November 21, 2013 by Sean Carswell

A Summer of Reading Women

Over this past summer, I decided to read only books by women. It started out unintentional and grew into it’s own little obstinate exercise. I did this, in part, to celebrate a little freedom. For the first time in years, I didn’t have to do any specific academic project over the summer. So much of my last several years have been focused on earning a doctorate and engaging in exhausting scholarship and writing novels and short stories whenever I could squeeze out a few minutes. But this past summer, my new novel came out, my Ph.D. was well in hand, I’d been hired into a great new position at my university, and I was free to relax a little. So I decided to kick back with a bunch of books that I didn’t plan on doing scholarship on or teaching or anything. I wanted to just read for pleasure. Part of me figured that books by women were as good as books by men. Since I’d started the summer with women authors, I’d follow the trend.

There were deeper reasons why I did this, too. I detailed most of them in my latest column for Razorcake. I don’t want to repeat myself here. Plus, I’d like it if more people supported the magazine. So, if you’re interested in checking out the whole experience, please consider picking up the new issue (#77). I know it costs a whopping five dollars. I’m still going to make you pay that if you want to read the column.

As far as this post goes, I’m going to list three of my favorite reads from the summer. I recommend all of them highly. They’re probably available at your local library or at independent and/or online booksellers that aren’t named after a piranha-infested South American river.

Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott
I first heard of Megan Abbott through some scholarship she’d done on Philip Marlowe and the noir novel. From there, I found out she was a novelist, too. So I’d checked out Queenpin, which is kind of like Miller’s Crossing with a female cast. If you know how much I love Miller’s Crossing (short answer: a lot), you know this is high praise. After Queenpin, I was open to reading anything by Abbott. I picked up a copy of Bury Me Deep from Bookman’s in Flagstaff. The novel is set in Phoenix in the early 1930s. It tells a story of murder, lust, and manipulation. Bodies end up in luggage at a train station. If I say any more, I give too much away.

Getting Mother’s Body by Suzan Lori-Parks
A colleague of mine taught a course on Suzan Lori-Parks. I felt bad that I didn’t know who she was. When I saw this book at the library bookstore for a buck, I couldn’t pass it up. Getting Mother’s Body is a rewriting of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying from the perspective of a dirt-poor, pregnant African American girl. I’d imagine it’s a good book even if you haven’t read the Faulkner. It’s fast-paced and beautifully written. I fell in love with the characters. When I finished reading and thought about the book in comparison to As I Lay Dying, what Lori-Parks chose to change, the dialogue she seemed to be having with another novel, I started to realize just how brilliant Getting Mother’s Body is.

The Accidental by Ali Smith
This was my book of the summer. I wrote a review of it for Flagstaff Live. The link to the article seems to be dead, so I re-posted it on this blog here.

I’ll probably follow up with a few more of my favorite books by women authors in another post. This should be enough to chew on for now.

November 6, 2013 by Sean Carswell

Calling All Venturans

I’ll be performing a short reading with a few of my colleagues from Cal State Channel Islands this Saturday. We’ll be at the E.P. Foster library in downtown Ventura. The event starts at 5 PM. We’ll all talk/read for about 12 minutes. This will leave plenty of time afterward to buy me a beer at one of the downtown pubs, if you should so desire.

It’ll be a fun night. I work with some talented people. I’ve seen Bob and Mary read. They’re both very engaging. I haven’t seen Sofia read, but she’s a hell of a writer and a very dynamic person, so I imagine her performance will be a blast. I’ve never seen myself read, except on video, which I’m told isn’t as exciting as the live performance. Plus, all I can think when I watch videos of myself is, how did I suddenly get so old and gray? I never look like that when there’s not a mirror around.

Anyway, I promise a good time, and I hope you can come out.

The event is free. You don’t really have to buy me a beer afterward.

October 29, 2013 by Sean Carswell

The Accidental

My new favorite writer is a contemporary Scot named Ali Smith. I read four of her books over the last couple of months, then made myself take a break. Now I’m having Ali Smith withdrawals.

It’s fitting for the title, but I came across The Accidental accidentally. My latest contribution to the Words That Work column in Flagstaff Live tells the whole story. The link seems to be dead, so I’ll include the text of the review below.

