I try hard to make sure Fine Print doesn't just focus on boy books, those tales of rugged adventure and corporate power and blustery alcoholics and blah-blah-blah. But because I am, well, a boy, this wanting to cover the spectrum can occasionally entail some nudging and picking up books that might not hold flash appeal since book covers unabashedly beckon to the target market while spurning others.
In my case, heredity and environment -- those fraternal twin devils of behavioral psychologists -- teamed up to insure a fair amount of literary unbias. I grew up with three sisters, in a time and place where the work was doled out in even portions. In the summer this meant hoeing the same number of rows of corn and tomatoes and parsnips and on and on. Sweating alongside my sisters as we scratched the earth under a mind-numbing sun, I learned that there is no job a boy can do that a girl can't.
But at night, when the work was done, most of the conversations did not involve me -- girls do talk, and about a lot of things that boys don't discuss (or perhaps it was just things that a younger brother wasn't allowed to hear). So I read. Long story short, I believe there's simply no difference in capabilities between men and women, although the communication styles vary widely. So to stay fair to all CityBeat readers, while Fine Print occasionally strains to reach across all subjects, reach I always will.
They Went Whistling: Women Wayfarers, Warriors, Runaways and Renegades by Barbara Holland is an entertaining wrap-up of famous and fierce women throughout time. It's a noble undertaking, and many of the vignettes are charming and inspiring. To finally learn the life story of Mary Harris Jones, aka Mother Jones, was long overdue after subscribing to the magazine named in her honor for over a decade. And there are literally a hundred more of these bios that will illuminate and inform.
The downside is that they are just short takes, since it's essentially impossible to do justice to two millennia of female history in 270 pages. But if you approach it as a sampling of hors d'oeuvres that will entice the appetite to search out more substantial fare on any specific notable female figure, it's a great book to dip into whenever time allows.
David Markson's Reader's Block is hard to define, and utterly spell-binding in all its dark and quirky ways. There really isn't a story here, nor even a main character in the traditional sense. But there is a consciousness spilling out and holding forth. It's like taking a peek inside the head of a wracked and tormented writer who rambles and rumbles through arts and letters. Very often, this nameless voice talks about the way authors and artists obsessed, worked, suffered and died in a single line, or at most a short paragraph, then jumps without transition to another fleeting thought or remembrance. For example:
"Gray's Elegy is 128 lines long. Gray spent seven years writing it.
"If forced to choose, Giacometti once said, he would rescue a cat from a burning building before a Rembrandt.
"Fighting with his wife, Paul Verlaine once threw their three-month-old son against a wall.
"Thumbed pages, read and read. Who has passed here before me?"
Once you get used to the form, it's like falling into a somber, twisted dream. As the fragments get less rooted, you grope to pin them together to establish some connection. Reader's Block is an electric, trippy book that will haunt you in a happy and haphazard way long after you've finished.
Wendell Berry has long been a favorite author, and his books should be in every home and library in America. Sadly, they're not.
Berry's quiet intelligence is amplified as he gathers his characters and storylines like sheaves of grain at harvest. He clearly tends to his task with care and affection, and in A Place on Earth he further establishes himself as a master. Accomplished in virtually every form -- poems, essays and novels -- Berry's reverence for nature and respect for his fellow man shines throughout. Advocate for the family farm, defender of small moments that give meaning to our lives, profiler of small-town America, his books are to be treasured, and re-read as often as possible.
The Pushcart Prize 2002 collection is a fine, fine showcase of voices, styles and wit. Bill Henderson, as editor and publisher, combs through the best of the small presses to select the highlights from hundreds of regional and literary journals so that you, as the readers, don't have to wade through the rest.
Over the years, what this series has always stirred is the feel of a intimate Jazz club, fabled yet retaining its avant-garde. Youngsters come here to develop their chops, while the veteran players drop by after hours, tired after headlining concerts at the big venues yet re-energized to explore new material and connect with an audience.
As a ticker for your shopping list, the first three are in paperback, and while Pushcart is in hardcover it's worth every penny for the days and nights of reading pleasure it will provide, plus you'll need the heavy-duty binding to hold up over the years.
If you enjoy reading Richard Ford and/or Susan Minot -- I'm an admirer of both -- it should be noted that they have new novels out: Multitude of Sins and Rapture, respectively. Authors of exquisite previous works, Minot's Monkeys is still one of the most powerful family novels I've ever read, and Ford's The Sportswriter/ Independence Day is the most impressive tale across two books focused on the same character (sorry Messrs. Roth and Updike).
In both of these new ones, it's clear what has driven them to the top of their generation's reading lists. Both fixate on exploring the travails of marital infidelity, which ultimately leaves the reader, while impressed by their skills, otherwise tired, sad, and slightly dirtied by the emotional wreckage.
Finally, for anyone who recalls last February's unreserved, over-the-top run-out-and-get-him-right-now endorsement of Jonathan Carroll but was put off by The Wooden Sea's hardcover price, well, it's now available in paperback, along with all his other amazing novels. Que fantastique. ©
