Lisa Eckstein > Recent Status Updates

"Love Letter" falls into the recent genre of barely speculative fiction that extrapolates only slightly from the divisiveness and authoritarianism of the current American political landscape. The story is more straightforwardly about that than I expected from Saunders. It's interesting that all three stories so far are sort of about how hard it is for individuals to make a positive change in the world.

This is very sweet!

"The Mom of Bold Action" starts out relatably with a writer struggling to find ideas then goes off somewhere else, then ends back at the relatable problem of how difficult it is to do good in the world.

"I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them."

The first and title story is certainly reminding me how weird and wonderful Saunders is! It's in the same vein as "The Semplica Girl Diaries" from his previous book, where live human beings became lawn ornaments for the rich, but this time people are wiped of their memories and used to provide entertainment as storytellers. The premise is bizarre, the story is effective and emotional, and it's all very Saundersian!

"Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t mention my group. There’s a real problem in dragging a group into a book: you have to introduce six new characters, bang bang bang, six new characters who are never going to be mentioned again in any essential way but who nonetheless have to be sketched in, simply because I can’t really leave out of this story what happened to my group." Love the clever humor!

Delightfully funny!

An oddly long and disconnected section in order to deliver a reveal, but okay. That's the only part so far where my interest has flagged.

"I took myself -- secretly, secretly -- very seriously! I knew I *was* a writer. I didn't know how hard it would be. But no one knows that; and that does not matter." Interesting getting to know this character and figuring out what her story is.

Now things are switching fast between POVs and styles, and it's fascinating!

While the first section was atmospheric and erotic, with slowly building dread, the second section was nonstop tense!

"Gravity carried the bike downhill, runaway, the squeak of the suspension felt precarious without the torque of the engine, and she understood in that moment how the sources of strength are illusory." Continues to be a fantastically layered story!

Good premise, compelling (and quite horny) narrative voice.

Fascinating which POVs we're getting as the plot's layers unfold.

The writing is so tense!

I chose my favorite reads from 2022 and posted about them on my blog: https://www.lisaeckstein.com/2023/01/...

I was unsure in the opening section if I liked what I was getting into, but once the story jumped back to Ajay's childhood, I was immediately sucked in.

Still enjoying this, but agree that it's too long in the middle, with scenes that get repetitive.

Still moving right along in interesting ways, and I'm excited to learn more about what's going on with Henry.

Compelling story that moves right along!

Intriguing premise, and I like the writing.

So many heartbreaking developments!

So much tension building!

From "The Bookstore at the End of America": "The exact border between America and California, which elsewhere featured watchtowers and roadblocks, YOU ARE NOW LEAVING / YOU ARE NOW ENTERING signs, and terrible overpriced souvenir stands, was denoted in the First and Last Page by a tall bookcase of self-help titles about coping with divorce."

This continues to be both fascinating and exciting!

Really enjoyed “Because Change Was the Ocean and We Lived By Her Mercy", a quiet, lovely story about people trying to make a community on the San Francisco archipelago after the sea rises.

"The professors like to pretend that the tower is a refuge for pure knowledge, that it sits above the mundane concerns of business and commerce, but it does not. It’s intricately tied to the business of colonialism. It *is* the business of colonialism." Figuring out how things work in this story, and it's all fascinating!

Excited to finally be starting this after hearing so many raves. It's fascinating so far, and I'm eager to find out (along with the main character) what's going on.

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about the novella "Rock Manning Goes for Broke" in the middle of this collection, because the introduction warns that it's extremely violent. But I was quickly drawn in by the character voice, and the surreal, slapstick nature of the story appealed to me far more than I would have expected.

Now that I've finally settled into how dark this book is, I'm enjoying it.