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Hello readers and welcome to what would have been the final installment of this part of the Reading List. As stated last time, my intent was to finish up with a non-fiction title. However I have since learned that the author was forced to resign in disgrace several years ago due to a sexual assault investigation. In the interest of standing with survivors of sexual assault, I will not be posting about this book.
This is unfortunate but does coincide with my plan to put the Reading List on hiatus for a while (at least a few months, possibly the rest of the year). What began as an initial experiment for this blog turned into a yearly series, and as I wrote in my final “reflections” post, will be ongoing for my career. Few other things have taught me so much about how to write and about my blind spots as an author. This fits in with an overall withdrawal that I will post on next month as I take some needed time away from my writing career. Thanks to everyone who has read this blog for the past half-decade. The Reading List will return (eventually). jA
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Hello readers and welcome to the penultimate installment of this leg of the Reading List. (ICYMI: As I stated in the final “reflections” post, this will be an ongoing series for the rest of my career.) I am continuing the genre detours and am now heading back to a few kinds I haven’t gotten to in a while. First up is Chris Ware’s 2000 graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth.
First serialized in the Chicago alt-weekly Newcity and his own Acme Novelty Library, Ware’s genre-defining work was collected as a book by Pantheon and went on to win several major awards after publication. I have been reading graphic novels for a long time now but haven’t gotten to many classics of the form until the last few years. I feel I can state Jimmy Corrigan was quite possibly the best I’ve ever read. I have never encountered such a graphic work that blends story, thematic elements, palette and setting to tell such an engrossing tale. The book centers around an autobiographical protagonist of Ware (Jimmy). But the story follows far more than just this character as Ware weaves a rich backstory of both the history of Chicago and the Corrigan family within it. A minor complaint I had (being an addled almost forty-year-old man) was that in some of the 19th century parts the cursive handwriting could be difficult to read even with my new glasses. But therein lies the draw, as small works very well for Ware through the panels, most of which use tiny lettering to paint a rich conversation among the expansive setting panels. There are also a few ludicrous craft pages that are hilarious and worth the effort to scour for detail. Overall the artwork makes this book a true masterpiece of its era. The narrative deals with some heavy and important issues such as loneliness, depression, and racism in some quite profound ways. I would recommend it as one of the greatest examples of the form. I am looking forward to reading more of Ware’s work. Next I am taking a final stop into a different type of non-fiction book (*gasp*) I haven’t read in years: the “how to write” category. This will also finally be my first Graywolf title, Ron Carlson Writes a Story. Thanks for joining me on this reading journey. Hello readers and welcome to this installment of the Reading List. (ICYMI: As I stated in the final “reflections” post, this will be an ongoing series for the rest of my career.) Starting out this year will be a continuation of the genre detours I have established over the last few months, and last time I looked at a very interesting poetry anthology. As promised I am now going in a completely new direction, reading a (according to The Wikipedia) “young adult coming-of-age epistolary novel,” Stephen Chbosky’s 1999 book The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
This isn’t exactly an unknown title, being made into a quite successful film by Chbosky in 2012 (and the original impetus for my wanting to read the book), but I had forgotten in the intervening years how much the story is similar to my first novel from North Star Press. Before I get too deep into the comparisons I must say Chbosky wrote a far superior book and I’m glad he got the accolades. I also think he made a good call in using the epistolary form (something I tried to do with a diary) to tell the story as it allowed for a very intimate look into the main character’s life. Also (somewhat *trigger warning* if you need that) there is an incredible and sad revelation about abuse at the very end of the novel that made me think about how to layer in such an impactful moment and have it resonate. Regarding those similarities, major themes in common would be (*spoiler* for my book, I guess?): suicide, drug use, and being an outcast (albeit a more religious way in my novel). But striking more to the core of it, despite the turgid anger of my Twitter feed these days, I was like Charlie for most of my life. Observing people rather than “participating,” trying to be someone I was not, and in general feeling sensitive toward the world rather than being active in it. I tried to wrangle all those things (much more a part of me in high school) for Our Senior Year along with some of the other crises I was facing in my “real” life at the time circa 2013. This “young adult” novel, despite a few quibbles of my own, does an incredible job of displaying what it