Three Guys One Book

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Dennis Haritou: Answer: The Publishers Are! Where have all the debut novels gone please? And why, when I scan pub catalogs, is every third or fourth book a memoir? Our friend James Frey, who supported us by twice promising to give us an interview, has thus far failed to do so. But I suspect the reason for this procrastination is he too busy writing another memoir. (Actually, I wish he would write another memoir but that’s another story.)

The memoir has largely supplanted the first novel in publishers’ affections as a drop dead money maker. Despite Oprah’s outrage over perceived misstatements in Mr. Frey’s book, the truth is that the general public loves the memoir. The casual reader wants a “true story”

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Continue reading "Hell Was Full So I Came Back."

Dennis Haritou: The Three Guys like to interview the writers we discuss whenever possible. In this case, however, I had been participating in the NEA big international read by reading Naguib Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs which I enjoyed very much. So it was very fortunate that I have been able to secure an interview with the mummy of Naguib Mahfouz through extraordinary means. Mahfouz has, of course, passed beyond our horizon. And whether you believe in an afterlife or not, it is certainly the case that he is in a better place. After examining the notes that I took at this interview, I was struck by how consistent Mahfouz’s views were with those that he expressed in his

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We’re always trying to bring short fiction to the blog and whenever we have talked about certain writers and their books we always ask for a short story. This is the second short story we’ve had that concerns baseball. We hope you enjoy it, and thank you Darin for sending it our way.

A True StoryBy Darin StraussMy grandmother’s father played for the Brooklyn Kings before the team found the name by which you know them: the Dodgers. He was their first baseman. That was the legend I grew up on, anyway. It was the crack of the 20th century. Manny Joseph, the only Jewish King, got razzed during away games. Catchers would mutter “kike” and worse when my great-grandfather

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Jason Rice: The Great Man by Kate Christensen has just arrived in trade paperback from Anchor Books and along with it a landslide of praise, and its the winner of the Pen Faulkner Award. I know we’re a little behind the curve on this particular title but I thought it was an important book for us to talk about here on the blog. I’ve been an admirer of this authors work for some time, and was especially repulsed by her novel Jeremy Thrane, repulsed in a good way, sickened but I couldn’t look away. It’s always interesting to see how writers take on the art

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