This makes two videos in a row in which I wear a Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds shirt and drink Sexy Betty Imperial Stout. No, I'm not a slob drunk; I simply recorded two videos in a row. Amanda Gowin's Radium Girls is all sorts of interesting. It's weird, it's heartfelt, it's wavering, it's beautiful, it's poetic, and it's a bunch of other things I can't think of right now because I'm tired. You should buy this book!
Kyle Minor's In the Devil's Territory is rural family noir at its best, with lots of back-woods religion overtones, and family dynamics rooted in harsh sexism where women are taught to be subservient to men and men are trained to exploit that subservience. Buy it here. What am I drinking? Schlafly Coffee Stout. Mmmmmmm.
I review The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War by Denise Chong. I apologize in advance for being offensive during the first 1 minute of the video.
Immobility is about an amnesiac man named Horkai, and in typical amnesic style Horkai begins this novel having no idea who he is, where he is, or who those around him are. So, he must trust the word of those around him, namely a man named Rasmus. Rasmus tells Horkai that he has been brought out of a cryogenic state after 30 or so years and must go on a mission to retrieve something for Rasmus. So, Horkai does. Now the first half of the novel plays around with Horkai's alternating discovery of and hesitation to accept his surrounds. It's a typical blank memory novel for a while. But then, the novel quickly becomes so much more. It becomes, what I interpret, as a commentary on organized religion, specifically the aggressive, and perhaps selfish, nature of religions missionaries. See, during Horkai's journey, he finds people who seem very willing, eager…
Reading Stephen Graham Jones is like being on a manhunt for a double amputee. Even when I get him, I don't get all of him. Nick Bruiseman is a has-been PI who lives in a storage locker in Stanton, Texas. A small town, 3,000 people, where everyone knows everyone. So when Bruiseman gets hired, things turn incestuous quickly. The book will be released in March 2014. If you are a fan of detective novels and oral storytelling, then I definitely recommend it. But know, you're going to have to work for your reward. I've read a lot of Stephen Graham Jones (show stack), and I've thoroughly enjoyed just about all of it. Jones is an evasive storyteller, very difficult to pin down and with plots that are often difficult to follow. And I think with Not For Nothing, his 18th book, I've finally figured out why. First, his very conversational…
Fair warning: this is probably the dumbest thing I've ever done on this channel. And I've done a lot of dumb stuff. But you've been warned. Therefore, I'm free to dumb it up all the way to eleven. I posted an initial thoughts video of S. a couple weeks ago. Now I'm back with my full review. But this one is different. See, I already reviewed the book on the November 27th episode of the Booked. Podcast. And rather than rehash my thoughts on my YouTube channel, I figure I would do what a truly lazy person would do and hire some sock puppets to re-enact parts of the Booked. Podcast conversation. Mentioned: Booked Podcast S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
Flushboy by Stephen Graham Jones is my kind of book. Family dysfunction with a power element of the grotesque, in this case, the father's entrepreneurial drive toward starting a drive-thru urinal franchise. Buy Flushboy Mentioned: Stephen Graham Jones: http://www.demontheory.net/ Adam Johnson: http://creativewriting.stanford.edu/people/adam-johnson