Books

George R.R. Martin reviews Stephen King’s latest in this week’s BookWorld:

Zombies are the Rodney Dangerfield of monsterdom, the poor relation none of the other monsters wants to admit to knowing. Vampires boast of ancient lineages and dwell in magnificent (if somewhat ruined) estates. They dress elegantly and quote poetry, and while they may not drink wine, you know that if they did, it would be only the best vintages. Werewolves tend to be average joes, ordinary working stiffs who say their prayers by night until stricken by lycanthropy. Aside from a few nights when the moon is full, they’re just folks like you and me. Zombies, though? Rotting corpses, ripe and decaying, dressed in rags and covered with dirt, mindless, clumsy, slow, hideous and foul-smelling. The sheriff in "Night of the Living Dead" summed them up perfectly when he said, "They’re dead . . . they’re all messed up."

Calling zombies Rodney Dangerfield(s); man, that’s just cold.

Sadly, Martin seems to have missed out on the recent fast-moving zombies entirely, which undercuts one section of the otherwise-charming review. At least, it did for this zombie afficionado.

So despite the fact my fingers were crossed the entire time, Maureen McHugh didn’t win The Story Prize:

The Hill Road by Patrick O’Keeffe, published by Viking, was named the winner of The Story Prize at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium in New York City on the evening of Jan. 25, 2006. O’Keeffe accepted the first prize of $20,000 and an engraved silver bowl. The other two finalists for The Story Prize were Jim Harrison for The Summer He Didn’t Die (Atlantic Monthly Press) and Maureen F. McHugh for Mothers & Other Monsters (Small Beer Press).

However, it sounds like the whole experience was a blast anyway (I wonder if any of the other finalists went out with ARGers?). And it is still unbelievably awesome that Mothers was a finalist. (I know nothing about the O’Keeffe; anyone read it?)

It looks as if the entire event is up online, which would include readings by all three authors.

For a Web cast of The Story Prize award night go to www.online.newschool.edu and click on ‘Special Events.’

The American Library Association has announced its 2006 literary award winners. I’m especially happy at this YA award:

Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults “Looking for Alaska,” written by John Green, is the 2006 Printz Award winner. Four Printz Honor Books also were named: “Black Juice” by Margo Lanagan, published by EOS, an imprint of HarperCollins; etc. etc.

Yay for Alaska and Black Juice! (See my take on Alaska in the books sidebar to the left.)

And now the posting frenzy will stop. But fair warning, I’ll be back later weighing in on Ander Monson’s Other Electricities as I was unable to get my s together to participate in the boys’ discussion over the weekend. (See also Ed’s first LBC podcast.)

Snitched from Laila because this one combines too many things I can’t resist: Jack London, Hawaii and Mary Roach.

I LOVE The Voyage of the Snark, London’s account of his sail around the world for Cosmopolitan. London is a fascinating character and did most everything for money, as he was constantly in dire financial straits. In general, as a writer and a scoundrel, I think London is overlooked or unfairly looked-down-the-nose-at. He’s one of my writing heroes. (The entire book is at that link, btw.)

The connection between all this is that Mary Roach has reviewed John Tayman’s new book The Colony about the lepers on Molokai in this week’s NYTBR. (First chapter here; it sounds fabulous.) London’s "The Lepers of Molokai" (originally published in the Women’s Home Companion and referenced by Roach) is online.

Anyway, I’m also stealing the charming opening of Snark’s introduction behind the cut for your amusment.

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The Colony of SnarkRead More »

Maybe you love old movies the same way I do, or the same way Cornelia, the heroine (or one of them) in Marisa de los Santos‘ debut novel Loved Walked In does. Ignore the generic title — it’ll work better for the movie version starring Sarah Jessica Parker anyway — or miss a heartbreakingly good read.

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Like Black and White: Love Walked InRead More »

A few lines from the book I just started reading:

"Also, if you stay in it for any length of time, like anyplace else, a cafe becomes a world."

