Woolf v. To move as rapidly as the speed of thought
Now I had too many ideas—some surprisingly close to the truth, some just utter madness—but they were all jumbled together, and my mind was woolfing too fast to stop and settle on just one.”—The Thieves of Manhattan
by Adam Langer
It may seem strange to say you fell in love with someone whose face you can barely remember, whose words you can hardly recall. But that’s sort of how it was for me—when I fell in love with a book, it was with one whose plot has almost completely faded from memory.
The year was 2001. I had just recently moved
Continue reading When We Fell In Love – Adam Langer
JC: Johnny needs no introduction around here. All About Lulu was one of the first novels 3G1B covered, and JE became one of the earliest friends of the blog, eventually becoming the fourth/third in our collaboration. If you haven’t yet coerced someone into giving you a galley of West of Here, get to work on it, or you could wait and buy one and put a few bucks in his pocket. He’s got rabbits to feed. Here’s his WWFIL.
I’ve never met Gina Frangello, and when we hooked up on Facebook we both wondered why were’nt already friends. Gina and I both write for The Nervous Breakdown, (her more than me) and her book Slut Lullabies has just been published by the independent label, Emergency Press. Gina is cool lady, and a great voice of of our generation, I know thats a bold statement, but check her out, she won’t disappoint. -JR
I didn’t meet Lindsay Hunter; so much as her fiction ran me over. She’s part of the Featherproof posse, and I’m partial to most everything that goes on over there. I asked Lindsay if she’d be interested in taking part in our When We Fell in Love essay and she jumped at the chance. In September of this year her first novel Daddy’s will be published by Featherproof Books.
JC: I was lucky enough to learn about Tatjana Soli’s new novel The Lotus Eaters through JE. All I can say is if you like your war novels with a heavy dose of influence by Graham Greene and Ernest Hemingway, then you shouldn’t miss this. It’s an astoundingly good book with cinematic flair and a gutsy recasting of the last days of Vietnam. More on The Lotus Eaters later. Here’s her WWFIL:
I’m sure that I was exposed to Hemingway in school, as a necessary and dreaded English assignment, but reading him left no impression other than he was a chore to be gotten through.
JE: A few words about Stacey Levine: Brilliant. Surprising. Unsettling. One of a kind. Check out her novel, Frances Johnson!
JR: I probably fell in love with Mr. Peanut around page 3, much earlier than I thought I would, when I noticed Adam Ross wasn’t there anymore, and it didn’t seem like writing to me. David Pepin wanted to kill his wife, I wanted him to kill his wife, and then I met his wife, and I really wanted to kill her, but I was only on page 3. At this point I noticed the seamless language and how brilliant it was to read. If you don’t believe me, read the first three pages. Then I didn’t realize how much I’d like David Pepin until he wasn’t around, and Ross introduced me
DH: Brad Watson can write with anti-matter. In his stories, like the ones in Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives which I have been reviewing on TG1B, he can spin alternative worlds where his characters are supported and loved, alternative dimensions where they find the self-esteem they have been looking for.
JR: I wasn’t sold on Elliot Allagash when it arrived on my doorstep; I even looked at the cover and thought, “what the fuck does that say?” So I waited a few days and then picked it up, and holy shit was I blown away. While I finish the book (I’m reading it now) you can read this wonderful essay from Simon Rich, the author of Elliot Allagash. When I was growing up my father cut the cord off the television set and carried it around in his pocket, and allowed me one hour of television a week, which I saved for Miami Vice. My review of Elliot Allagash will arrive on the
JC: By now you should have heard about Sam Munson. His first novel The November Criminals is on sale this week and deserves your attention. It’s the story of drug peddling high school senior Addison Schact, investigating the murder of a classmate encumbered by his (not) girlfriend and . It’s awkwardly funny and appropriately cynical, with the expected echoes of Holden Caulfield. Check back tomorrow for a review and a chance to win one of five copies. Here’s Sam’s version of When We Fell In Love:
JC: Yesterday, I wrote about John McNally’s fun new novel After The Workshop. Here he is again, talking about the books that made him reader and a writer.
Jeffrey Rotter’s book jumped out at me in hardcover, when I saw it in the catalog six months before it was originally published. Then life got in the way, stacks grew taller, my son got potty trained, and I started another novel. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to read The Unknown Knowns. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, because it’s in trade paperback, at a great price, and he quotes Donald Rumsfeld, and I’d just like to say, through my experience, water is a tricky bastard, and relentless. -JR
DH: Derek Green came to my attention when three of my Facebook friends friended him on the same day. Who was this guy? A writer. I hastened over to Amazon to check him out and discovered his story collection, New World Order by the invaluable Autumn House Press. I was intrigued by the theme that holds the collection together: Americans working abroad in the new global order.
When We Fell In Love - Keith Dixon
When We Fell In Love - Lorraine Adams
When We Fell In Love - James P. Othmer
When We Fell In Love - Tom Rachman
When We Fell In Love - Emily St. John Mandel
Top 10 Posts