1.30.2015

James Tadd Adcox - 'Does Not Love'

I read this book in less than a day. That itself doesn't mean it's a great book, but there are other reasons this is a great book.

Save for the fact that so much good stuff is coming out on Curbside Splendor and that apparently Adcox knows my fellow Front Psych warrior Keith Meatto, I was excited to read this book. Mostly because it got compared to Don DeLillo, whose White Noise I'd finally read a few months back and thought it was brilliant. This book does indeed carry a similar vein of storytelling, taking jabs at pharmaceutical corporations, contemporary domestic life, and is written with so many jumpcuts that Godard himself would get dizzy reading this book.

Most of the chapters are 1-3 pages, offering multiple glimpses into the two main characters lives, the married couple Viola and Robert. After their third miscarriage, their marriage is falling apart. While predictable Robert is accepting of the state of things, Viola wants change. And Robert isn't as predictable as Viola makes him out to be. And Viola may not be able to handle the change she so desires.

The pacing of this book is perfect. The brevity of the chapters make the book feel like a flash fiction collection of loosely related plots. There are bits of surreality, with ghosts and empty spaces that can talk back to Viola and Robert. Yet it's still rooted in just enough reality to make one think that pharmaceutical guinea pigs could be forming and underground society while an FBI agent is fucking the brains out of a woman with the intent to ruin one man's life.

Never convoluted, often funny, and always kept me wanting more. It's a shame this didn't end up on more year-end lists. A truly contemporary debut novel that shows a sharp, satirical wit that will hopefully only continue to cut.

1.18.2015

Hibernation

Experiment: Take six weeks off of work. Start date: January 19th, 2015.

Objective: Write.

Hypothesis: Failure. Complete and utter failure (in the most optimistic way possible).

Tools: Laptop. Pen. Paper. Various works of already written fiction. Brain.

Procedure:

  • Week One: Outside of any emergencies, avoid all social contact. Avoid the news. Sleep a lot. Sleep very little. Writing above all else, even eating. No entertainment, except reading fiction, which is still work. No Twitter. No Facebook. No Netflix. No Groupon. No Skype. No Instagram. No Grubhub. No Spotif...who am I kidding, I'm keeping Spotify, but rocking that private mode.
  • Week Two: Keep writing.
  • Week Three: Are you deaf? Just. Keep. Writing.
  • Week Four: Escape To NYC aka "Where's Waldo" but in Brooklyn. All the museums. All the Chinatowns. All the coffee. All the beer.
  • Week Five. Escape to DC.
  • Week Six: Recover.
  • Week Seven: Reality.

Outcome: ???

I've been thinking about doing this for awhile. The closer it came to actually pulling the plug, the more nervous I got to thinking that I made a really stupid decision. Now that it's finally here, I have to follow through and see what happens. Two recent tweets by two brilliant minds serendipitously boosted my confidence in my decision:

"I went to the woods becuase I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau (not currently on Twitter)

A couple people have compared this excursion of mine to Thoreau and Walden. It's not quite that intense (pretty sure he didn't have a laptop), and it's only a week as compared to two years. But a week without any human contact must seem pretty bizarre, unrealistic even, especially living in a city. But this is my woods. Sometimes, it's best to revert into oneself, especially for someone who makes it a point to explore these urban woods so entirely and enthusiastically. For now, I want to make writing the essential facts of life, to write deliberately, and to learn what it has to teach.

How does one define human contact? I will still probably keep up with the news. I'll still read books that others have written. I'll listen to music others have recorded. I might even send out an email or two. But as far as physically seeing, touching, or hearing the natural, unelectronically amplified vibrations of sound from another person's mouth, I'll have no contact with any of it.

I read advice for writers constantly. I read about the habits of famous writers. I read the tips from the woman who wrote 90,000 words in six weeks. Have a routine they say; don't have a routine say others. Have word goals. Don't have word goals. Frankly, I don't give a shit about any of it. There is no one way to write or to type. Even Henry Miller's advice is contradictory. I want to conflate writing and typing (Capote be damned). I want to type pages and pages of material that can eventually be sculpted into a final product. And there may never even be a final product. That's a risk I'm willing to take. That all of this could be for nothing.

I just quit working two jobs six days a week, but this will arguably be the hardest work I've ever had to do. Probably because I've told so damn many of you of my plans. Well, make no small plans right? So, bon nuit for now. Time to hibernate (and if you're still reading this far, you can probably bet on catching me at Yonatan Gat at the Empty Bottle on Feb 2nd).