Three Quicks and FREE BOOK
Other People We Married
by Emma Straub
There's lots I want to say about this debut collection of stories—that the stories themselves are lithe and move well, and that there's a terrific sadness to lots of them (a generative sadness though, or one which fractures light in not-unpleasant ways—L. Moore territory, in other words), and that the title story starts with a shockingly great trio of sentences ("The advertisement had been gloriously distorted. What did it say, 3 bed/2 ba cottage on the water, w/boat slip and dock, private beach. Great for families, was that it? It was like something Edward Gorey might have drawn, with a little girl skipping to her death.")—but before we get to the book proper, let's take a second and celebrate the actual physical book. Because this is the first paper release from 5 Chapters, which, as anyone who consumes fiction'll let you know, has, in the last several years, become a necessary online spot for great fiction. And the book is fucking gorgeous, one, but also, two, let's just acknowledge that this book, the actual, physical object, must, if nothing else, upend the obvious and dreary conversation about the shape and direction of books—everything paperless, multi-touch narratives, whatever. 5 Chapters started online, and now, look: a book. Keep this in mind next time you want to moan about the future of reading and print.
Back to Straub: oh just read the thing. Do you need more reasons to part with the $15 necessary to secure yourself a copy of this book? She's great. The stories are weird things, narratives stuffed with bb guns, strange neighbors, quiet. There's lots of midwest, too, which of course I'll claim makes it amazing, but you can find your own reasons.
How to Write a Sentence
by Stanley Fish
I was sold on this book frmo the start, because it's Fish, and because he could write about cracked gaskets and I'd be thrilled and would gladly read along, but then, on page 33, I got totally suckered and for-sured into this book: Fish uses a metaphor for learning the rules of writing that I've used before. You shall tie yourself to forms and the forms shall set you free, he writes, and then mentions the phrase "wax on, wax off," which I needn't tell anyone from my own demographic what that's referencing, and that's really all it took for me to stay 100% invested in this book—that Fish, in writing about one of the most basic machines of language, bothers to make room for Ralph Macchio.
Oh, and, of course: you'll understand more about sentences after reading this, no matter your skill level, than you'll believe. Seriously.
This is an odd memoir, or wasn't, anyway, exactly what I expected: Allen Shawn's the child of Wallace Shawn, the famous New Yorker editor (go check who Salinger dedicated Franny and Zooey to), plus also he himself is a composer, teaches at Bennington, and is the author of Wish I Could Be There, another memoir which (apparently–haven't read it) focuses more on his agoraphobia and anxieties (which makes the title a dark little joke, of course).
I shouldn't say Twin wasn't what I was expecting, actually, because I don't know what I was expecting. I got that the book was about Allen's sister Mary, who happens to be autistic—but that's a cheap sell; it's not the book you're now imagining, about a fraternal twin writing about his impaired twin. It's deeper than that: this book is about the way phobias and hurt thread their way through families, and how our relatives inevitably act as mirrors and all but demand we ask questions of ourselves and our blood and how and why things are as they are. I certainly didn't expect to be moved by the almost shocking stiff-upper-lip-ism that the Shawn family seems to have lived with and for and through for so long. It's a strangely moving book, Twin is: I didn't know what I was getting into when I started it and, even now, I'm not 100% sure what I was into when I read it. But I'm glad I did.
AND NOW, A CONTEST: I have a free copy of Twin to give away, courtesy of the good people at Viking. TO ENTER: Leave a note in the comments about who your twin is—if not by birth, than by some other thing, make it up, whatever. CONTEST RESULTS: At 10pm tonight I'll draw a name at random from the day's commenters. Good luck, thanks for reading.
