The Great Perhaps

Joe Meno’s new novel, The Great Perhaps, is a revelation.  It is capital “L” literature that arrived fully formed, seemingly (to me) from nowhere.  But, of course, that’s not the case.  Meno’s first book Hairstyles of the Damned was a “pitch perfect…coming of age story about finding your own identity that has the ring of truth and awkwardness.” (My mini-review of hairstyles is here.)

In retrospect, I should have been put on notice to find the rest of Meno’s books with a quickness.  The author next appeared on my radar when The New York Times’ Paper Cuts blog cheekily asked “Joe who?” in a post about last year’s Story Prize finalists: Jhumpa Lahari, Tobias Wolff, and Joe Meno.  Joe was nominated for his short story collection Demons in the Spring.  After reading the article, I believe that I actually said aloud – “Damn, I’ve got to check that out.”  But didn’t.  When I saw that Mr. Meno had a new novel out, the stars finally aligned, and The Great Perhaps made it atop my to be read pile.

The Great Perhaps is the story of a modern Chicago family, each struggling with their own demons.  Clouds, literal and figurative, dark and light, hang over the characters lives.   The use of clouds in the novel reminded me of the looming chemical cloud of Don Delillo’s “airborne toxic event” in White Noise – a symbol of mortality and the threat of modern life that lurked constantly on the horizon.  This connection had me keeping my eye out for other literary antecedents in the book.

Jonathan Casper, the center of the novel, is a modern-day Ahab (and family man).  He is a paleontologist obsessed with finding  evidence of a long-believed-to-be -extinct giant squid.  His obsession with his work is also his refuge – from his teaching duties, from his elderly father’s illness and erratic behavior, from the needs of his immediate family, and, ultimately, from the world at large.  Where Ahab was a man of action chasing his obsession, Jonathan stalks his leviathan from a fortress that he withdraws to constructed of blankets in the family’s living room.

Amelia, Jonathan’s oldest daughter, seems a less sure version of the Swede’s daughter Merry from Philip Roth’s American Pastoral.  Angry at the world, Amelia begins researching pipe bomb manufacture on the internet when not actively ignoring her sister of firing off angry editorials in the school paper.  She fancies herself an anti-capitalist revolutionary, but she has a difficult time getting anyone to care.

Thesbe, the youngest daughter, is named after Ovid’s star crossed-lover.   Like her namesake, the modern Thesbe experiences a budding romance that is “forbidden”.  Thesbe’s rebellion takes the form imagining herself a deeply religious person in a deeply secular home.  Her attempts to pray for herself and her family (having never been shown how) are heartbreaking.

The mother,  Madeline Casper, is an experimental psychologist (no literary precursor comes immediately to mind).  Her work involves social experiments conducted on pigeons.  As her world and reality slowly come unglued, it appears that Madeline’s pigeons hold some of the secrets of human nature.  The expression “her head was in the clouds” takes on a nearly literal

Henry, Jonathan’s father, lives a life of decreasing consequence at a nearby nursing home.  He has decided to remove his connections to this world by giving away all of his possessions and reducing the number of words he will say each day over time.  In the meantime, he is determined to flee the nursing home and catch a plane to Tokyo from O’Hare.  His reasons for wanting to visit Tokyo are slowly revealed.  (I can’t come up with an antecedent for Grandpa Henry either.)

And, of course, the surname name “Casper” brings to mind the friendly ghost of the comics.  These are not bad people.  They want to find the solutions to their problems.  They are each damaged in some way and are in full retreat from the challenges of daily life.   They lack the courage or moral fiber to engage the world and its inherent dangers.  Madeline’s studies suggest that this helplessness may be learned and may be even inherited. Which brings us back to Grandpa Henry’s story and its effects on his family that has come to live a ghost existence.

The Great Perhaps is a terrific novel. It is not as bleak as it may sound from my literary name dropping.  It’s a novel of warmth and humor. It’s also a novel of substance.  I expect to find this novel on many year-end “best of” lists, and it seems inevitable that the days of people asking “Joe who?” may well be over for the author.

We are such big fans of the novel and the author here at BGB, that Russ Marshalek, our man in New York, set out to interview Joe Meno about his work.   Be sure to come back tomorrow for that.