is like to navigate this type of world and make it. I wish Chbosky had focused the narrative a bit more on the “major” themes, but even that’s pretty personal. I also was a lot more repressed about homosexuality growing up and perhaps that understanding continues to limit me. That being said, growing up believing I needed to be a bigoted jerk about it does explain why in the novel (and played so freakin’ well in the film by Ezra Miller) Patrick needs to be careful with his identity. For those people in my own high school who felt that type of loathing from me, I know it’s far too late, but I am sorry. Up next I’m switching over to a genre I haven’t returned to in a few years, the graphic novel. To wit, one of the utter ground-breaking classics of the genre: Chris Ware’s 2000 opus Jimmy Corrigan. (FYI the text is very small and a recent trip to the eye doctor confirmed my continuing addled decomposition, so this one might take a while.) Thanks for reading and following my work. -ja Hello readers and welcome to this installment of the Reading List. As I stated in my final “reflections” post, this will just be an ongoing series for the rest of my career. Starting out this year will be a continuation of the genre detours I have established over the last few months. As promised, the first book is this twentieth century lyrical work by Edgar Lee Masters.
This was a collection my wife has recommended to me for years and I thought it would be another good look at a different way to use language. The anthology is made up of cemetery epitaphs, some connected and some philosophical, that tell the story of the residents in the fictional town of Spoon River. The epitaphs are connected through stories and lives, and while most connect page to page others take longer to understand. At the end is an epic, Homeric type poem entitled “The Spooniad” that brings together many of the intertwining tales. I thought this was a great read, and took my time with it. I would sit with ten to twenty of these epitaphs per session and think about them as they revealed similar mystery and passions that roiled any small Midwestern town over the last century. I kept being drawn to my own memories of fall and how little everything seems to change, even as it does. Some of the best epitaphs reveal hidden secrets behind everyday occurrences or the unvarnished truths about life. And while the overarching story concerning the pillars of the community (bank and church etc) collapsing due to corruption carries over and wrecks plenty of people, not all let the moral backwardness of the town rule their lives. I would definitely recommend this collection for anyone looking to understand both the weird history of this country, but also those wanting to see how to tell a story in a different format. I would suggest checking out a stage version as well; this video I found on the series of You-Tubes has some great performances. Up next I am going to wind even farther away from my normal patterns, yet reading a book I have been interested in for a long time: Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a young adult novel published (*adjusts spectacles*) over twenty years ago. Thanks for joining me on this reading adventure, and stay healthy out there. Hello and congratulations for making it through the first year of this decade. And while most of us would prefer not to think about 2020 ever again, it seems 2021 is off to an even more rocky start. My long-time readers know what to expect from me at this juncture, and I decided to do one final reading reflection on the year before I continue this series as long as I can.
Readers also know by now this is a “revamped” list (focusing less on old white dudes) that also pivots to more genres. Toward the start of 2020 I wrapped up my tour (for now) of “mainstream” science fiction works and then started back with more contemporary female voices. I finished up the year with another “detour into drama” and just managed to jam the first poetry collection on the list. I was laid off from my bookstore job in March, eliminating most of my non-fiction reading time. But I still managed to get to one: Aldous Huxley’s 1954 work The Doors of Perception. All told I read through eleven books this year (far lower than usual, but then again it was 2020). I also got some posts done in a few other series throughout the year. I managed to get parts four and five of my “How to Write a Book” series posted, and did another entry in the “Writing Life” series during the height of the unrest last summer. And came back to the series on Netflix, doing a post on the incredible Orange is the New Black (I also read the memoir, technically making that book number twelve for the year). I don’t have much else to add other than to say thanks for reading my work on this here website for over five years. Most of the posts going forward will be divided into these series categories. I have a few other ideas regarding sourcing I’m figuring out, but I will be focusing on these categories. Thanks again for reading and have a great new year. Hello readers and welcome to the final installment of the 2020 Reading List. I am pivoting through genres (last time taking my second dramatic detour) and decided on a poetry collection for my final book. In this case Scott Edward Anderson’s 2018 collection Dwelling: An Ecopoem. As the subtitle indicates, this was much more than just a group of poems and I found a lot of philosophical and environmental considerations laced throughout the work.
