Impressions of Horror Saterstrom, Selah (2004). The Pink Institution. St. Paul, MN: Coffee House Press. This experimental novel features four generations of Mississippi females from 1940 to the early 2000’s. They are shown in a set of impressions, poems, quotations … Continue reading
Like millions of other Americans, I’ll be on the highways in July. I’m taking a novel manuscript to a writing workshop in Iowa City. A sensible person would fly. Even though driving is far more dangerous than flying, not to speak … Continue reading
Elizabeth Strout is on the cover of the August, 2013 The Writer magazine. She has a new book, Burgess Boys, which I haven’t yet read. I enjoyed Amy & Isabelle, and I rank Olive Kitteredge as one of the greatest-ever collections … Continue reading
How-to for Beginners Frey, James N. (1987). How to Write a Damn Good Novel. New York: St. Martin’s Press.I’m cautious about any how-to book that bills itself as “no-nonsense,” implying that comparable books are full of nonsense. In fact this … Continue reading
Haunting Characters In Search of a Story Duras, Marguerite (1985). The Lover. New York: Random. In Saigon, before the Vietnam war, an impoverished, naive, adolescent French girl acquires an older Chinese lover. Her family is struggling with subsistence, and he … Continue reading
Adams, W. A. (2011). The Development of Intersubjectivity. Presented at Psychology & the Other Conference, 2011, October 1-3, Cambridge, MA. How is it possible that we are aware of each other’s experience? Each of us is a subjectivity, a fact … Continue reading
A Slog Through Marital Muck Hadley, Tessa (2011). The London Train. New York: Harper Collins. Nothing happens in this family drama about strained marriages and estranged children, unless you think those kind of events count as “something happening.” Seems like … Continue reading
Disgusting Morals Adams, W. A. (2012). True or False: Incest is Disgusting, Therefore Immoral. [Review of the book, Yuck! The Nature of Disgust and its Moral Significance]. PsycCRITIQUES – Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, January 18, 2012 (57) Release … Continue reading
Literary Mind Games Borges, Jorge Luis (1962). Ficciones. New York: Grove.This collection of seventeen stories in English is a good introduction to the involuted mind of Borges. The stories revel in paradox and self-reference; they dwell on infinities and recursions, … Continue reading
What Is Western Writing? Jaffe, Marc (Ed.) (2007). Best Stories of the American West: Volume I. New York: Tom Doherty Associates. These twenty stories are set in the western U.S. and usually involve horses, cows, or Indians. The writers include … Continue reading