The response was amazing and I am really exited to share them with you today. And without further ado...
The TNBBC Author Series: Top Reads of 2013
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| Ryan W Bradley |
A true surprise. Tanzer somehow manages to be very sci-fi and very Tanzer at the same time. The result is unlike anything you've ever read in the science fiction genre or among Tanzer's catalog.
Life Cycle by Dena Rash Guzman
Every poem in this book is worth re-reading again and again. You know a writer's special when you finish reading their work and your first thought is "I want more."
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
This book is so in my wheelhouse, how did I ever miss it? An editor I'm
working with on my Alaska-themed story collection recommended it to me and I was
instantly in love with the writing.
Ryan W. Bradley is
the author of four chapbooks, a story collection, a novel, and two poetry
collections, as well as a collaborative poetry collection written with David
Tomaloff. His novella, WINTERSWIM will be released in December 2014. He has a
shiny new website: ryanwbradley.com
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| Mark R Brand |
1) George Saunders’ Tenth of December (2013)
If I had to pick a favorite, and I don’t like to, but if I had to, this
would be it for me for the year. Not only does every story in this collection
swing for the fences, but it had my favorite short story of the year (“The
Semplica Girl Diaries”) in it, as well. I got to interview Saunders last winter,
and he’s just as charming, witty, unpretentious, and brilliant as his fiction.
If you only read one thing this year, read Tenth of December.
Despite its dull premise, Cain (who also wrote Double Indemnity and
The Postman Always Rings Twice) managed here to write one of the most
sharply mimetic female protagonists I’ve ever seen. Mildred, the down-to-earth
and likable lead, is saddled with an exceptionally gifted daughter named Veda,
with whom she has a turbulent relationship. Set in the tail end of the Great
Depression, when economic hard times dragged into the better part of an entire
decade (sound familiar?), I found this, and the novel’s eponymous main
character, impossible not to like.
I was certain—absolutely certain—that this book was going to suck. After
all: I AM a gamer dork from the late 1980’s, and I didn’t think any dopey parody
of it was going to be able to tell me anything about those years and growing up
at that time that I didn’t already know. I was so wonderfully,
hilariously wrong. This book (and I read the audiobook version, narrated
by Wil Wheaton of all people), had me laughing and smiling and giving myself
unselfconscious air high-fives from almost page one. It also has a remarkably
poignant dystopian message about net neutrality and the commodification of
leisure. Highly, highly recommended for anyone who grew up in the 80’s. This
book is like a little energon cube of fun.
Mark R. Brand is the
author of the novels Red Ivy Afternoon (2006), Life After Sleep (2011), The Damnation of
Memory (2011), and the collection Long Live Us. He is a two-time Independent Publisher Book Award
winner and is the creator and host of the video podcast series Breakfast With
the Author (available on iTunes). He teaches English at Wilbur Wright
College, and is currently
completing his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
completing his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
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| Giano Cromley |
Tomorrowland by
Joseph Bates
Curbside Splendor Publishing
The stories in Tomorrowland
are surprising and inventive, shot through with humor and wit, but never at the
expense of its characters. As the title would suggest, the stories frequently
take place in the near or distant future, but the irony is that Tomorrowland is all about the past. In
"Mirrorverse" a husband uses a Multiverse Spectrometer to relive his
failed marriage. In the title story, a man surveys the soon-to-be-demolished
remains of a futuristic theme park, only to be haunted by the mannequin family
that resides there. And in "Boardwalk Elvis" an Elvis impersonator
has the worst professional day of his career as he suffers for his art. The
characters in Tomorrowland seem to be
trapped in the past, wondering how the future they'd once imagined ended up
looking like this.
Loose Leaves Publishing
The Fiery Alphabet
tells the story of Daniela Messo, raised by her father to be a mathematical
prodigy in eighteenth-century Rome. Repudiated by a fearful church hierarchy,
Daniela eventually takes up with a mysterious mystic, Giuseppe Balsamo, and the
pair barnstorm eastward across Europe, in search of a higher truth. Told in an
epistolary fashion, I had no idea what to expect when I cracked this book and I
found myself continually surprised and delighted by Daniela's adventures, right
up to the last page.
