The Novel of the Decade
Tom McCarthy‘s Remainder features among the Village Voice and the (Canadian) National Post‘s books of the decade: “If only for a fleeting moment, Remainder, a dark and spare novel about personal authenticity and murderous re-enactment, seemed to offer a creative alternative to the cul-de-sac of overwrought and twee novels emanating from Brooklyn (and creative writing […]
Four Poems
Several thousand years after the flood,
Noah parked the ark in the New York
harbor, got off to get a chili dog
at Nathan’s
on Coney Island, took a cruise on the
Staten Island Ferry, and won 40 thousand
dollars in Atlantic City at the crap table. His wife. his sons, and
his son’s wives were all still dead asleep
on the ark. Noah had drugged them with massive doses of
Pamelor, Vicodin, and Effexor, so he could
get a little R&R, alone…
By Doug Draime.
ampere’s and
Today’s quick lit [& alt.cult] links from around the web: The writer who is original is always scandalous, Alan Kelly interviews Adelle Stripe, 3:AM Poetry Book of the Year 2009 & Five Dials 9 [pdf] BS Johnson, David Vann, James Kelman & Stephen Dixon‘s ‘Wife in Reverse’ at matchbook (via @fictionaut) & In The Believer […]
Unhappy Birthday Party
Everett True remembers the Birthday Party’s guitar god Rowland S Howard: Singer Nick Cave was charismatic, a sardonic streak of energy and charm; bassist Tracy Pew was the sort of man you never wanted to be stuck inside a jail cell with; but it was Howard – with his nerve-jangling shards of feedback left hanging […]
Interview with a Mardy Old Bastard
There’s such a lot to take in with Zola; the research, the detail, the crowds, the weather.. basically what everybody says when they say nice things about Zola. But for me..it’s how he does it all that holds me to his work, how he controls it all, how he takes down all that scaffolding of research and painstaking observation and how he leaves us with those towering edifices of Germinal, The Earth and L’Assommoir. Anybody could have made 1200 pages of notes about the French railway system if they really wanted to. Only Zola could have done that and then turned them into the monster novel of La Bête Humaine.
Steve Finbow pumps Simon Crump for info.