"However, it is definitely on the list of perfect things. You know what I mean, the list that includes the starry sky over the desert, grilled cheese sandwiches, The Great Gatsby, the Chrysler Building, Ella Fitgerald singing "It Don’t Mean a Thing (If You Ain’t Got That Swing)," white peonies, and those little sketches of hands by Leonardo DaVinci." (In reference to The Philadelphia Story.)

"If a girl could sling a poem over her swimwear as though it were an old T-shirt, what else might be possible?"

"I’ve always been more than a little proud of myself for having been fourteen and deeply benighted about almost everything, but having had the sense to recognize what is surely a universal truth: Jimmy Stewart is always and indisputably the best man in the world, unless Cary Grant should happen to show up."

"Spruce Street: cars and lights; the synagogue on the corner; the hustlers in front of it, male and heartbreakingly young. I felt the two tugs I always felt when I looked at those boys: the tug toward wanting the cars to stop, the tug toward wanting them not to stop."

"Then, I gave him a look so worthy of Veronica Lake, I could almost feel my nonexistent blond tresses falling over one eye."

All from the first chapter. And I so wanted a graceful, fun book to read now.

Okay, so, unless this book starts to suck in a profound way — which the blurb from Ms. Karen Joy Fowler pretty much guarantees won’t happen — I am very, very happy to be reading it. Should gratuitous Claudette Colbert namedropping be on the way, or perhaps a stray reference to Midnight, I’ll love it. The book?

Love Walked in by Marisa de los Santos, which just came out. You can read an excerpt at that link.

Grossman vs Montero in the WaPo:

Grossman : That’s true. It’s like music. You can tell who the composer is after a bar or two because of particular stylistic characteristics. I read a paragraph or two of a writer, and I know exactly who I’m reading. Just as you would never hear Miles Davis and think he was Dizzy Gillespie, or that Mozart was Ives, it would be hard to mistake your writing for, say, Mario Vargas Llosa’s.

Montero : You know that musicians as well as authors are always looking for their own language. But it’s more than the language. It’s something to do with ethics and aesthetics.

Amazing conversation between these two. Do read the whole thing.

The WaPo has a story about the rising crime rate in Mark Twain’s home town:

Apart from some murder and grave-robbing in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," Mark Twain immortalized his home town of Hannibal as a sleepy place where life rolls by as slowly as a barge going down the Mississippi. But that’s pure fiction nowadays.

Drugs and a lack of jobs have brought a boom in armed robbery and theft to this community of 18,000 that calls itself "America’s Hometown."

The Washington Post has a fascinating article about Yiyun Li’s immigration woes:

In the summer of 2004, Li petitioned the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to become a permanent resident of the United States. To approve her application for a green card, USCIS would need to agree that she was an artist of "extraordinary ability," defined in Title 8, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 204.5(h)(2) as "a level of expertise indicating that the individual is one of that small percentage who have risen to the very top of the field of endeavor."

To the upper echelons of literary publishing, Li looks like a slam-dunk to meet this definition. Not to the USCIS, however. A year after she filed it, her petition was rejected.

She has appealed. A USCIS spokesman says she is likely to get her answer in a few weeks.

"Things change a lot," as a character in one of Li’s stories says. "Within a blink a mountain flattens and a river dries up. Nobody knows who he’ll become tomorrow."

The ever-fabulous Jeff Bryant over at Syntax of Things (along with collaborator TJ) has compiled a giant list of writers who a bunch of litbloggers (myself included) feel are underrated. You can even leave a comment on any individual writer’s entry!

I’m going to go out on a very solid limb and say this is the best, most useful list I’ve seen during this Season of Lists. Truly impressive. Do yourself a favor and head over there stat …

(For the record, I chose to single out Carol Emshwiller, Jeff Ford, Maureen McHugh, Geoff Ryman and Paul Park. Five was the limit — it was tough. You’ll have to go to Jeff’s to see the reasons though.)