Switchgrass Books
Author Ben Tanzer brings his unique voice to the science
fiction genre and the results are great. Orphans
follows the story of young father Norrin Radd, as he tries to support his
family in a future where jobs and money are nearly impossible to come by if you
weren't born into the right family. The future in Orphans is dark, so don't be fooled when I tell you this novel is
also really funny. Ultimately, though, we see the cost exacted when people are
put in positions where they'll do whatever it takes to make a better life for
their families.
Giano Cromley's first novel, The Last Good Halloween,
was released this fall. His writing has appeared in The Threepenny
Review, Literal Latte, and The Bygone Bureau, among others. He is a recipient of
an Artists Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council. He teaches English at
Kennedy-King College and lives on Chicago's South Side with his wife and two
dogs.
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| Tod Davies |
Since
I'm elbow deep in the writing of Jam Today Too: The Revolution Will Not Be
Catered, the second in the Jam Today cookbook/memoir series, needless
to say, I spend my evenings noodling over other people's food writings. Which I
love. And the three that I seemed to love the most this year are, unusually for
me, two that came out in the last few months, and, not unusual for me, one
classic that's hard to find unless you haunt thrift stores (I do).
First:
A Bushel's Worth: An Ecobiography, by Kayann Short (Torrey House Press).
Man, I love those cookbook/farming memoirs. And Kayann, who is descended from farm families, writes lovingly and practically about her own life on a farm, hard at work and play with her partner John, just north of Boulder, Colorado. This book actually brought tears to my eyes with its descriptions of their travails and triumphs. And you need to read about the transport of an entire farm building from property being turned, inevitably, into tract housing...to Kayann's farm that is defending against its own disappearance into the same black hole. Funny, practical, and ultimately moving.
Man, I love those cookbook/farming memoirs. And Kayann, who is descended from farm families, writes lovingly and practically about her own life on a farm, hard at work and play with her partner John, just north of Boulder, Colorado. This book actually brought tears to my eyes with its descriptions of their travails and triumphs. And you need to read about the transport of an entire farm building from property being turned, inevitably, into tract housing...to Kayann's farm that is defending against its own disappearance into the same black hole. Funny, practical, and ultimately moving.
Utterly charming. A postmodern book about pie by a poet who makes a mean crust. The cheerfully mad descriptions and the excellent recipes/tips make this the world's great gift book. The illustrations are terrific too.
Back in the late 1960s, Time-Life published about a gazillion volumes of a series about foods of the world, and enlisted just about every great food writer of the period to help (M.F.K. Fisher! James Beard! Craig Claiborne!). But the best of the lot (and that's saying a bundle) is this one, by Joseph Wechsberg, who wrote the classic Blue Trout and Black Truffles. Absolutely amazing photography, evocative and classic, but that's just the icing on the cake of Wechsberg's precise and loving prose. I found this in a thrift store for 50 cents, which as you know, for a thrift store addict is ecstasy. What a find!
Tod Davies, editorial
director of indie Exterminating Angel Press, is also the author of Snotty
Saves the Day and Lily the Silent, both from The History of
Arcadia series, and the cooking memoirs Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking With
What You've Got and Jam Today Too: The Revolution Will Not Be Catered (June
2014). Unsurprisingly, her attitude toward publishing is the same as her
attitude toward literature, cooking, and, come to think of it, life in general:
it's all about working with the best of what you have to find new ways of
looking and new ways of being. Find her and EAP at www.exterminatingangel.com.
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| Heather Fowler |
Satantango
by László Krasznahorkai
translated
by George Szirtes
New
Directions Press, 2012
This translation from Hungarian of Krasznahorkai’s work was
recommended to me by a colleague as a peerless psychological novel. In many
ways, it is exquisite, bringing to life a dark tale with apocalyptic intent via
a long-form work that reads at once like a fable and a stylistically
Eurocentric classic. It’s a gorgeous
effort in understanding human motivations—one that explores human pride,
eccentricities, and desire via a surreal filter. Transcendent. Another excellent New
Directions release.
Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2007
After engaging with hundreds of pages of Atwood’s poetry
this year, I ordered this, her most recent release, and was struck by the
beauty of her concision, her ability to construct visual landscapes replete
with their emotional savagery—year after year.
While Atwood is most frequently discussed as a fiction writer, it is her
poetry I love with a burning love, feeling her poetics influence all her
genres—and this book shows a masterful use of white space and imagery. Any book that causes me to shed actual tears
has a great chance at landing at my top of the year selections. This did.
In addition, it includes a CD of the author reading the poems. This feels like a
private, unexpected and intimate treasure.
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Small
Beer Press, 2012
As a short story fanatic, one who enjoys
magical realism, literary traditional, feminist, and experimental work—this
collection blew me away. Each piece is
informed by its language, performs its own sacred act upon the reader. I reviewed this book in ABR regarding its use
of eroticism, but this book does far more.
Seldom do I read a collection with such an array of generative impulses
and narrative styles—and the wildly creative originality of Johnson’s voice and
style, as well as the beatifically executed text, made this a clear favorite in
2013.
Heather Fowler is the author of Suspended Heart, People with Holes, and This Time, While We’re Awake. Her new book Elegantly Naked in My Sexy Mental Illness, an illustrated collaborative collection with visual artist Pablo Vision releases from Queens Ferry Press in 2014. Please visit her website at www.heatherfowlerwrites.com
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| Kim Henderson |
The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, ed. Theodore W. Goossen.
This semester, I chose stories from this collection to teach in my fiction
workshop. My goal was to discover new work, rather than automatically
selecting what I knew well. I sat down to see what the anthology had to offer,
fighting my urge to start with the Murakami story I knew would be great. Hours later, I still had not emerged from the book. I blinked at the
now dark room turned unfamiliar by the stories that had just jarred me out of
any reading rut. I haven't had quite that experience since I read
my first fiction anthology as an undergraduate. There is such a range of stories in this book. "Toddler-Hunting" by Kono Taeko will leave you
feeling a bit scarred, a bit sick, a bit mesmerized; "The Peony Garden" by Nagai
Kafu feels like Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (but maybe better?),
like a mountain of a story lies beneath what we are shown; many of the stories
feel like novels in their breadth and scope. But I think what stunned me into
getting lost in this book is that many of the endings are messy and unresolved,
that these stories mimic life all too uncomfortably--there is no urge to tidy up
here. This anthology showed me something new, or something I'd forgotten
about.
I had read Mary Miller's chapbook of
short-short stories, Paper and Tassels, in the Rose Metal Press anthology
They Could No Longer Contain Themselves, but did not retain the author's
name. Then at The Letters Festival in Atlanta this November, I heard her read
from her upcoming novel about an evangelical family hoping to chase the
apocalypse across the U.S. Afterward, I bought a copy of Big World.
You could get into a fight with your significant other, check into a
cheap motel, and sit down with a fifth of whiskey, a pack of cigarettes, the
movie Blue Valentine, and a copy of Big World, and have the best
of bleak evenings, replete with relationships that have overstayed their
welcome, beautiful yet self-destructive and indifferent girls and women, lots of
bad decisions, and a general lack of satisfaction from characters who aren't
willing or able to muster up whatever it takes to try to change. Miller knows
exactly what to put on the page and what to leave off. What she chooses not to
include keeps you thinking about these characters who are all too quick with a
harsh, wry remark, who learned long ago to guard their deepest
truths.
I
may not have come across this book had my old professor (Daniel Mueller) not
gotten in touch with me recently. I am so glad he did, and that I got a copy
of his new book. This collection of stories is wonderfully daring, direct,
brutal, and beautifully written. Mueller's sentences alone are admirable
enough, but these characters and the unflinching honesty with which they are
written take the collection to the next level. Also, the endings often push
the stories into unexpected places--characters are turned inside out during the
beginning and middle of the story, but at the end, a scalpel is taken to their
hearts as Mueller reveals the complicated, unnamable intricacies that drive
them. Some of these stories could easily find themselves in The Best
American Short Stories anthology, and they deserve that wide a
readership.
