Lisa Eckstein > Recent Status Updates

"What I Didn't See" is narrated by a woman a gorilla-hunting expedition in the 1920s, with a lot of fascinating stuff about what various characters do and do not see around them.

"King Rat" is a short tale about a little girl who meets a colleague of her father's, and his pet rat.

The structure of this story is absurdly mindbending!

"Halfway People" is a sort of fairy tale, nicely structured.

"Standing Room Only" is the second story in the collection involving John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln assassination. This one focuses on a young woman, daughter of co-conspirator Mary Surratt, who is in love with Booth and completely unaware of what else is going on.

No idea where this is going, but it's a wild ride.

"Private Grave 9" - At an archaeological dig in the 1920s, a mystery writer and a mysterious photograph stirs things up. I *think* I understood the ending.

"The Marianas Islands" - Mostly a story about a grandmother. Also a submarine.

This promises to be odd and funny and time-travel-y.

"Always" - A young woman joins an immortality cult in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I enjoyed the voice, subdued humor, and arc of this story.

"Familiar Birds" - Two girls who don't really like each other are forced into being friends every summer. Good characters, but the ending was abrupt (or I didn't get it).

"The Dark" - Fascinating story that kept turning into a different kind of story. It started with Yosemite disappearances, moved on to the history of pandemics, and then looked at a particular aspect of the Vietnam War. I'm impressed thinking of how much research Fowler must have done to write these 20-ish pages!

"The Last Worders" involves twin American sisters taking a trip to an odd European city, on an odd quest. Every detail of the story builds up the life of the sisters and the city into a full world, and it all comes to a strange and satisfying ending.

Fowler is such an enthralling writer, within or between any genre.

"Booth's Ghost" is historical fiction, mildly ghostly, about the Booth family of actors, focusing on one of the brothers of the infamous John Wilkes. I'm curious to investigate how much is historically accurate -- it reads as though it's all true, except the ghost.

After reading several of Fowler's very different novels, I'm eager to give some of her short fiction a try. The first story, "The Pelican Bar", describes the chilling experience of a rebellious teenager whose parents send her away. Effective story, but comes to a strange conclusion that opens up many more questions.

Would really prefer to do nothing else until I get to the end of this book!

This is really great, and very tense!

I am really enjoying this, and so far there's no hint of it becoming about overly symbolic dreams or any of the other things I feared.

So far very engrossing, and I'm enjoying the narrative style that dips in and out of different characters' points of view. At this point in the story, dreams have appeared a few times, in ways that cleverly toy with the reader's expectations, but we haven't gotten into the central dreaming concept.

I thought I'd try out this "general update" feature, which I don't think I've ever used before. Today on my blog, I posted about the new books I'm eagerly awaiting that will be published in the next few months:
http://www.lisaeckstein.com/2019/01/r...

I also recently posted a roundup of my top reads of 2018:
http://www.lisaeckstein.com/2019/01/2...

"Reva was like the pills I took. They turned everything, even hatred, even love, into fluff I could bat away. And that was exactly what I wanted--my emotions passing like headlights that shine softly through a window, sweep past me, illuminate something vaguely familiar, than fade and leave me in the dark again."

This is a character-focused book that's definitely working for me. I'm finding the narrator a source of fascination and the odd dark humor amusing.

A taste of this strange and interesting book: "I thought that if I did normal things--held down a job, for example--I could starve off the part of me that hated everything. If I had been a man, I may have turned to the a life of crime. But I looked like an off-duty model. It was too easy to let things come easy and go nowhere."

A lot of emotions for what's happening to our intrepid crew!

Yikes, a lot of interesting/scary things happening!

I wish for the poor characters that their situation wasn't so stressful in so many ways, but it's making for a good story!

I'm preferring the longer, fuller stories to the short pieces that are more sketches or scenes, but the writing is so strong and evocative throughout. A sample:
"There is beauty to be found in an abandoned mine. There is also a profound sadness. Stone walls decaying into awkward angles. Machines rusted in motion. Grasses grown wild, encroaching on all things."

The collection starts with a few tiny stories, some only a page or two long, and then comes "Sweet on the Tongue". This story last long enough that I was really drawn in to the main character and her pain, which turns out be based in a similar event to that in Gay's novel AN UNTAMED STATE. Like the novel, the story is beautiful and brutal.

Yay, we're going to Mars!

Glad I started this sequel right after finishing the first book, because while there's a time gap, the story picks right up with no reminders about who anyone is.

So curious to see where all the pieces of this story are going! Also to find out how far we're going to get in this book and how much will wait for the next one(s).

Really enjoying this story!

I am so exciting by everything happening in this story!

This is already fantastic! Scientist main characters, the space race, a localized apocalypse, and one hell of an opening chapter!