Tom Samp

John wrote: "Hi, Tom. Thank you for inviting me to be a friend on this site. I perused your list of favorite books, and it became adroitly apparent to me that you and I have similar tastes. A Confederacy of Dun..."

Thanks for the message John! Really great to hear from you. I admire your writing and really respect what you have to say about books.
I hope you will share your screenwriting expertise and experiences.
Shadow Country was a challenge. I am going to review it here but, like a big, rich meal that sits rather heavily and uncomfortably afterward, I felt it best to wait until I had completely "digested" it, to be fair to the work.
I look forward to following your reviews, comments, and would love to exchange more one-on-one messages with you.
Take care,
Tom
tom.samp1@gmail.com

Hi, Tom. Thank you for inviting me to be a friend on this site. I perused your list of favorite books, and it became adroitly apparent to me that you and I have similar tastes. A Confederacy of Dunces is among my favorite novels, and I also enjoyed The Hours very much. (Imagine how daunting the writing of that novel must have been for Michael Cunnngham! To not only write a multi-dimensional story inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, but to have Ms. Woolf as one of characters, and to write--without ostentatious mimicry--in a style similar to her own.)

I also love motion pictures. In fact, I love and admire them so much that I now write screenplays. I enjoy nearly all genres, and my interest spans the history of film itself. Classic, modern, etc.--I love them all.

I love also Annie Proulx's work. Close Range: Wyoming Stories is one of the best short story collections I believe I've read. (I also like Raymond Carver, Eudora Welty, Jhumpa Lahiri, and John Cheever quite a bit.) "Brokeback Mountain" is, I think, one of the best short stories I have ever had the opportunity and pleasure of reading. Have you read The Shipping News, though? It was the first work of Ms. Proulx's that I read, and it's a novel to which I return again and again--just to revisit the characters, all of whom I found to be memorable.

I see that you didn't think much of Shadow Country. I have not finished it yet, but I have to say that what I've read thus far I have enjoyed. P. M. is, though, an acquired taste, akin, say, to John Updike or Richard Ford. Some people like them, others not so much. Different tastes and all of that.

Anyway, thanks again for your friend request. I look forward to speaking with you here in the future.

John