More:

Throughout the book, Amelia shows her disdain for American life by listening solely to French music.  One song mentioned by name is Marie Laforêt’s Marie Douceur Marie Colère. In Largehearted Boy’s Book Notes, Joe Meno says that the song is “a French cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” and it is one of the most terrifying songs you’ll ever hear.” I had to hunt it down:

Marie Laforêt – Marie Douceur Marie Colère

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Down the Rabbit Hole

Tim Burton is adapting Alice in Wonderland to the big screen.  Wired takes a first look at the concept art for the film.  Check out Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen below:

Love and Obstacles

Aleksandar Hemon’s novel The Lazarus Project ensured that I would be a fan of the author for life (my review). Needless to say, when  Hemon came to town a few weeks ago to read from his new collection of short stories, Love and Obstacles, I had to be there.

It was evident upon arrival that many (most?) in attendance at the Decatur library were former Yugoslavs/Sarajevans.  Hemon is formerly from Sarajevo and found himself in Chicago when the Balkan War broke out, and he became a man without a country.  Although he has gone on to win a McArthur “genius grant” and has written several critically acclaimed books in English, he also continues to write regularly in Serbian for a Sarajevo-based publication.

Hemon read from the story The Conductor about a young writer’s rocky relationship with an elder literary statesman of Sarajevo.   The story seemed to be autobiographical enough that the author was asked questions about the protagonist’s views as though they were his own.  Hemon had to remind the audience that it was a story and not his life. Which is maybe another way of saying that the story dripped with authenticity.  (On the basis of that story I bought the book in the lobby as soon as the reading was over.)

During the Q&A, almost everyone who asked a question began, “Mr. Hemon, I am also from the former Yugoslavia…”  Or sometimes they would say Sarajevo.  No one spoke in terms of the current political boundaries.   The author used some of the questions to riff on the tyranny of language and identity.  Hemon explained that the Serbo-Croatian language that he learned in school was an artificial construct.  The idea was that a common language would foster a common identity (and thus, peace).  When Yugoslavia crumbled, the language disappeared over night and the old identities re-emerged.  Hemon spoke of the freedom that he felt when he was able to escape the bonds of the old languages by thinking and writing in English.  He also related an anecdote (by request) that in the last three or four generations of his family, no one has died in the country in which they were born.  Although some of the previous generations had moved, the fact of the matter was that the countries where they were born no longer existed at the time of their deaths.   It was fascinating stuff.

It seems a little lame that I spent most of this review talking about the reading that I went to that one time.  I felt that I should mention all of that back story though because Hemon’s take on language, identity, belonging, etc. are central to all of the stories in this excellent collection. In a BGB interview, author Richard Lange said the following about short stories:

What I’m looking for is electrifying flesh-and-blood stuff that makes me sit up and go, “Holy shit! Here’s someone who’s ready to throw down.”

Love and Obstacles meets Mr. Lange’s criteria.  Check it out.

Post script: I found myself returning to the U2 (ft. Pavorotti) song Miss Sarajevo while reading the book.  It seemed to nicely sum up the mood of the book.

Russ Hosts Social Media and Future of Publishing Panel

BGB contributor Russ Marshalek moderated a discussion about publishing, social media, and the future at last week’s 140 Characters Conference (#140Conf). Really! And we have the video to prove it. The new media/old media dream team assembled includes Richard Nash (formerly of Soft Skull Press/current literary folk hero) and Ryan Chapman and Ami Grecko (Macmillan). Check it out if only to hear Nash’s controversial opening statements.

(via Galley Cat)

DBF09

Last night my wife and I ran over to Decatur for the press preview of the 2009 Decatur Book Festival.  Due to a house full of guys fixing things that have broken in my house all at the same time, I missed most of the festivities.  The event was held at Eddie’s Attic, and it was packed when we eventually rolled in.  Here’s what I can tell you:

The book fest is Labor Day weekend, September 4-6.  The very cool poster looks like this:

The list of authors that will be appearing at this year’s fest can be found here.

If you’d like to volunteer for this year’s fest, check in with the DBF here.

Much more info about all things book fest will be coming as the event gets closer. Stay tuned.

Revenge of the Nerds

Author/actor John Hodgman (he’s a PC!) speaks at the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Dinner about the great divide facing our nation today – geeks vs. nerds.  The talk features a quiz to test President Obama’s nerd bona fides.

