I'm trying, trying to catch up with all the writing that goes with all the reading that goes with all the interviewing, and keep my readers abreast of what matters most.
I hope to catch up in the coming couple of weeks, and here's a good place; there are books you need to buy now, because next year, or in coming years, it will be too late to do so.
It's sometimes far too easy to dismiss a hardcover first novel by an author, or a first major release. You might be tempted to think that it will wait until paperback; and then find out that a) the book is spectacularly good and you want the hardcover, b) that the hardcover you might have bought new for $x is now only buyable at $3x.
Let's avoid that. I'd actually recommend buying two each of the following. I'll have more in-depth reviews and interviews with the author soon, but I wanted to get the word out there now.
Benjamin Percy's 'Red Moon' is an amazing novel that works simultaneously on two very different levels. On one hand, it is a ripping yarn that keeps an incredible pace. The premise is an alternate history in which the lycans have always lived among us. It's a prion disease that causes, well, extreme violence, transformation and more violence.
But there are ways around it, and now they live among us, and in their lycan homeland. But not so happily. And that's where you start to find the second level of this book, and an incredibly well thought-out political allegory that is all over the map.
This hardcover is large, sturdy and well-printed. It is a perfect example of the big horror novel, with ideas to match. I spoke with Percy and his actual voice is as amazing as his prose voice, so keep watch for that one as well.
'The Golem and the Jinni' by Helene Wecker is superb in every way. It's a historical novel, set in New York at the turn of the 20th century, with
It's also a beautiful book, with a deep-blue colored edge to the pages, and a great matte cover. Even in a white-sheet ARC it would be well worth reading and buying. This presentation is worthy of what you might find in a small-press deluxe edition.
At this price and time, buying two seems like a great investment. Wecker is really smart and dedicated to her craft; Stay tuned for my interview with her in the coming days.
And finally, Robin Sloan and 'Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store,' is a business you will want, no need to frequent. Sloan received a lot of notice about this book and quite deservedly so. It's funny, has the feel of our actual world, the one most of us find ourselves living in, perfectly and intimately mixed with a superb, liberal batch of real weirdness.
Sloan populates his world with a lot of high-tech workers who may remind many of us of our friends, and this book is just a great place to hang out. Sloan's prose voice is instantly inviting. Finish off this little package with a glow-in-the-dark cover, and you have yet another book that is both worth your valuable reading time, but also has the feel of a classic somewhere down the line. I have a short interview with Sloane as today's podcast, and a longer one to come.
All of these books have two things in common. Even if you had to read them on a blurry, bad tablet computer, they'd be worth every reading moment – and unforgettable. But these are even better than pure text. They're books, wonderful books, things you can hold in your hand and know that the stories within can be read and re-read, subtly shifting with every day. You get the full feedback loop; you read the words and turn them into memories, and then have the gorgeous, unique physical objects, which create, contain and continue memories.
06-10-13:Karen Joy Fowler Suggests 'We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves'
Best Served Cold
Editor's Note: I always approach novels in pretty much the same manner. I don't read the dust jacket flaps, as they often give away far more plot than I want to know. I don't read reviews, summaries or the précis that is sent by the publisher. I do read the opening bit to see if I think I might get along with the novel, and that's it. I try to return the favor to readers and write reviews that discuss the reading experience, but not the details, beyond what you might find in the first few pages. Let me know via Facebook if you think this works out.
Rosemary Cooke has a story to tell, and she insists on doing so by starting in the middle. It's good advice, often given to writers — just jump in, start with the action, let the explanations take care of themselves. In Rosemary's case, we do start with the action. She's a troubled young woman who gets herself needlessly tossed in jail. This presents her with problems, but nothing like those she encounters when she looks at herself in the mirror.
Stories, like revenge, are best served cold and Karen Joy Fowler's 'We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves' is no exception. There's more than a bit of revenge in this book, but it's sublimated, crushed beneath emotions that seize but never seethe. Rosemary's family, like most, looks pretty normal from the outside. Her older brother Lowell took off for parts unknown, furious with his parents for the way things went as he and Rosemary grew up. Parts of the picture are missing. As Rosemary tells her story, generous humor gives way to something much starker.
'We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves' is told entirely in Rosemary's first-person voice, and Fowler has created a young woman who manages to be utterly compelling, always engaging, and down-to-earth realistic. Rosemary is an American daughter who tells her quintessentially American story of family, science and the consequences of mixing the two. Her father and mother, never named, are alternately remote and supportive, stern and loving. Her brother, Lowell, is much loved by all and much missed as well, as is her sister Fern. Her new, friend Harlow, with whom she shares a jail cell is a pistol, prone top hotheaded but understandable over-reaction. As we get to meet these characters — in Rosemary's peculiar storytelling style — we quickly come to enjoy them all. Everyone feels real, event those who aren't quite in the picture.
Fowler's plot is an extremely compelling story of family revelations. The Cooke family is, like many families, both utterly, blandly normal, and yet individually quite odd. They certainly have reasons for their strange behavior, and those reasons are not the sort they're inclined to discuss, least of all Rosemary. Getting to know the Cookes and finding out why they are the way they makes for a plot arc that is blisteringly intense and in the end, just about as weird as any family story. Fowler has at first great fun, and then extracts great power from the prototypical family story. She makes the pages turn as fast as they do in those movie montages where you see the years speed by.
Fowler often writes at the edges of the science fiction genre, and 'We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves' ultimately proves itself to be in part a historical science fiction novel. The science has long been settled, but from the characters' perspectives, for much of the novel, that understanding is in the future — this moment, the present, that is. This is what can happen when you start a story in the middle. Time travel is inevitable. The revelations of the past are in the reader's future. We meet the characters in their own future. The next step, beyond the story, begins when we look in the mirror and decide just how much we like what we see.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
