Averil Dean's Blog, page 29

Wet Dreams

Saturday I drove down to Portland to spend some time with my friend Suzy. It was a writerly day, which led (cause and effect?) to a drinky dinner and a discussion of literary wet dreams. We’re not talking reasonable goal-setting here, we’re talking public love letters from Kakutani. We’re talking about the big lists, number one with a bullet and the sort of staying power that would make Harper Lee gnash her teeth with envy. Six—seven!—figure advances. Interviews with Charlie Rose, and Terry G...

Hostage Negotiations

“Keeping the people’s government open is not a concession to me. Keeping vital services running and hundreds of thousands of Americans on the job is not something you ‘give’ to the other side. It’s our basic responsibility.” – President Barack Obama

Mist

Thunder. Hard, thudding down-beats and reverberating growls that move through the clouds like whale song. More persistent and mysterious than the storms we heard in the desert. There the thunder cracked, a dry, electrical snappish sound, bounding over the rocks, the lightning leaving wisps of smoke on the desert floor. A storm in Vegas was spectacular but short-lived. We all would crowd to the windows to watch, we’d step outside to smell the air and squeal over the lightning as though watchin...

For My Lover

Dirty Jobs

Last week I went to my son’s middle school open house. I like the school a lot. It appears to be much more organized than the ones my older kids went to in Vegas, less likely to let a kid fall through the cracks. We all sat in the gymnasium and listened to the principal and the guidance counselors, one of whom implored us to repeat after her: MY. CHILD. WILL. GO. TO. COLLEGE.

Now, I’m going to preface the following opinion by admitting that I’m in the minority here. Most of my writing buddies...

Point and Shoot

I don’t know what I’m doing. This book, this bass-ackwards book, is slowly frying what’s left of my circuitry. A few days ago, I dissected the fucker, cut some scenes apart and spliced them together and deleted a couple of hangers-on, and though it’s certainly a structural improvement, I still feel I’m missing the point.

With my last book, there came a moment when I realized what the story was about, specifically. It was something (to me) unexpected, personal, something deeper than the surface...

Wynton

If you get HBO, don’t miss this. All the YoungArts shows are terrific but this has been my favorite yet.

Strong

Trees

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Does pain still count if you don’t express it? If it exists only in the hidden places, in the fetid muddle at the bottom of your mind or the pinkening pressure of your eyelids, carved into nonessential bits of you that rub at the raw side of your clothes, does it exist at all? Does it matter? What matters is that hungry child on the other side of the globe. What matters is the mob, the milk, the rain cloud, t...

Goons

I just finished Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad, a novel in stories about an aging record executive and the young woman who works as his assistant. I hesitate to read books that have collected as many awards as this one has, because I always feel I’ve failed somehow if I don’t like them. But no fear this time. I loved the wry-edged ennui, the leaping structure, the warmth and complexity of the characters—and the language. Gorgeous language.

After I’d finished, I rated it on Goodrea...