Friday Odds & Ends

This is the last mention of Dave Eggers this week. I swear!  But you’ve got to take a look at the special furry edition of his upcoming novel The Wild Things:

In non-Dave news, I’ve been enjoying this tune, which has the good taste to name check Dostoevsky – twice. (via Heather at I am Fuel…)

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Ha Ha Tonka – Close Every Valve to Your Bleeding Heart

While you’re listening to that, please read Jeff Hobbs’ Open Letter to Kanye West over at The Millions.  It’s about “The Louis Vuitton Don’s” complaint that books are all wordy.

Then check out Seth Godin’s anti-textbook rant.

And Dan Baum (Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans) writes in the NYT about The Way of the Bayou:

While the rest of us Americans scurry about with a Blackberry in one hand and a to-go cup of coffee in the other in a feverish attempt to pack more achievement into every minute, it’s the New Orleans way to build one’s days around friends, family, music, cooking, processions, and art. For more than two centuries New Orleanians have been guardians of tradition and masters of living in the moment — a lost art. Their preference for having more time than money was at the heart of what made that city so much fun to visit and so hard to leave.

Finally, Author Jack Pendarvis reports on LiterJerry Matters.

Now go outside and play.

Doubling Down on Dave

Have I mentioned that I love Dave Eggers?  Just last week I was getting all geeked out about his upcoming novel The Wild Things.  It turns out he has another book coming out before that one.  It’s called Zeitoun and is a non-fiction account of a Muslim family’s experiences with Hurricane Katrina.  Like What is the What, Eggers will donate all of the proceeds from the book to a foundation run by the subjects.  Go, Dave, Go.  (Read The Rumpus Long Interview with Dave Eggers for the full scoop.)

Nobody Move

Denis Johnson won the National Book Award for his doorstop/novel Tree of Smoke.  I meant to get around to reading ToS, I really did, but it never happened.  Then along came Johnson’s new novel Nobody Move, and it seemed as good a place as any to check out the author’s work.

As you might gather from the cover, Nobody Move is a by-the-numbers crime noir.  And I don’t mean that in a bad way.  Johnson is known for weighty “important” novels, but here he appears to be having fun and experimenting with genre.

The novel begins with this passage:

Jimmy Luntz has never been to war, but this was the sensation, he was sure of that–eighteen guys shoulder to shoulder, moving out on the orders of their leader to do what they’ve been training day and night to do.

Jimmy is thinking, of course, about a regional men’s chorus competition.  He is met after the performance by a goon intent on taking him “for a ride”  due to gambling debts owed to the wrong person.

Meanwhile, the femme fatale of our story is Anita Desilverio, a politician’s wife and alcoholic.  Anita has been framed for embezzling cash from the State and is not happy about it.

The two hapless losers join forces as the world around them grows steadily more grim.  There are surprise plot twists, double-crosses, a shot-up Caddy, gay bikers – but at least they have a plan:

I said we had ten percent of a plan.  It’s more like two percent. I gotta get some smokes.

Or not.  You can be certain that the story is headed towards a showdown of epic proportions.

I read Nobody Move on the heels of finishing Elmore Leonard’s Road Dogs (review). Leonard is undeniably a master of the gritty-noir-crime-drama form, but Johnson more than holds his own in a back-to-back comparison. Road Dogs has more comic relief, and Nobody Move is a little darker/edgier. Both are action-packed and loaded with charm and grit.   The two novels together pack an excellent beach side one-two punch.

Happy Bloomsday

Today is Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce and his novel Ulysses.

Take the Bloomsday quiz to measure your mad Joyce skillz. (The assessment of my knowledge: “Joyce spent about seven years working on Ulysses. The same amount of time could probably see you getting a decent score. With luck.”)

Atlantans: This is as good an excuse as you’ll find to knock off early and visit the James Joyce Pub.

The Classics: 1984

Holy cow — I thought I had read George Orwell’s 1984 way back in high school, but I just read it and there is no way I could have read it before and forgotten.

A couple of years ago I took some quiz on the Internet that purported to determine which book would most resonate with me, and the answer was 1984.  I started reading it then but for some now inexplicable reason gave up a short while into it.  I don’t know why I bailed on it then — I subsequently read Animal Farm and loved it, so I don’t think it’s Orwell’s writing style.  Well, I decided to give it another shot and am now breaking my own arm patting myself on the back for my achievement (such achievement also known as “reading yet another book that everyone in the world already read” and/or “reading yet another book that’s the source of ideas and theories that I use in everyday conversation despite not having read the actual book”).

