Clifford Garstang's Blog, page 93
October 15, 2012
Essay: Doorways on the Creative Process
Here’s a short essay that I wrote for the The Story Prize Blog, all about my creative process while working on the first draft of my new book, What the Zhang Boys Know.
It happens rarely, but sometimes the words come quickly, flowing rather than dripping onto the page. It’s not a trance, exactly, but it comes close. [read more]
October 11, 2012
Booklover Book Reviews Reviews What the Zhang Boys Know
Here’s another very positive review of What the Zhang Boys Know, this time from Booklover Book Reviews.
The reviewer says, in part:
I find it remarkable that Clifford Garstang has managed to achieve such detailed character development and included so many well developed story lines in a novel of only 218 pages. He delivers wonderful descriptive sequences that beautifully evoke time, mood and place, and it is these that elevate the story of the residents to that of a deeper message about life. What The Zhang Boys Know is brimming over with content, while never feeling rushed or cliche.
I found myself swiftly drawn into the world Clifford Garstang created at Nanking Mansion and I highly recommend you take the journey too.
This review is part of the Virtual Book Tour which is ongoing.
October 9, 2012
Virtual Book Tour: Interview with me
Today’s installment of the Virtual Book Tour is an interview with me at Write Now, Right Now:
The New Yorker: “The Semplica-girl Diaries” by George Saunders
October 15, 2012: “The Semplica-girls Diaries” by George Saunders
It’s Saunders, so you know there’s going to be something strange about this story. And there is. (The story is available to read for free online, so hurry on over to the magazine and come back.)
A father of 3 young children is having money problems, despite the fact that his wife’s father is a wealthy farmer (“Farmer Rich,” he calls himself), and yet he longs to satisfy the consumerist impulses of his daughter who is in competition with a wealthy schoolmate. When he wins $10,000 in the lottery, instead of paying off his maxed-out credit cards, he buys a lawn make-over, including the installation of several “semplica-girls,” basically imported young woman strung up on wires. But one of his daughters is appalled by these human lawn-ornaments and sets them free—which costs the guy a lot of money he hadn’t counted on.
That’s basically the story. Saunders says the idea came to him in a dream, including the word “semplica.” And it’s clear that part of the point is that these girls represent an immigrant underclass. I would go so far as to say that they represent human trafficking, although Saunders doesn’t say that in the Q&A with George Saunders. The tension here is the question we have no answer for—life is better in this world than it was for them at home, and they can send money back to help their families at home. So does that justify what we do? The same is true for the millions of people, men and women, who leave their poor countries in search of work as domestic servants and laborers in wealthier countries. The people are often quite happy because they’re working and making money. But does that make it right? The story doesn’t answer that question because it’s basically unanswerable.
But I like the fact that Saunders has a go at it. The story is worth a read.
October 8, 2012
Book Clubs
I would love to visit your book club, in person or by Skype or conference call.
I had the great pleasure of visiting a book club tonight. I love book discussions, but there’s something really special when the discussion is about your own book! (I visited this same book club in connection with my first book, and I was pleased that they asked me back to discuss the new one.)
What’s not to love? Nine smart women who have read my book (or at least plan to read the book), drinking wine, eating good food, asking me pertinent questions about the book and the publishing business. That’s my idea of a very good time.
One of the women brought a copy of last week’s New York Times Book Review because it included this Q&A with Jeffrey Eugenides, and she asked me some of the same questions. That was fun. What’s the last truly great book I read? Let the Great World Spin. What 3 authors would I invite to a dinner party? Flannery O’Connor, Tim O’Brien, Hermann Hesse. Etc.
The hostess had made egg rolls in honor of the Chinese theme of the book, which I thought was great. (And the egg rolls were pretty terrific.) She also prepared Chips and Salsa, which is relevant to the book, but you have to read it to know why.
They asked me to read a bit from the book to start, so I asked the hostess which was her favorite story. She had a quick answer: “ The Nations of Witness.” That might be my favorite, too, so I read from that one, although others had different preferences.
Which one is your favorite?
Book Dilettante Reviews What the Zhang Boys Know
Today the Virtual Book Tour stops at The Book Dilettante for a review of What the Zhang Boys Know.
The reviewer says, in part:
These are moving stories of lives accidentally touching through close proximity in the condominium of a busy cosmopolitan city. I found it excellent writing and story telling, realistic, with a framework that is perfect for these stories of urban life.
October 7, 2012
Stories I Read, Stories I Tell Reviews What the Zhang Boys Know
Writer/Blogger Eric Wyatt reviews What the Zhang Boys Know.
Review excerpt:
What the Zhang Boys Know is one drop of water from the Big Pond, and Garstang’s gift is his ability to focus in on the particulars and reveal the complex web of life teaming in that single drop. Each of these stories is fine standing alone, but the collected force of them is best experienced as a bigger whole; they work together to reveal universal experiences through a truly unique authorial lens. Each story is crafted with the same skill and artistry Garstang demonstrated in his lovely collection, In An Uncharted Country, but here, the stories work together to give us a bigger, more fully-realized world both heartbreaking and beautiful.
The Virtual Book Tour resumes tomorrow.
October 6, 2012
Sign up now! Short Story Workshop almost full
Writing the Short Story–Make Your Story Great! is a 10-week online workshop that I teach through Writers.com. A new section of the course begins on Monday, October 8, and there are still a couple of spots left.
I’ve taught this class a number of times before, and for an online class it’s surprisingly lively and engaging. It’s a combination of ten “lectures”–essays on craft that are posted at the beginning of each week, a discussion course where we evaluate published short stories, and a traditional workshop, where as a group we discuss student work and offer suggestions for revisions.
For a detailed outline of what the course covers, go here. And if it appeals to you, follow the instructions there to register. I hope to see you starting Monday.
October 5, 2012
Shelf Awareness Reviews What the Zhang Boys Know
I love it when a publication I actually read runs a review of my book (not that this happens too often). Today, Shelf Awareness, a free newsletter for readers, ran a smart review of What the Zhang Boys Know. A previous reviewer called the book a modern Winesburg, Ohio. This reviewer ups the ante, calling the setting for the book a “contemporary urban Yoknapatawpha County.”
The review in part:
The hodgepodge community of artists, writers, romantic couples, immigrants, low-level Washington attorneys, real estate developers and bureaucrats in Clifford Garstang’s What the Zhang Boys Know is a mosaic of our own world of modest ambitions, disappointments and underlying compassion. . . . A tight, lyrical novel told in 12 stories of disparate neighbors living in uneasy harmony in a gentrified Washington, D.C. condo.
WV Stitcher Reviews What the Zhang Boys Know
The latest installment of the Virtual Book Tour comes from WV Stitcher, who posted a very nice review of What the Zhang Boys Know on Thursday, October 4.
The blogger writes:
[The stories] revolve around many of the neighbors that live in the Nanking Mansion, the building the Zhang family lives in. Rich in detail, the author brings the characters to life, weaving the continuing story of the Zhang family together with the residents.