Kim Henderson is the author
of The Kind of Girl, which won the Seventh Annual
Rose Metal Press Short Short Chapbook Contest. Her stories
have appeared in Tin House, H_NGM_N, Cutbank, River Styx,
Chamber Four, The Southeast Review, New South, and elsewhere. She lives
with her husband on a mountain in Southern California, where she chairs the
Creative Writing program at Idyllwild Arts Academy.
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| David David Katzman |
The
Man Without Qualities is
a Modernist masterpiece. An expansive book of ideas yet an intimate view into
Austrian society, circa 1913. The writing (in translation from German) is
erudite and sophisticated. The view into the psychology of the numerous
characters is rich and insightful. The overall critique of both Austrian and
human civilization is profound and sharp.
The
Last Novel is
a quick, easy, charming, sad, profound, surprising, humorous, angry, erudite,
critical, clever, bitter, energetic, thought-provoking, challenging, heavy,
light, experimental non-novel. An
impossible to categorize work, The
Last Novel is
such a fast read that you've no excuse for not giving it a
try.
What
a wonderful book. Part essay, part travelogue with a smattering of fiction, it's
an indescribable blend of humor, sadness, quirk and love.
David David Katzman has published two novels, Death by Zamboni, an absurdist satire, and A Greater Monster, a multimedia psychedelic fairytale, which won a gold medal as “Outstanding Book of the Year” in the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards and was a Finalist in the Fantasy genre of the 2012 Indie Excellence Awards. In 2013, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography published an illustrated collection of his letters entitled The Kickstarter Letters. He has performed as an actor and improviser throughout Chicago and has been interviewed by numerous bloggers.
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| Kathe Koja |
My three books this year are variations on a theme:
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, A.L. Rowse
DOCTOR FAUSTUS, Christopher Marlowe
These tangoes were masterfully enabled by the steely work of Charles Nicholl, who investigates, then obliterates, the received wisdom on the death of Marlowe (stabbed in a sordid brawl in a crappy tavern? Not so much); and the panoramic, emotionally perspicacious A.L. Rowse's view of Marlowe in the context of his world and his work.
And the man himself, in glitter of his wit and the chill of his vision, threw open the doors to Hell itself, with doomed and clever John Faustus its victim and our guide. Never has poetry been so delicious, so ferocious, never has the darkness been so - well, say it - fun. Watch your step, let's go! https://vimeo.com/79721391
Kathe Koja's novels include THE MERCURY WALTZ (forthcoming January 2014), UNDER THE POPPY, THE CIPHER, SKIN, BUDDHA BOY, and HEADLONG. Her work has been optioned for film and adapted for performance. Her company Loudermilk Productions creates site-specific, immersive events. http://www.kathekoja.com/ (and FB and Twitter).
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| Lavinia Ludlow |
In fast-paced flash fiction, location often takes the backburner; however, when
Burrow Press recently released 15 Views Volume II:
Corridor, location took center stage. In 15 Views, thirty writers
deconstruct the stereotypes associated with two of Florida’s most misrepresented
cities, Orlando and Tampa, by presenting honest, intimate, and fleeting glimpses
of the local human condition. These stories are not postcard snapshots of resort
beachfronts or Epcot Center, but drama-laden accounts of shattered dreams,
inescapable poverty, and atrocious violence. Full review here
Lost Girls:
An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker
The Palace of Wasted
Footsteps by Cary Holladay
Courtney Elizabeth Mauk's second novel, Orion's Daughters, will be published by Engine Books in May. Her work has appeared in The Literary Review, PANK, Wigleaf, and Five Chapters, among other venues. She is author of the novel Spark (Engine Books, 2012) and teaches at the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop and Juilliard. More information can be found at www.courtneymauk.com.