1984, written in 1948, is Orwell’s ominous tale of a future state in which the government has taken a far greater role in the lives of citizens, from their thinking to their daily activities.  It focuses on Winston Smith, who lives in London, which is part of Oceania, which is one of three global empires in Orwell’s fictional modern world.  Oceania is under the control of the Party, which is led by Big Brother, and which exercises close watch and control over the population of Oceania.   Smith himself is a member of the Outer Party who works at the Party’s Ministry of Truth, rewriting passages in archived media to alter historical records to better fit with the Party’s then-current agenda and proclamations.

Smith’s story and the way it demonstrates the workings of the Party, together with the writings of Emmanuel Goldstein (the so-called “Enemy of the People”) as relayed in “The Book” that Winston reads, present an unbelievably compelling insight into the manner in which power can be obtained and maintained.  While many books have been written during the time between Machiavelli’s The Prince and Orwell’s 1984, the vast majority of which I’ll admit that I may not have read, I doubt any other author has been able to present such an innovative or downright scary case as either of those two.  Believe it or not, I had peeked a while back to see what the last four words to this book were, because they were the answer to a trivia question, and knowing those powerful words in advance not only didn’t spoil anything about this book for me, they gave me goosebumps while reading everything leading up to them.

If there are any of you out there who haven’t read this one, you need to get on it.  Or the Thought Police will get you.

(Check out this guy’s comic book adaptation of 1984)

Don’t Call it a Comeback

What has Anne Rice wrought?  It seems that it would now be possible to have a book blog that specialized only in vampire books.  The evidence:

• The New York Times reports that there are three separate vampire books on its current bestseller list: Skin Trade (volume 17! of Anita Blake’s series) is number 1 on the hardcover fiction list,  Undead and Unwelcome (#8 in a series) by MaryJanice Davidson is no. 14, and Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Strain (first in a planned trilogy) is at no. 9.
• Fans of the Twilight series have a new trailer to dissect for the upcoming movie of the second book in the series, New Moon
• Largehearted Boy has a contest to win a collection of David Wellington’s four volume vampire series
• True Blood, HBO’s vampire series based upon the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris begins its second season (with the truly awful Louisana accents still intact – I am taking this as a personal affront – FIRE THE DIALOG COACH)
• And BGB’s Jen recently reviewed the YA vampire spoof The Reformed Vampire Support Group

Do the zombie novels stand a chance?

Downtown Owl

Being a fan of pop culture, I really like Chuck Klosterman — Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs had me snorting with laughter at times — and so I jumped at the chance to read his first foray into fiction, Downtown Owl.

Klosterman grew up somewhere in the Dakotas, and he sets this novel in the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota; I get the feeling (despite the disclaimer at the beginning) that many of the characters and events in this book were drawn from Klosterman’s childhood and adolescent memories.  And like many other books that I’ve read and enjoyed that took place during my formative years (the early-to-mid-eighties), the storylines and characters in this book bore no resemblance to where and how I grew up.  But I know enough about the stereotypes of the era from watching t.v. to appreciate the humor in Klosterman’s story.

The structure of this story is a bit odd and took a little while to engage me, but it nonethless worked.  Each chapter in the book is labeled with the name of one of three main characters:  Mitch (a high school student), Julia (a new teacher just transplanted from Wisconsin), and Horace (an elderly regular in the town).  There are other regular characters as well, including the hotshot football coach/teacher Mr. Laidlaw (who had impregnated at least one high schooler).

Each chapter covers the events of a day or so in the life of one of the main characters, and while they all take place in Owl and involve the same cast of supporting characters (most of whom have nicknames that make them sound like hoboes, e.g., “Bull Calf”, “Buck Buck”, “Busload”, “Brother Killer”), they don’t have a whole lot of direct connection throughout most of the book.  And so I wondered how it might all tie together at the end.  And when I got to the end, I realized that they sort of did and they sort of didn’t, but I wasn’t asking the question any longer — I was just sitting there with my jaw hanging open.

If you’re a fan of the era, I think you’ll dig this book.  But beware that if you have (a) a wife who adores Def Leppard, and/or (b) a 10-year old son that loves Star Wars and still believes in Santa Claus (by the way, I happen to have both), one single paragraph in one of the chapters under Mitch’s name will belittle you and your loved ones mercilessly.  You’ll know it when you see it.