Claiming to be “in conversation with” Martin Heidegger’s essay “Building Dwelling Thinking,” the first half is a series of connected poems that look at those concepts. As I am a complete ignoramus in the realm of poetry, I was blown away by the excellent uses of language and figurative imagery to conjure the many ways humans have taken ourselves out of “nature” despite being a part of it ourselves. Through long poetic ruminations on housing (“dwelling”) and what it means in the larger picture of life, Anderson shows us how we can find our way back. Many of the poems I had to ponder on my own about how it affected and contrasted my own work. I found the second half (“Some Questions of Dwelling”) just as enjoyable, as through a bunch of short essays Anderson details his philosophical arguments, both about Heidegger’s questionable history but also how his concept of “dwelling” fits in with our own modern age. There was a ton to ponder on how the urban landscape could change, and I found the entire section to be a refreshing look at how our cities and neighborhoods could adapt to the coming climate shifts. Anderson has a voluminous amount of works cited that sum up many of the influences of this book. As a reader who is abominable when it comes to understanding poetry I am very glad I picked up this book. Poetry forces one to think in a much different way, and the way the sequence built into the multi-layered essays (as well as the definitions running along the bottom of each page) offered a viewpoint on a new way of being and thinking toward nature and the environment. I would recommend this collection for anyone interested in the future of humanity and how it might reincorporate with the planet. Thank you for joining me on another reading adventure as we navigated this horrendous year. As promised I will continue the varied genres into the new year, starting with a collection my wife has wanted me to read for years: Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology. Thanks as always for reading, and here’s hoping 2021 is (slightly?) better. Hello readers and welcome to this special installment of the 2020 Reading List. As I mentioned in the last post I am pivoting to other literary genres through the end of the year and beyond. This is a route I have taken before with dramas and a graphic novel, but have not yet expanded. For now I wanted to start off the genre escapades with another “detour” as before, looking at some of the best regarded plays from the twentieth century: The Glass Menagerie and Waiting for Godot
The Glass Menagerie. This was Tennessee Williams’s first stage work, produced in 1944. While it seems simple by his later standards, the thematic elements that would garner him major fame are all here, albeit with a bit smaller cast and setting. This was the author’s most autobiographical play, pulling from his own life as he struggled with desires to leave home and his later realizations about his sister’s lobotomy. This comes across as the narrator Tom discusses his needs with the audience and then demonstrates them in the brief scenes. Williams decided to leave in the screen instructions from the original production to give some visual clues at various interludes. While my wife and I have seen his better known works performed at the Guthrie over the years, having never read this play I found it to be just as compelling and thoughtful about the vagaries of life. Waiting for Godot. I decided to temper the angst of Williams with the absurdity of Beckett, reading his masterwork that premiered in 1953. This was without a doubt one of the most hilarious pieces I have read in a long while, and made me ponder the throughlines to the century’s later humorists, from Christopher Guest to Ricky Gervais. While you might be familiar with the overall thematic elements, if like me you have not encountered this work yet I would recommend it, as there is so much to interpret and enjoy. The dialogue alone rings with multiple meanings and concerns and elements that it’s hard to believe this is another work that accomplishes so much with just a few main characters. It was a true benchmark of comedic timing that has led to countless other references I have probably missed over my lifetime. While I would recommend either of these works, I would like to state that mixing up genres is becoming an essential part of my reading. As promised, I will be diverting more in the coming months. Up next will be a book of poetry, Scott Edward Anderson’s 2018 collection Dwelling. Thanks as always for joining me on this reading adventure, and have a good holiday. Hello readers and welcome to this installment of the 2020 Reading List. I am finishing another journey with contemporary female authors, last time poring through an interesting tale that threaded storytelling and magic. For my final book in this vein I decided to read a science fiction classic that I have wanted to get to for years: Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel Kindred. Given all that has occurred in my city this year I felt it was an important choice.