#2: S. by J.J. Abrams
and Doug Dorst
#3: Gulp by Mary
Roach
Caleb J. Ross has a BA in English Literature and creative writing from Emporia State University. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared widely, both online and in print. He is the author of five books of fiction and is the creator of The Burning Books Channel, a YouTube channel featuring humorous book reviews, literary skits, writing advice, and rants. Visit his official page at http://www.calebjross.com.
Laura van den Berg's Isle of Youth is the best story collection of the year, no offense to George Saunders. Maybe you read and loved her last collection? There's even more to love here.
Mary Miller's novel, The Last Days of California, is my most recent read here. The book comes out in January. Mary Miller has maybe the most sure voice I know of, like she knows exactly who she is on the page.
Maile Meloy's books for children were the most fun I had this year, especially her first, The Apothecary. The sequel, The Apprentices, is also great, but I miss the voice of the first. Meloy has some amazing books for adults, too. But these changed the course of my reading this summer and sent me on a binge of children's/young adults' books that convinced me YA has it figured out.
We the Animals by Justin Torres
Near feral in its intense bursts of family instability.
The Temple of Air by Patricia Ann McNair
What it means to live, and mostly cope, with things missing in our lives, hands, parents, children, breasts, love, that are at times violently taken from us, and other times more subtly so.
Ben Tanzer is the author of the books My Father's House and You Can Make Him Like You, as well as, the forthcoming Orphans and Lost in Space, among others. Ben also oversees Publicity and Content Strategy at Curbside Splendor and day to day operations of This Zine Will Change Your Life. He can be found online at This Blog Will Change Your Life the center of his growing lifestyle empire.
Lavinia Ludlow is a musician and writer currently residing on the West Coast. Her debut novel alt.punk can be purchased through major online retailers as well as Casperian Books’ website. Recently, her sophomore novel Single Stroke Seven was signed to Casperian Books as well. Follow her reviews, news, and other tidbits over at: http://ludlowlavinia.wordpress.com/
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| Courtney Elizabeth Mauk |
The
Revolution of Every Day by Cari Luna
My favorite book
of 2013. Luna creates her characters with such empathy, and they had me
completely hooked. Plus, the premise is right up my alley: squatters in the
Lower East Side in the mid-1990s, doing battle with the city. I moved to NYC
less than a decade later and yet so much had changed. The New York in this book
is both foreign and familiar, and I fell deep inside. I didn’t want to leave,
not for one second.
When the bodies
of four young women were found along a stretch of Long Island beach in 2010,
the emphasis in the media was on whether or not a serial killer was on the
loose. The victims themselves, all four involved in online prostitution, became
footnotes. In this book, Kokler gives the women names; he traces the trajectory
of their lives; he wonders about the circumstances of their deaths; and he makes
us care for them deeply.
Holladay is a
writer who should be more widely read—her stories are odd and dark and funny
and not quite like anything else. I first read her O. Henry-winning story
“Merry-Go-Sorry” in college, and it has stuck with me—haunted isn’t too
hyperbolic a word. I don’t know why I didn’t get my hands on this collection
sooner.
Courtney Elizabeth Mauk's second novel, Orion's Daughters, will be published by Engine Books in May. Her work has appeared in The Literary Review, PANK, Wigleaf, and Five Chapters, among other venues. She is author of the novel Spark (Engine Books, 2012) and teaches at the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop and Juilliard. More information can be found at www.courtneymauk.com.
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| Kathleen Rooney |
At the Autopsy of Vaslav Nijinksy
by Bridget Lowe (Carnegie
Mellon University
This book of poems is a total page-turner, and one of the ways that Lowe
makes you want to turn the pages is by interweaving several series throughout
the book, including ones on the actress Sean Young, on Victor: the Wild Boy of
Aveyron, and, of course, on the Russian dancer Nijinsky. Learned without being
pretentious, witty without being cheaply clever, she’s a master of the leitmotif
and these seemingly disparate pieces end up cohering into a beautifully unified
whole.
