both seriousness and hilarity in the same sentence.”...

Sunday Sentence: Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.


Everything noticeable is worth remembering.

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

Early Thoughts on the Composition of Fobbit, With Detours into Thumb-Slicing, Car Bombs, and Tim O'Brien

Aug. 31, 2009 (Butte, Montana):  Work on Fobber [the early working title for Fobbit , before I became familiar with the common term for the "stay-back, stay-safe" soldiers who populate the Forward Operating Bases in Iraq and Afghanistan] continues apace.  I rise at 4:30 every morning, work out on the elliptical for 45 minutes, then sit down and write for anywhere between one and two hours.  Some days, it’s writing; other days, it’s just typing .  Today, I was distracted and...

Laughter Salted With Tears: Boy With Loaded Gun by Lewis Nordan

It’s been too long since I last posted anything here about the late, great Lewis Nordan.  I try to bring him up in conversation at least once a year (more often, if I can), just to keep his flame alive.   The Funniest Writer You Never Read shuffled off this mortal coil in April 2012, and I’m still mourning his passing .  His publisher, Algonquin Books , has done a fine job of keeping the fire stoked with logs--including recently re-issuing some of his best works like  Wolf Whi...

Friday Freebie: The Game We Play by Susan Hope Lanier, The Freedom in American Songs by Kathleen Winter, and There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Congratulations to Lewis Parker and Carl Scott, winners of last week's Friday Freebie contest: The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi, Gravity by Elizabeth Rosner, and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante.

This week's book giveaway is a trio of short story collections: The Game We Play by Susan Hope Lanier, The Freedom in American Songs by Kathleen Winter, and There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya.  One...

Slipping Into the Skin: Down in the River by Ryan Blacketter

Down in the River
by Ryan Blacketter
Review by Christian Winn

It’s the hot end of summer when I sit down to re-read Down in the River , Ryan Blacketter’s remarkable, darkly startling and endearing debut novel.  I’m in a park abutting my own city’s river, and it’s got to be 90 degrees in the shade.  But, I’m feeling cold–the chill wrap of wet air all around me on an early winter evening as I stand amidst pines outside a café in Eugene, Oregon.

By the end of page two, it is not August in...

Soup and Salad: Afghanistan: Our Undescribed War, Writers and Their Day Jobs, Small Presses and Their Authors, 50 Best Films About Writers, Weird and Wonderful Bookstores

On today's menu:


1.  At the Los Angeles Review of Books , Brian Castner (author of The Long Walk ) wonders where he can find the poetry and fiction coming out of the war in Afghanistan:

If World War II is the Good War, Korea the Forgotten War, Vietnam the Bad War, and Iraq the New Bad War, then Afghanistan, it would seem, is the Lonely War. Or maybe the Ignored War. It is, at least, the Undescribed War.

He's got a valid point.  Two of the novels he cites, Elliot Ackerman's Green on Blue ...

Trailer Park Tuesday: If Not For This by Pete Fromm

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.


You've probably noticed the blog feed has been particularly full of books by Montanans this year.  There's a good reason for that: the Big Sky state has produced some exceptionally-fine literature for our shelves lately.   Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks, The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan, The Home Place by Carrie La Seur, High and Inside by Russell Rowland, and Tom Connor'...