(Also on BGB: Tim’s review of Downtown Owl)

Road Dogs

Elmore Leonard takes a victory lap and crafts the perfect beach book with his latest Road Dogs.  For his 46th novel (my best count), the 83 year-old author picks some of his favorite characters and creates a volatile mix where anything can happen.  Humor and noir mix in equal measure to deliver a crisp crime novel.

The story begins with Jack Foley (played by George Clooney in the movie version of Out of Sight) back in prison in South Florida.  As a celebrity bank robber, Foley maintains a certain level of respect among the inmates.  He is joined in prison by Cundo Rey a connected and wealthy Cuban  criminal (from LaBrava).  Foley and Rey are “road dogs” – inmates that look out for each other on the inside.  Rey “loans” his high-powered attorney to Foley, who has his prison sentence greatly reduced.  Beholden to Rey, Foley heads to Venice, California to wait for Rey’s release and the inevitable pay back.  Enter Dawn Navarro (Riding the Rap), femme fatale and Rey’s common-law wife who has been waiting patiently for her husband’s release.

Once the gang isall together, it’s game on as the trio try to play each other while  keeping an eye out for the angles.  It’s a fairly conventional plot that somehow never quits throwing surprises in front of the reader.  For an 83 year-old, Leonard seems surprisingly fresh and as tuned into the criminal/street underworld as ever.  It doesn’t hurt that the reader can’t help but imagine George Clooney coolly delivering Foley’s lines throughout.  This book is made for summer.

I haven’t read much Elmore Leonard, but I’ve enjoyed the handful of his books that I have read.  My favorite of the Leonard novels that I have read is Cuba Libre, a gripping read from start to finish that reminds the reader why we’re supposed to “remember the Maine”.  Add it to your reading pile this summer, too.

The Wild Things

Q: Can I wait to read this?

A: No.  I cannot.

(via Galley Cat)

Tintin

The Elegant Variation notes that the Spielberg produced Tintin movie will be released in Europe 8 weeks! before arriving in the US.  Sacre bleu! In the absence of an actual trailer for the film, someone came up with this:

C’est incredible.  (via Tintinmovie.org)

House Keeping

Attn RSS subscribers: If your BGB feed was infested with links to spam-type products today, those were inserted into my otherwise delightful post by malicious hackers and not the good people at BGB.  Hopefully the problem has been addressed.  Thanks.

The Big Box of Awesome

I’ll admit that I am a tough person to buy books for.  I have wide-ranging but particular (and sometimes strange) tastes.  If I mention that I’d like to check out a particular book, chances are it is already on its way to my “to be read” stack.  To further complicate things, I receive review and advance reading copies of books that may be of interest from publishers.  The result: friends and family usually do not buy me books for presents.  So I was surprised when a large box with a familiar logo arrived on my door step a few days before my birthday. See “Exhibit A”:

Exhibit A

The box turned out to be from my mom, and there was a story behind it.  My mother had read an article in a magazine about the The Strand bookstore in NYC’s personal shopping service. It was written by a woman who knew that her dad, a literature professor,  loved books, but she could never find the perfect book.  The author called upon expert help.  Enter Madeline Donahue, The Strand’s personal shopper.

Mom decided to call upon Ms. Donahue’s services (there is no charge).  Between my mother’s input and five year’s of blog posts, Madeline was able to get a good read on my reading interests.  See “Exhibit B” for the contents of my box:

Exhibit B

Having now been on the receiving end of her consulting services, I feel qualified to say that Madeline Donahue is amazing at her job.  There were books in there that I planned to pick up and – more impressively – books that I didn’t even know that I would be dying to read. The books were all individually wrapped, which my daughter enjoyed helping me open. (“It’s another book, Daddy!”)  I can’t say enough about how amazing the whole experience is – it is like someone has been reading my mind.   I can’t wait to dive into this stack.

As long as there are people like Madeline Donahue out there, the independent book store will never die.  Thanks, Mom!  Thanks, Madeline!

A Heartwarming E-mail of Staggering Genius

This is why I love Dave Eggers.

Not so phony

Reclusive author J.D. Salinger has begun legal proceedings to stop the publication of the “sequel” to Catcher in the Rye by a guy calling himself John David California. Salinger is now 90 (!), but ready to kick some ass.  Three places to get a handle on the story include:  The Guardian, The Telegraph (with pick of “California”), and The Wall Street Journal (checks in with a copyright lawyer).

You can read most of the actual legal filing here.  Thanks, Frank!