Benjamin Whitmer's Blog, page 29

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Thanks to Barry Graham, this is what I was trying to say about We Are the 99% the other day, from Slavoj Žižek:

"We all accept liberal democratic capitalism, even during this current pan-European disaster," Žižek says. "We timidly ask, 'Oh, can we have a few more rights for minorities? A little more healthcare?' But nobody questions the frame. And that is the real triumph of ideology."

I thought I was pretty clear, actually, but what I wrote was pretty much immediately reduced to some nonsense about how I thought middle-class protesters shouldn't be allowed to protest because they've got microwave ovens or something.

It's worth noting, by the way, that Žižek has spoken, and spoken well, at Occupy Wall Street, and seems to support them. Though his speech stands as a pretty specific warning to those who are just begging for better health care or a slightly less unequal distribution of wealth.

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It is what it is. As Nick Mamatas pointed out, We Are the 99% and Occupy Wall Street are different entities, and there's a wide variety of voices among the Occupy folks. Some are mainstream middle-class liberals who would like a slight rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic; others, the only ones I'm interested in, are looking forward to what should be done after it sinks.

William Gay on the Louvin Brothers and a new Pike review

Though I haven't yet read everything he's written, William Gay is one of my favorite authors.  And, as I just found out, he has a monthly column for Oxford American called Lost Chord. For which, as I also just found out, he penned a piece on The Louvin Brothers.

In 1958, The Louvin Brothers had an epiphany, a revelation: if God is real, they decided, then, the devil must be real as well. They went into a Nashville studio with producer Ken Nelson and the result was Satan is Real, as gothic-sounding a concept album as ever came out of Nashville. Dark as Flannery O'Connor but without the grace of humor. If Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath had hooked up and had some harmonizing twins, they might have chosen these songs to record. This is ostensibly a religious album but it depicts a curiously gothic, unforgiving religion, as if the most threatening parts of the Old Testament have been set to harmonious and beautiful music. The Louvin Brothers have news for you about your soul, and it is not good news. In fact, it's downright dire. The straight and narrow is more narrow than straight. Woe betide the folks who fall by the wayside. The album was originally released in 1959, and the cover art became instantly notorious: Ira and Charlie, in their ornate white Nudie-like suits, are posed before the engulfing flames of hell. Their arms are outstretched in beckoning gestures as if they're welcoming you to the fire. The red devil, leering and cross-eyed, stands behind Ira, pointing the handle of his pitchfork at him. It probably gave a few '50s kids bad dreams and people who saw it as children remember it well today.

The rest.

Huge thanks to Frank Bill for pointing me at this. Though the looming release date of Satan Is Real kinda makes me jumpy now, knowing that it's a story somebody like William Gay might be interested in.

Also, I spotted this really nice review of Pike from Carl Brookins:

This crime-ridden novel will not be to everyone's taste. It is gritty, dirty, foul-mouthed and foul-intentioned on the part of the principal characters. It is a wonderfully written novel. If your tastes in crime fiction run to the dark side; if you yearn to explore the minds and the actions of those who inhabit the dangerous underside of urban life, you should read this novel.

The rest.

It's a kind one.

Tree

For no good reason, an amateurish picture of a tree that my five-year-old son and I liked as we were making our way to Mallory Cave last weekend. Turned out the cave was closed for fear of the bats inside contracting white nose syndrome, but it looks like I've got a walking partner in my son. I don't think he complained once, about anything. Just hustled along happily the whole time.

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Zombie Max from Hornady

I like Hornady. Their +P 230 gr HP XTP rounds are what I use in my carry gun, because I've never had a jam with them, they have a good track record of penetration and expansion, and they're easy for me to get ahold of.

That said, I have no idea what to do with this:

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More here.

Satan Is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers available for pre-order

Satan Is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers, which I co-wrote with Charlie Louvin, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

And, since it's on Amazon, I'm assuming the cover is okay to share. Can't tell y'all how proud I am of this one.