Over here http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/246196#article
at the Poetry Foundation web site, I have 2,178 words about what a brilliant book this
is (and you don’t have to take my word for it; it was up for the National Book
Award). But in a sentence: this collection, a decade in the making, is about
its author’s brother’s suicide—“A hole is nothing / but what remains around
it”—a subject he handles with anger, sorrow, and perhaps most effectively
humor.
A book of poems in five sections that mixes lineated pieces with prose
ones, this collection follows its protagonist who “refuses to keep things /
classy” as she traipses through a landscape that seems part Soviet and part
American. Intoxicating in its wordplay—sometimes “j” is “babushkaed” and other
times she “feels the gore ball bouncing up against her sternum in time to the
special broadcasts”—the book looks at what it means and how it feels to be a
citizen in a time beset by lowgrade terror and highgrade absurdity.
Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of
Rose Metal Press and a founding member of
Poems While You Wait . She is the author of
six books of poetry and nonfiction,
including Robinson Alone (Gold Wake Press, 2012) and the critical
study Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America. Her debut
novel, O, Democracy!, is forthcoming from Fifth Star Press in Spring
2014.
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| Caleb J Ross |
#1: The Cost of Living by Rob Roberge
I’ve been a fan of Rob
Roberge since 2006 when my college professor, Amy Sage Webb, gifted a signed
copy of More than They Could Chew. I was immediately hooked. Reading The Cost
of Living, published about 7 years after my initial introduction to the man’s
work, was such an exciting experience. I hadn’t been that entranced by a book
since 2012’s #1 choice, The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson. And I don’t just mean an
intellectually satisfying experience. I mean physically.
Like most people, I came
to S. by way of a quick and easy seduction. In terms of eye candy, S. is a book
like none other. In fact, I made an initial reactions video about the book
after having read only 60 pages, not necessarily because I was confident that
the book would ultimately satisfy, but because the book’s unique visual
storytelling component--margin notes, multiple readers, postcards and photos
and other such trinkets actually stuffed within the pages--warranted a few
minutes of geeking out.
Truthfully, the book
ultimately didn’t deliver on its storytelling promise quite like I had hoped it
would. But no matter. S. is such a unique execution, and as I mention during my full-length S.
review video,
still has some substantial storytelling merit meaning it deserves to be on this
list.
#3: Gulp by Mary
Roach
I learned from this book
that fecal transplants exist. Yes, a fecal transplant is exactly what it sounds
like. Also, that Budweiser, according to Sue Langstaff, a sensory consultant to
the brewing industry for twenty-plus years, is “an extremely well-made beer. It’s
clean, it’s refreshing.” Though I won’t bring up the idea that beer drinkers
don’t necessarily want “clean” and “refreshing,” I was taken aback perhaps
simply by the defense of Budweiser. I just never hear that.
Caleb J. Ross has a BA in English Literature and creative writing from Emporia State University. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared widely, both online and in print. He is the author of five books of fiction and is the creator of The Burning Books Channel, a YouTube channel featuring humorous book reviews, literary skits, writing advice, and rants. Visit his official page at http://www.calebjross.com.
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| Matt Rowan |
By George Saunders
Of Tenth of December, Mary Karr recently noted: "The title story may be the best American story since
Hemingway's 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' or O'Connor's 'A Good Man Is Hard to
Find.'"
I
wholeheartedly agree. Tenth of December is a truly
remarkable read.
But before I get to my gushing, I should make clear It's a short story
collection (as are all of my top three favorites of the year). Its characters
inhabit the strange worlds of Saundersian syntax and aberrant (but still within
reach) settings, characters who are often flawed but redeemable. Characters
whose tales often reach a pivotal point of choice, and the redemption or
calamity that ensues based on these choices (The first story, "Victory Lap,"
manages to encompass the choices of three characters simultaneously).
I've joked that most of these stories were originally published a good
several years (and in one case, as far back as 1996) in various magazines before
they were brought together in this collection. Yet if there's anything to be
said for collage, I think this book should stand a testament to that. The themes
of each story play off each other well, combining elements that are cheerful and
comic while often presenting something dark and unsettling at the very same
time. I was disappointed Tenth of December didn't ultimately get selected
winner of the National Book Award, but it's impressive that a short story writer
(and almost exclusively a short story writer) found his book among the finalists
at all, so I'm glad for that. It might usher in a new era, in which collections
are given their due alongside the more highly regarded novel.