In a year of amazing reads, Kindred was the best one I have encountered. Described by some scholars as a “neo-slave narrative” this book is far more than just a science fiction or historical novel, but a deep examination of the country and its shape over the course of two centuries. The main character, a Black woman from 1976 California named Dana is sent back to 19th century east coast plantation country over the course of weeks that in fact take place over years in her actual life. She figures out she is meant to go back to save the life of the plantation owner’s son who will wind up being related to Dana in some pernicious ways over the years. This is just one paradox at the heart of this crucial examination of race relations and its hold over the national consciousness. While a lot of science fiction is driven by Butler’s kind of spare prose, I found her particular style conveyed this narrative in a powerful fashion. We get an up-close look at Dana’s interior thoughts as she experiences these trips back in time alone and with her white husband, who (*spoiler*) ends up getting trapped back in that time period for a portion of the novel. We get to see her inner anguish as a 20th century Black woman interrogating her own ancestry and the many ways slaves showed resistance to a horrendous, cruel and racist system of oppression. The larger stunner for me was continuing to set this book aside as I read it to think: just how much has changed in two hundred years? This was quite possibly the best science fiction novel I have read, and continues the preponderance of evidence that women own this genre just as much as (if not more than) the white men that are considered part of its founding. I would recommend this book in leaps and bounds over any other science fiction author of the era, as it will make you think about history and race in a lot of profound ways. Up next I will be winding down the 2020 Reading List with some genre detours the likes of which haven’t been seen here since (*checks archives*) the bad old days of 2018. First up will be two dramatic works, then I hope to hit one poetry collection and possibly a few others. Thanks for enduring this year along with me and reading my work. Hello readers and welcome to the fifth part of an ongoing series. It is my earnest attempt to document the process of composing a novel in the hopes that it may inspire others to do the same. While I think this series will be interesting to all readers, be aware that it is going to get pretty in depth into the writing process. (I also hope to gain further insight into how I come up with this stuff.)
(Note: Parts One, Two, and Four have followed my speculative dystopian manuscript Spheres of Influence. The epic Part Three covered my [stalled] office satire, Observe and Detach.) Feedback. This is an important part of the process that I had to force myself to do. After I sent the initial (shitty) first draft of Spheres to my editor Libby, one of her best pieces of advice was to find #beta readers to look through it. These would be people who might read similar books to what you’re producing and would have enough time to read a chapter of yours. And here’s the first bit of this advice: don’t ask too much of them. At this point I have been lucky enough to have a revolving cast of #beta readers, and while some have not been in full communication I am still confident they will get to it when they have time. My old college roommate Aric (he was the basis for a character in my *shameless plug* second novel Last Man on Campus) were willing to take a massive dive into each chapter and offer revisions. Try to widen your array of feedback partners so that you have a diverse skill set and readership type. I asked Aric a few questions about the SciFi genre, and that got him pushing me to consider this work more of a speculative dystopian thriller. I continued giving him chapters and he sent me even better feedback on the flow but also on the various themes, and some basic spelling and grammar I missed. If you can find a good #beta reader to have such back and forth discussions, hang onto them! My favorite piece of feedback from him so far: “...this is just so similar to what is happening that you can't put it down once you start.” Another #beta reader was Allan, a colleague from my old neighborhood board. He happened to be in a major city where a major event I riff on took place, and had some good real-world experience. Allan also urged me to call this a more “dystopian” book, and had some great thoughts on the initial themes. He also had thoughtful feedback on a specific piece of dialogue (again based on his own real experience) that worked so much better after I included his notes. This was another part of his response: “I don't really see this as science fiction since