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After all that Christopher Hitchens has said about his cancer, this is what got me a little misty.

His main regret at the moment, Mr. Hitchens said, was that while he was keeping up with his many deadlines — for Slate, The Atlantic and Vanity Fair — he didn't have the energy to also work on a book. He had recently come up with some new ideas about his hero, George Orwell, for example — among them that Orwell might have had Asperger's — and he said he ought to include them in a revised edition of his 2002 book, "Why Orwell Matters." He had also thought of writing a book about dying. "It could be called 'What to Expect When You're Expecting,' " he said, laughing.

Crimes in Southern Indiana giveaway — winner

All right, so this was kind of a tough choice. I got snapshots, video, all kinds of good shit in my email over the last week. Even got some family pictures from a friend of Frank Bill's.

But, here's the thing, I only got one picture from somebody who'd done both the shooting and the picture taking. And per my extra points rule, that's gotta be our winner. I think Mr. Bill himself would expect that kind of authenticity. So I'll be shipping the book out to Eli Wainman.

Here 'tis:

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Crimes in Southern Indiana giveaway — last call

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Today's your deadline to email me a picture of something shot all to hell and maybe win a free copy of Frank Bill's Crimes in Southern Indiana. Get 'em to me by midnight.

Seven Spanish Angels

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Okay then, like I said I was going to, I bought a Kindle pretty much solely to read Stephen Graham Jones' Seven Spanish Angels. And it was the right thing to do. Not because the book's named for one of the greatest songs ever sung, not because it opens with a quote from the greatest songwriter who ever lived, and not because it's about, in part, the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez, which I spent the summer obsessing over thanks to Roberto Bolaño.

But, because, Jesus, it's one of the most graceful and visceral books Jones has written, and that's saying something. Because it will break your fucking heart, and it will do so in ways that no one has done to you yet. Jones can do that. He can do it while he's writing circles around you, while he's playing tricks on you, while he's proving himself to be one of the best experimental authors working — he can break your fucking heart.

But also because there's this other thing. And I don't quite know what to call it, or if there is a term for it, but it's something like fidelity to character. I've been thinking about it all the time lately. How do you work honestly with those you create, how do you not sell them short?

And thinking about that, I came across this from the Afterword to Seven Spanish Angels, about why the book is only being published now (I don't think it gives away anything from the novel, so I hope Stephen Graham Jones doesn't mind me sharing it):

Trick was, the editor — and I should note that he'd sculpted some of the big names in the field, and definitely knew what he was doing — he finally liked all of the novel except the very-very (very) end, where, if I just did this one thing, then the rest of the story would lock into place, be magic and eternal and slippery on bottom, sticky on front, as all good shelf-stock should be. And it was a fix that would take me twenty seconds of typing to accommodate, maybe, it was that easy. Except it wasn't. I stuck there, couldn't change Seven Spanish Angels even one word more. Because I'd lived in it so long, I suspect: these were no long characters to me, but people, and I had obligations to them that didn't involve anybody else, even to the point of termination of papers, effectively killing the book, and all my then-prospects.

I can't tell you how good it makes me feel to read something like that. I try not to get too idealistic about fiction writing. Except that I am, of course, hugely, so reading of someone taking a stand in defense of their characters makes me wanna start firing my gun in the air in celebration

And, having read the book, if there's a more perfect ending, I don't know what the hell it could be. So here's to Jones for sticking to the right one. Because it'll fuck you up just the way it is. It's the perfect end for the book that was written.

Crimes in Southern Indiana giveaway teaser

The giveaway of Frank Bill's Crimes in Southern Indiana is moving along nicely. A number of folks have emailed me beautiful pictures of shot up items.

One of the best was sent by Chris La Tray, one of my favorite short story writers and photographers. He already owns a copy of the book, so he requested I not enter him in the contest, but he thought I'd like the picture anyway. And I do, so here it is:

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