Our hero is obsessed with playing basketball, just better than everyone else. Pat Linehan has just been transferred into the program from a cross-town rival and he’s just a little bit bitter about it. Pat’s parents are less than driven, and this kind of low expectations home life gives us a glimpse into the mind of a boy that wants more, but just can’t get it.
The collision of these three books helped me make the leap from literary daydreaming to the conviction that I had to be a writer immediately. I’d already taken the MCAT, but I dropped my plans to apply to medical school. I started writing, or thinking about writing, every single day. It took me a long time to get my head screwed on straight, but I owe something of the past twenty years to the early lessons I absorbed from these three books.
The neat part about this book is the writers who talk about the short stories they love. I’m partial to Raymond Carver, and I’ve always loved the writing of David Means, who in this book talks about Carver’s story “Why Don’t You Dance”. It’s a great moment, as Carver was keen on capturing, about a man who is giving away his life, selling it on the front lawn. It was made into a great movie with Will Ferrell, and surprisingly Will embodied a lot of what I felt when I first read this story.
Soho Press has been kicking around my tiny little world for a while now. Their style is crime, simple as that. But wait; there is one little book that begs to be chosen first for a game of dodge ball, Paula Bomer’s debut novel, Nine Months. Back in the not too distant past she delivered a searing collection that cut right through all the bullshit of first collections and defiled the genre.
Lottie looks young for her age, 13 or 14. She’s worn the same glasses with thick black frames for years. You assume that those glasses are not flattering and that Lottie is too socially awkward, too much of a clumsy child, to get more fashionable lenses. Lottie wears her hair in pigtails. Lottie cries: “You’re not taking me seriously!” “Cries” is Hadley’s choice. You should never take someone seriously who says that. Hadley is undermining her character. Writer’s strategy. A fine one.
Since Khady has no friendly family member to talk to, there’s no true dialogue for most of this story. Only when she is trying to break out of her life do we hear a regular exchange of voices. By having Khady imprisoned within her own inner voice, Ndiaye makes you feel her isolation, as if the lines of text, along with Khady’s personality, were disappearing into a tiny hole in the page.
Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich
When We Fell In Love – Helen Sedwick
When We Fell In Love – Helen Sedwick
The Delivery Cut Download
Our Frail Blood by Peter Nathaniel Malae