Clifford Garstang's Blog, page 155

The New Yorker: "Twins" by C.E. Morgan

Whenever I discover that a New Yorker "story" is an excerpt from a book, I lose my enthusiasm for commenting on it, no matter how well written it is. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with excerpts, but they should be approached and evaluated differently, which is why The New Yorker should disclose that it's an excerpt.
So here we have an excerpt, which we know only because C.E. Morgan tells us so in the Q&A (link below). And of course you only see the Q&A if you go online...

The New Yorker: "The Kid" by Salvatore Scibona

There's a kid wandering around the Hamburg airport and various airline personnel are trying to figure out what his story is. They aren't able to communicate with him and he won't tell them his name, or doesn't seem to understand that they want to know his name. (He understands; he just knows he's not supposed to give out too much information!)
Then the story backs up and we find out that Elroy Heflin was in the army and was posted to the US Embassy in Riga, where he hooked up with Evija, whom ...

The New Yorker: "Dayward" by ZZ Packer

Packer has a forthcoming novel, The Thousands, from which this is presumably an excerpt. (She doesn't say this explicitly in the Q&A, but the new novel is set during Reconstruction, as this story is.) It doesn't really begin and it doesn't really end, so even though it's exciting and well written, it doesn't stand alone as a story.
Lazarus and Mary Celeste, his deaf sister, emancipated slaves, are running away from Miss Thalia, their former owner, who seems not to care that slavery has ended. ...

The New Yorker: "Lenny Hearts Eunice" by Gary Shteyngart

This is an excerpt from Shteyngart's new novel, Super Sad True Love Story, due out in July. Not that the magazine is telling us this, but it is.
Lenny is keeping a diary, and he is apparently the last literate person on the planet. He reads books! He meets Eunice Park in Italy and falls in love with her, although she's nothing but disdainful toward him. When he returns to the US—he is the Life Lovers Outreach Coordinator of the Post-Human Services Division of Staatling-Wapachung...

Wounds and Meteors: A Review of Electric Urgency by Maryanne Stahl

Wounds and Meteors: A Review of Electric Urgency by Maryanne Stahl (Pudding House Publications)
by Amy George
By the time you have finished reading this chapbook, a lump that feels familiar has settled in your throat, just above the beating instrument known as your heart. The sense of longing is unmistakable: the ripped filaments of broken dreams dangle in your mind along with the eerie notion that someone has written down feelings you have felt, but never faced up to.
By the time you have...

Bestseller! (at The Sacred Circle)

The Sacred Circle is a great little bookstore in Staunton, VA, and Carey, the owner, has been steadily selling my book since it came out last year. He's just released a list of his bestsellers, and In an Uncharted Country is #1! Check out the whole list:
Top 50 Books!

Prime Number Magazine . . . is coming

In a little under four weeks, the first issue of Prime Number Magazine will go live. Be sure and visit the website in order to put your name on the eMail list--not only will you receive news of new issues and updates to the Magazine, you'll also be eligible to win $250 worth of books from Press 53.

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The Millions : 20 More Under 40

The Millions : 20 More Under 40

The New Yorker: "The Entire Northern Side Was Covered With Fire" by Rivka Galchen

Here's another marriage in trouble, this time from the wife's point of view. And again, a child is at risk. Trish is a novelist whose husband has left her. She's pregnant, beginning to worry about money—the novel's success is nice, but probably not enough. 
Her brother tells her that her husband has been writing a blog called "I Can't Stand My Wife." It turns out that her friend David knows about it, too.
She has a meeting with some "movie people" and they're interested in completely changing ...

The New Yorker: "What You Do Out Here, When You're Alone" by Philipp Meyer

This story reminds me of a T.C. Boyle story in Harper's earlier this year. Max, a Porsche mechanic with a successful business, is married to Lilli, trailer trash who, with the help of his money, as cleaned up her act. They've moved from Huntsville to a suburb of Huston that he hates, and now she's ashamed of him. There's already tension, but the story begins when they're dealing with the aftermath of what Max thinks of as "the Accident"—their son having had his skull mashed during a night in ...