I Read Books, Too (Two)

It seems that all I do is read. I read a lot. When people ask me what school here is like, it isn't something I feel easily translates for most people. It's not really "school," per se. Or, rather, not any type of "school" that I am used to. Mostly I just mean that everything is lax. The daily demands of each class are rather slim-to-none. Homework is usually allowed to come late. Professors are not strict about dates or following directions. Basically, school here is whatever you make of it. For me, that means reading. And reading and reading.

Mostly, before college, my book reading was limited mostly to novels. Ambrose Bierce helped me appreciate the short story in my high school days when I read "An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge." I just had my students (yes, I teach!) read it and I think they got a lot out of it. Or enough out of it. Still, as wonderful as that story was for me, I never "got into" the short story writers. Especially, I never got into the short story writers of modernity. Since heading off to Princeton, and especially now at Columbia, I've come to champion and acknowledge the short story as the metaphorical fastball of fiction. If you don't have a good working knowledge of the short story, or the modern short story writers that are helping to reformulate just exactly what fiction ("fiction") can do, I guess I just figured I'd throw some names out there. Hooray. If nothing else, my Uncle Jerry will get some mileage out of these names.

I read about four or five short stories a day it seems. I can't sleep lately. I get up and head to the pot and prop a short story on my lap and away I go. These are the new breed of short story homeboys that I'm jocking like platinum grills:

a) Kevin Moffett - this dude just won the 2006 Iowa Short Fiction Award for Permanent Visitors. His stories take our world and offer a hitch, offer caveat, slash it open with exacto knife slashes. Consider "The Medicine Man," wherein a twenty-something dude attempts to save his sister's fetus via a Safeway employee. Real good.

b) Deb Olin Unferth - besides having a great name, this woman writes some of the best short short fiction I've managed to down lately. She's an "up and comer" with a book due out in the Spring from McSweeney's (more on them later). She's given us a story for the Columbia Journal (where I'm fiction editor) and it's all about dead composers. She works little turns of magic.

c) Rebecca Curtis - an admitted bias here: she is my teacher. However, she's great. Objectively speaking, even. She got into the "new fiction" edition of the New Yorker and, from that, has launched herself into a book of short stories that will be out next year. She either writes simple, realistic stories (which I don't like so much) or really wacky, odd, topsy-turvy stories (which I love) like this one: "The Wolf at the Door"

d) Gabe Hudson - the book you're going to want to read is Dear Mr. President and you're going to want to read it as soon as possible. The stories in that book are all reminiscent of the title story, stories that are written using the guise of the first Gulf War to fully explore exciting emotional realities of modern day living. He's really great. Again, sort of biased as he was teaching at Princeton when I left, but his expertise can't be denied. Let yourself be swept away!

e) Courtney Eldridge - I read "Young Professionals" the other day and was pissed off because she made writing seem so goddamn easy. The book is Unkempt and it is better than most sex and all chocolates.

f) Robert Coover - by far one of the greatest living writers still tapping away at the keyboards. Pricksongs and Descants is the golden orb upon which I often slather. It is sitting next to my bed. He is the super creator of modern day wonderfulness.

g) George Saunders - it feels silly to me that people might not have read this man. It's hard to think I hadn't until last year. He's a master. Everything flows from the voice of his narrators, the verve of the prose. Each story is like a rollercoaster. You can't stop until you are done and you don't ever want it to stop. CivilWarLand In Bad Decline, Pastoralia, and In Persuasion Nation are all ready for you to read. Do it!

h) McSweeney's - I said I'd mention it later and now it's later. Read McSweeney's. It's tough for me to jump onto a bandwagon and continue to toot its horn even after so many others have joined the float and have slowed down the journey so, but this is really the Bible of current short fiction. McSweeney's is a publishing house run by Dave Eggers (author of the much-heralded A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) which publishes great new novels that big publishers are afraid to take risks with. They also publish a quarterly journal that features all of the authors I've mentioned so far. Check the thing out. Get into it.

I guess, lastly, I also wanted to mention this book:



It is called The Loser and it is by Thomas Bernhard. One day he will be touted as a modern master. He writes long, digression-filled interior monologues that, while sometimes taxing and difficutlt to wade through, somehow manage to explain the absurdities of living a human life with great complexity and accuracy. I read this book in two nights. I will soon finish reading all he's ever written.

So there you are.
Some more books to read.
Some authors to explore.

I've got a lot more stuff to put up here: a new camera, a new visitor to the pad, a trip back home for Thanksgiving.

Soon,
Al