The Accidental by Ali Smith

I usually have an internal compass that directs me to independent bookstores in unfamiliar cities. It leads me to neighborhoods where I can find pizza by the slice, art house theaters, mom-and-pop coffee shops, cafés with vegetables on the menu, and pubs that serve local beers.

For some reason, my compass was off while I was in Edinburgh. I found pizza by the slice. I found pubs and independent coffee shops and even a vegan restaurant in the basement of an eighteenth-century church. But I could not find an independent bookstore.

The situation was serious. I had a twelve hour flight the next morning.

The only bookstore I could find was Waterstones, which is a giant UK chain. I wasn’t ruling out Waterstones completely. Since they carried almost the exact same books I’d find at the Barnes & Noble on Milton, I made them my last resort. I was looking for something more in line with Starrlight: a place where I could stumble across something new, something local, something unique.

After a few hours of circling the city, I passed a park full of tents. Edinburgh was alive with festivals that weekend. I figured I’d check out every one I stumbled across. I wandered to the front of the park only to find that the tents belonged to the Edinburgh International Book Festival. What luck!

Even luckier: that’s where I discovered Ali Smith.

Among the racks of books for sale was one dedicated to Scottish authors. Down on the bottom were a row of books with funny titles like Other Stories and Other Stories and There But For The. I picked one called The Accidental. Or, to perhaps describe the feeling more accurately, it picked me.

The Accidental begins, “My mother began me one evening in 1968 on a table in the café of the town’s only cinema.” It immediately launches into an awkward sex scene between two strangers that will lead to the narrator’s mother’s “nylons rolled in a warm ball in her coat pocket.” After describing the moment of conception, the narrator introduces herself:

Hello.

I am Alhambra, named for the place of my conception. Believe me. Everything is meant.

The Alhambra of the novel is in her mid-thirties. She becomes entangled with the Smart family, who take her into their Norfolk summer home. The Smarts are fairly well-heeled. Eve Smart is an author who has recently gained commercial success. Michael Smart is a professor at a prestigious London university. The Smart children, Astrid and Magnus, are on their way to their own cushy lives. Just below the surface of this picturesque life lives each of the Smart family secrets. Alhambra reveals them all in time.

Throughout the book, I was never really sure what Alhambra’s motives were or why she was putting up with the Smarts. The Smarts all seemed to come alive as a result of her presence, but she seemed only moderately annoyed with them. I had the feeling that she was, in some way, a con woman. I couldn’t figure her angle, though.

On the larger level, The Accidental seems like a con. The writing is so smooth. The events move at the speed of a slight-of-hand trick. I tried to find the red queen within the Three-Card Monte, but it was forever illusive. And when the trick was revealed at the end, it felt like a light bulb exploded in the back of my head. Reading The Accidental felt like the first time I read Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”: I knew the author was toying with me, but the game was so fun, both for me and him, that I willingly went along.

Now, I’m hesitant to tell Americans about Ali Smith. I feel like she’s a hidden literary gem. She’s all mine, right now, a personal pleasure that I don’t have to share with anyone because no one is talking about her. At least not here. In Scotland, she’s a major talent. Here in the States, she’s an explosion waiting to happen. We can read her without the taint of a bandwagon. But we have to do it soon. The bandwagon’s surely coming.

October 15, 2013 by Sean Carswell

Baseball Anthology

We’re deep into the Major League Baseball playoffs, my local team is struggling for their lives, and, sadly, I’m not that interested. I was a huge baseball fan when I was a kid. With every year, my interest seems to wane a little more. The one publication that has retained my interest in the sport is Zisk. Zisk bills itself as the “baseball magazine for people who hate baseball magazines.” You could end that sentence one word early and it would come closer to how I feel about the magazine.

Still, I read Zisk faithfully. I always enjoy it. Perhaps the most exciting news out of the Zisk world is the publication of Fan Interference, an anthology of writing from Zisk. The anthology features some of my favorite pieces from Zisk over the years. It also includes a story I wrote about my love/hate relationship with baseball called “The Last Days at Fulton County Stadium.”

If you’re interested in ordering the book, you can get it directly from the publisher or from Atomic Books in Baltimore. It’s also available on Amazon.

October 8, 2013 by Sean Carswell

Edinburgh

I went to the UK a couple of months ago, but I didn’t get around to uploading any pictures to my computer until today. Of all the things I saw over there, this guy in an Edinburgh park was the most curious.

