mortal leap, and other books about identity

[Maureen, mo-nemclature]

so rod introduced me to this book, and i've been reading it for a month! i just posted a review of it but would really like to talk more about it, and what it tried to do. so i thought i'd cross-pollinate from my review and leave this thread here so that if anybody should read the book and want to talk about it with me, there'd be a forum all ready!!

[Adrian]

I haven't seen this one, but I've read his novel Hemingway's Suitcase, which deals with literary impersonation. Only vague memories of it. According to my reader's diary: I thought he did a graceful walk across the tightrope, because it's dangerous to write Hemingwayesque stories and insert them into your narrative.

Does that mortal leaping novel have any pictures in it? I only feel like reading Zap Comix nowadays. Pfft! It's probably just a bunch of words, words, words ...

Your beloved Shirley Jackson didn't live to complete Come Along With Me, her whimsical novel about a woman improvising a new identity as she went merrily along.

Suspense/noir writers are good when it comes to stealing or assuming identities: Highsmith's Ripley novels ... I Married A Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich (published under an assumed identity!)

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And there was ... oh hell, I'm gonna go sit out back in the tire-swing and smoke one of my mariharmonica cigarettes. Send me the latest issue of Zap Comix!

[Maureen, mo-nemclature]

!!! i'm just leaving work, but i just added hemingway's suitcase to the to-read list... i love your note about it, and hemingway seems to be having this odd resurgence -- it can't be more than a month or two ago that i remarked that he seemed to be getting short shrift lately, but all of a sudden everybody seems to be talking about him again. anyway, i really just want to know if harris brings up the evian bottle. :P

p.s. i'll be back with more... trying to escape the office of nightmares... but yes, cornell woolrich! did you know i love him too? and darling shirley. :)

p.p.s. did they ever do zap comix featuring hamlet? i just got some mini-comics at TCAF i can send you. i think the art is great but the text needs a little something. like spell check. :P

[Adrian]

According to my diary, I read the Harris novel in 2005 -- around the time I started getting sick -- but I must have done some online research on the author, because I have entries to read his novel about a minotaur and a historical novel set in Venice. I had the impression that he was a fearless writer who explored different genres and made them suit his own literary purpose.

My copy is buried in a box somewhere. I should reread it. Amazon has inexpensive copies of the first hardback edition. And check out the two customer reviews. An anonymous person attacks the novel in a cranky manner ... and someone claiming to be the author's son defends his father.

Hemingway's Suitcase