By Lindsay Hunter
Lindsay Hunter is another author who understands the value of voice in her
fiction. I like character. I like the idea of people telling me things that are
inherently biased, and therefore truthful. You don't imagine most of Hunter's
characters are giving you the entirety of the situation, whatever it is. It's
nice to think that they aren't worlds unto themselves and there are things
outside of their understanding, which is tacitly understood. In Don't Kiss Me
there are countless examples of characters with their litany of flaws,
sometimes falling into the camp of the depraved. There's a woman who has a
relationship with a child of 10 in "My Boyfriend Del" -- and in which Hunter
really walks the fine line between a believable situation and one that's utterly
outlandish and absurd (it's balanced very well). There's a family of mutants
living in a post-apocalyptic world in "After." There's a very Lindsay Hunter
take on pulp detective fiction in "Our Man." And there's so much more to keep
your attention, so much intensity to each piece featured. Most of the stories
are very short, but one of Lindsay Hunter's great gifts is she can say so much
with so few lines.
Rob Walsh
This book truly feels like it came from another place in time, maybe
another planet, but also another place in time. Like belonging to a strange
Gothic era of another race elsewhere in the galaxy, say for example. The story
"The Seven Seas" -- allusions in it to the collection's title -- is a
tremendous, delirious take on the pirate and a pirate's life. Walsh's work is
absurd in the tradition, I believe, of writers like Beckett and Walser, with a
bit of the fabulism of the Brothers Grimm for good measure. He takes you to dark
places, places in which people's motivations are more obviously self-serving, if
there's sense in them at all to be found. It's a really good example of the kind
of work you see coming from smaller presses, work that might not make the cut at
a larger publishing house but through no fault of its own quality.
Matt Rowan is author of Why God Why. He lives in Chicago. See more
of him at literaryequations.blogspot.com.
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| Matt Salesses |
I'm cheating a little here. I've got one book that came out this year, one
that will come out in January, and one that came out a while ago, but it's
sequel came out this year (so I'm fudging by including both!).
Laura van den Berg's Isle of Youth is the best story collection of the year, no offense to George Saunders. Maybe you read and loved her last collection? There's even more to love here.
Mary Miller's novel, The Last Days of California, is my most recent read here. The book comes out in January. Mary Miller has maybe the most sure voice I know of, like she knows exactly who she is on the page.
Maile Meloy's books for children were the most fun I had this year, especially her first, The Apothecary. The sequel, The Apprentices, is also great, but I miss the voice of the first. Meloy has some amazing books for adults, too. But these changed the course of my reading this summer and sent me on a binge of children's/young adults' books that convinced me YA has it figured out.
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| Andrew F Sullivan |
Don’t Kiss
Me by Lindsay
Hunter
“See,
we had seen Dee, we’d seen her a lot, but back then we had our eyes on all the
girls, and over time it got to be hard to see how losing one was such a
tragedy.”
I read this while driving back to Canada from South Carolina this summer. Driving through America is like travelling through the phases of an empire, the rings around the cities giving away to decay and abandonment as you travel from one metropolis to another. Hunter’s stories seem to inhabit these desiccated circles, her characters’ voices chipped and scuffed by time and smoke and hurt. They live. There’s spittle stuck to the pages and blood underlining certain words. Not all of it is mine. Every story in here is another accident waiting to happen.
Crapalachia by Scott
McClanahan
“We pass the torch of life for one another like runners in the night. I WILL forever be reaching for you. PLEASE keep reaching for me. Please.”
Authentic is a bullshit word used to sell yogurt and the garbage I found in my attic on Etsy. It’s a word that gets thrown out a lot with this book, but I don’t think McClanahan is making any claims about the “authentic” nature of his experiences. Human might be a better word, but that still carries the scent of bullshit on its wings. Terrifyingly, cripplingly human—I will use those adverbs to describe this book. The horror. It reminded me a lot of Harry Crews’ A Childhood, so McClanahan is doing something right. This is probably the book I will give to people who won’t realize they truly needed it until they are finished.