I walked for another fifty yards or so, then saw this juggler. I wonder if the two are connected.

October 3, 2013 by Sean Carswell

How to Read to Your Children

A friend of mine from Florida, Replay Dave, had a daughter this summer. She was born right around the time Madhouse Fog was released. Obviously, she’s too old to really understand language or read herself. Still, Replay reads to her every night. He’s set up a bookshelf in her room. He sits in the rocker next to her crib and reads her to sleep.

Recently, Replay sent a picture of that bookshelf and the books he’s been reading to her. I think my favorite one is on the second shelf from the top, right in the middle. It’s three books down from Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear and just to the left of Baby Animals.

That’s right. Your eyes don’t deceive you. Replay is reading my nightmares to his infant daughter. I take no responsibility.

September 24, 2013 by Sean Carswell

Come Steal with Me

I’m teaching a writing workshop to help support the PEN Center. It’s all about how to take a classic story, steal your favorite parts of it, and rewrite it as your own. Kinda like I’ve done with, well, everything I’ve written so far. I even stole this idea as a workshop.

The workshop will be Saturday, October 12 from 10 AM to 1 PM down in Beverly Hills. You can sign up or get more information here.

September 17, 2013 by Sean Carswell

Bleeding Edge

Today is the official release date for Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, Bleeding Edge. You’d think I’d be excited about that. After all, I wrote a book about Pynchon. I’ve taught a couple of classes that focused solely on his works. I’ve published articles on him in academic journals. I play ukulele with him whenever I’m in New York. So of course I must be excited, right?

Actually, I was more excited about it two weeks ago, when I drove down to LA to meet up with David Kipen in Hancock Park, between the Page Museum and the Tar Pits. David passed an advance copy along to me as if the book were contraband. So, of course, I’ve already read it. I’ve already written about it, too. If you’re interested in checking out my review of Bleeding Edge, you can read it on The Nervous Breakdown.

September 10, 2013 by Sean Carswell

One More Intentionally Bad Capitalist

Occasionally, I’ll team up with Razorcake co-founder Todd Taylor and record a podcast. We talk with various people who are trying to create a culture rather than just accept the one that’s being sold to them. We call the podcast Intentionally Bad Capitalists.

We recently chatted with Brad Listi of Other People fame. I think it turned out to be a pretty interesting conversation. The experience was especially cool for me because I got to ask questions of two of the best interviewers out there today. In a just world, they’d both be regarded as heir apparents to Studs Terkel.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking this link to it on Razorcake’s web site.

August 27, 2013 by Sean Carswell

One of the Greats

During my first semester at Florida State University–and impossible 24 years ago–I took a creative writing class from a professor named Jerome Stern. I had no idea at the time that he had a nationally-syndicated NPR show, that publications like Harper’s and Playboy sought out his work, or that he was, in general, a big-time guy. I had no concept of what it took to get where he was. I had the vague sense that professors got their jobs like K-12 teachers get their jobs: they get a degree and apply at the local school. I didn’t know that things like terminal degrees and publications and contributions to the overall body of knowledge were just the minimum requirements.

I did recognize immediately, though, that he was an incredible teacher. I’ve had other classes, other teachers who were as influential, as meaningful, but I’ve never had class or teachers who were more so.

Jerome was the first professor I had who showed me how to take this jumbled mass of raw words and start to put shape to them. For that reason, he is one of the three FSU professors to whom I dedicated Madhouse Fog.

I bring him up now because, at the beginning of every fall semester, I reread his story “University.” I’ve been doing this for five or six years now. Every year, it becomes more meaningful. Every year, it breaks my heart all over again.

Now, I’m sharing the story with you. Click the link at the end of this sentence to read it: Stern_University

Though I was still blond and kinda heavy when I hit my early thirties, though I did spend ten post-college years wandering around the country and doing wild things, I’m not the returning student in the story. Jerome died before I made it into my early thirties and was able to visit him again. If I’m not mistaken, he’d been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at the time when he wrote this story. He was heading into his final school year, one that he wouldn’t live through. Part of the power of the story lies in knowing that he made this kind of sense out of his life while facing an imminent death. Part of the power comes from me personally missing they guy.

I’m thankful that he left at least this legacy.