it's not that far in the future and warfare seems pretty conventional. I'd maybe call it a dystopian novel of what could happen if we continue down our current path.” I also want to shout-out my other #betas whose reading and feedback were important. Thanks to Josh for having many, many (many) rambling conversations over coffee about it first, and then being willing to read the first chapter as a reader. Thanks to Christie for even more conversations, but also getting started on her own work (and for giving me the chance to read it). Thanks to Karen, who has also read my first two books. Special thanks to Martin, who like my editor Libby also pored over an early (shitty) draft of this and gave me some great early feedback. I’m sure I am leaving out others who have conversed with me on this project, but that’s in favor of keeping your group wide. Back to Libby for a moment. This is another in a long line of advice that she has given me for years, but I was too ignorant to take it. I’m not going to claim I’m nailing it very well now, but I do understand why she implored me to have others read this manuscript. This is just another reason why she’s so good at what she does. So when should you start giving others a chance to look at your work? That’s a question only you can answer, but again I must stress once you decide it cast as wide a net as possible. If you can get feedback from readers and friends, you will go a long way toward formatting your manuscript in a way that it can gain larger interest. I now have some good ideas to put in my query letter when I get ready to pitch this to an agent. To that end, this post in the “How to Write a Book” series may be the last one for a while. It has always been about the process, but now that I am embarking on finding representation and publication I hope to document that as well. I hope you will continue to join me on this journey. Thanks for being readers. Hello readers and welcome to this installment of the 2020 Reading List. I am continuing the journey with more contemporary female authors, last time getting to a radical feminist I will never forget. Next I decided to take on Karen Russell’s 2010 Floridian ghost story Swamplandia! This was my first official foray into a work that has been labelled “magical realism” (although Russell doesn’t seem to consider it under any certain thematic area) and I found that aspect to be quite restrained and very well done.
This was an outstanding read for many reasons, but Russell’s use of description has to take the top prize. The Bigtree family of Swamplandia! was a creation of Russell’s from an earlier short story, and we see most of their lives from the perspective of thirteen year old protagonist Ava. This leads to spectacular passages of out-there swamp spaces and creatures that both are well written and fun to imagine. If I had to nitpick Russell does rely on the use of simile a bit much in some of these passages, but the prose was so good it didn’t jump out at me often. The other amazing part of the book was how the “magical” parts are blended into the storylines. We see young Ava’s journey with a mysterious guide into the “underworld” of the Ten Thousand Islands but also her older brother Kiwi as he navigates the ridiculous realities of the mainland in the wake of their mother’s death. And while we don’t get much of either their father the Chief or the middle child Ossie, there were plenty of reminiscent paragraphs that show them in various interesting ways. I did find the narrative got a little off track toward the end, and Russell works in a very dark turn of events that while understood in retrospect was rather stunning. There were little signals throughout the tale I realized were in fact guides for this later horror, and it made for an explosive way to end the tale. Overall I would have to say this book reminded me of Geek Love in some ways (family of performers gets broken up and the aftermath) and Russell’s characters have very intricate ways of seeing the weird worlds around them. This book was a joy to sit through and encouraged me to embrace a different way of conducting my reading for this list as I build out my career. Up next I’m getting to what feels like essential reading right now and a book I should have gotten to long ago: Octavia Butler’s landmark 1979 sci-fi tale Kindred. I hope to do some genre switching by the end of this year, and have some other ideas for next year as well. Hope you are all enduring 2020 in whatever ways you can, and thanks for reading. |
AuthorJohn Abraham is a published author and freelance journalist who lives in the Twin Cities with his wife Mary and their cat. He is writing a speculative dystopian novel and is seeking representation and a publisher. Archives
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