The
Alligators of Abraham by Robert
Kloss
“And so many sons dead, and buildings burned and cities cindered. And these fields where bodies lay mounded for the hogs to root. And the blood-stained lockets of lovers clasped in cold hands. Entire towns were diminished. And no longer did anyone care, on either side to fight any further. Yet the war continued—“
A fever dream of America, a great suffering rendered into vicious, stunning prose. Technically it came out last November, but I didn’t get around to it until the spring. I annoyed a lot of people over the last few months talking about this book. This is one of my favourite books of the year because I want more Robert Kloss, more seas of buffalo, more abandoned expeditions, more gators rising to devour children in the middle of the night. I am selfish like that. This is a book I will return to again and again because the stories are still open wounds, unstaunched.
RIP Mud Luscious Press.
I read this while driving back to Canada from South Carolina this summer. Driving through America is like travelling through the phases of an empire, the rings around the cities giving away to decay and abandonment as you travel from one metropolis to another. Hunter’s stories seem to inhabit these desiccated circles, her characters’ voices chipped and scuffed by time and smoke and hurt. They live. There’s spittle stuck to the pages and blood underlining certain words. Not all of it is mine. Every story in here is another accident waiting to happen.
“We pass the torch of life for one another like runners in the night. I WILL forever be reaching for you. PLEASE keep reaching for me. Please.”
Authentic is a bullshit word used to sell yogurt and the garbage I found in my attic on Etsy. It’s a word that gets thrown out a lot with this book, but I don’t think McClanahan is making any claims about the “authentic” nature of his experiences. Human might be a better word, but that still carries the scent of bullshit on its wings. Terrifyingly, cripplingly human—I will use those adverbs to describe this book. The horror. It reminded me a lot of Harry Crews’ A Childhood, so McClanahan is doing something right. This is probably the book I will give to people who won’t realize they truly needed it until they are finished.
“And so many sons dead, and buildings burned and cities cindered. And these fields where bodies lay mounded for the hogs to root. And the blood-stained lockets of lovers clasped in cold hands. Entire towns were diminished. And no longer did anyone care, on either side to fight any further. Yet the war continued—“
A fever dream of America, a great suffering rendered into vicious, stunning prose. Technically it came out last November, but I didn’t get around to it until the spring. I annoyed a lot of people over the last few months talking about this book. This is one of my favourite books of the year because I want more Robert Kloss, more seas of buffalo, more abandoned expeditions, more gators rising to devour children in the middle of the night. I am selfish like that. This is a book I will return to again and again because the stories are still open wounds, unstaunched.
RIP Mud Luscious Press.
Andrew F. Sullivan is the author of All We Want is Everything (ARP
Books, 2013), one of The Globe and Mail's Best Books of 2013. You can
find him at www.andrewfsullivan.com
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| Ben Tanzer |
Near feral in its intense bursts of family instability.
Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children by Dave Newman
Newman knows true.
What it means to live, and mostly cope, with things missing in our lives, hands, parents, children, breasts, love, that are at times violently taken from us, and other times more subtly so.
Ben Tanzer is the author of the books My Father's House and You Can Make Him Like You, as well as, the forthcoming Orphans and Lost in Space, among others. Ben also oversees Publicity and Content Strategy at Curbside Splendor and day to day operations of This Zine Will Change Your Life. He can be found online at This Blog Will Change Your Life the center of his growing lifestyle empire.
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Holy end of the year lists, huh?! Thanks again to each and every author who submitted their favorite reads, and I hope they haven't crushed your TBR piles too badly. Oh screw it, yes, yes I hope they did! I hope their lists made you rush out of the house in your new slippers and christmas pj's in a mad attempt to get them all.....
I look forward to watching what these authors are reading (and writing) in 2014! Happy holidays, everyone!
I'm happy to have had the chance to read many of these books!
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