I’m not retired.
I know sometimes it might seem that way. I mostly walked away from social media late last year. I couldn’t get it up for the outrage of the day anymore. The newsletter only comes out once every two or three months. I am, let’s face it, a negligent blogger at best. The mercantile part of my soul worries me it might hurt future sales, to pull an internet vanishing act — but another part of me thinks the books always did more to promote my Twitter account than Twitter ever did to promote my books. I guess I’m going to let it ride.
Besides: time spent online is time I’m not spending reading and writing. And when it comes to my writing and my reading, I feel there’s not a moment to spare. King Sorrow won’t rewrite itself. I’ve got a new short story done (my second of the year) and it, too, needs a second, third, fourth, and fifth draft. (In case you’re wondering: it’s almost always five.) And the next novel is waiting in the wings… I was hoping to bang out the prologue before the month ends.
I did think it was worth taking a moment to provide proof of life. Still here, still working, still having fun. Fun with what, you were wondering? Why I’m so glad you asked! A few of my recent listening and book recommendations are listed below. Please, feel free to use the comments thread to share what’s getting you high these days.
“When you moved to Chicago, you were spinning out.
When you don’t know who you are, you fuck around and find out.”
Rock and Roll has never seemed healthier than it does here in the late winter of 2023. Boygenius’ The Record is shaping up to be a monster… one of those very rare cases where a supergroup deserves the name. They’ve got good company, though: check out the new one by The Inhalers, some of the latest tracks by the 1975, or anything by Sam Fender, the UK’s answer to Bruce Springsteen. For fans of big, melodic, anthemic tracks — the sort of music that wears its heart on its sleeve — these are the days.
Ten years ago, my brilliant editor, Jennifer Brehl, told me I’d love the novels of Willy Vlautin. I’m sorry it took a decade for me to listen to her. Don’t make my mistake and get started right now… perhaps with Lean on Pete, which broke my heart about six times in the space of two hundred pages. Not that I was surprised: The Night Always Comes, which was just about my favorite novel of 2022, did much the same to me.
Lean on Pete almost plays like All The Pretty Horses, transplanted to the bombed out industrial wastelands of 21st century America. I guess Cormac McCarthy is the more important writer — I doubt Willy Vlautin has a novel in him like Blood Meridian — but I’ll tell you what. McCarthy never lets you forget you’re reading a Great American Novelist. He reminds you with every line of dialogue that doesn’t employ quotation marks and with every vocabulary word lifted from the text of the Old Testament. That’s fine. It’s a style. But when you read a Willy Vlautin novel, the author entirely disappears. He never gets between you and the story. The language is as transparent as new made glass. I appreciate that… and aspire to it.
Anyway, I got to Lean on Pete just in time, because my brother’s ingenious and irresistible new novel, The Curator, was so good it left me with a book hangover. (Everyone knows the only cure for a book hangover is to read another good book) Speaking of Owen’s new one, did you see the amazing review The Curator nabbed from the NYTimes? Good news: no more waiting, the novel is out now. Go on and get yourself a copy.
That’s it — that’s what’s been lifting me up lately. And you?