Jack's Boys Trailer - Give it a look!

Jack's Boys was my second novel, and the first one that's worth reading. It's about the kids of a man who turns out to be the lost genius Beat poet of the sixties, and what happens when his poems are discovered and published.

It's set in a fictional version of White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Binghamton, New York, where I was living at the time, which was, oh God, twenty years ago. Holy cow that's a long time.

Yes, that is my voice you hear doing the voiceover. Sorry about that. Next book, I'm gonna kickstarter me some voice talent.

If you want a free eBook copy, just send me your email address and what brand reader you have - nook, kindle, or whatever, and I'll drop it in the email for you.

Or, if you have 3 bucks to spare, go buy it on Amazon (click here) and avoid the hassle of all that file copying nonsense.

Cheers!



PS: Also, you can download it in pdf, ePub or mobi format. Enjoy!

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Tournament of Books Review

Manhood, Football, the Media, and Cheerleaders

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain

Being one in a probably never-to-be-completed series on the Morning News Tournament of Books, scheduled to start in March

A squad of American soldiers deployed in Iraq find themselves national heroes, circa 2004. They were the victors of a brief, glorious firefight on the streets of Iraq that FoxNewsed them all to superstardom at a time when the national psyche could use a lift. So they return home on a 'victory tour' that includes adoring crowds, an over-promising agent offering a movie deal, and a semi-secret re-deployment to Iraq. Over the course of a single Thanksgiving Day, this novel unfolds in and around the confines of one of America's great secular cathedrals - old Texas stadium, during a football game between the Cowboys and the Bears.

From that brief run-down you can probably figure out that this book is a perfect storm of male jock culture,  military life, and a satire of American war-frenzy disguised as patriotism. It's a long, crazy trip with a dozen balls in the air, and Ben Fountain masterfully guides us through the whole thing. I'm kind of speechless at his accomplishment, really.


Last June, when I read this book, it easily held the coveted spot of Grebmar's Book of the Year for about two weeks. At that point I'd read some underwhelming things, and this one came across as heartfelt, richly imagined and executed, and amazing all at the same time. It's still in my top two or three, of course. But:

By the next week, a few flaws began to tarnish the award: 1) The cheerleader, Faison, is a typical male-genre fantasy woman, under-developed in character, existing mainly, to validate Billy's manhood and to offer herself as sexual salvation. 2) the owner of the Cowboys, a strange alternate of the real-life owner, is smarmily one-dimensional, as are, come to think of it, any characters not named Billy Lynn. 3) The end is actually quite good, though a single weird random act of cinematic wtf violence seemed completely unnecessary.

As I said, this was one of my favorite books of the year. Now, in the Tournament of Books, it faces a single elimination against two other Middle-East War on Terror books (neither of which I've read), and just from eyeballing, Billy Lynn faces an uphill battle to move on.

Tournament of Books 2013: The quick and dirty rundown

The Morning News recently announced the final list for their annual Tournament of Books, the only award where the judging is transparent and competition is nearly literal. This year, eighteen books will be entered into a playoff-style bracket, and each matchup will be judged by a celebrity reviewer whose only mission is to determine which book should advance to the next round. In the most general sense, that means which book is better, but in the Tournament of Books, as in most competitions, better does not necessarily mean advancement.

You can check out the entire list with summaries and links on my Goodreads page here. I'll be reposting reviews of books I've read here in the days approaching the tournament, and as soon as the brackets are announced I will make my semi-annual Uninformed Predictions. Although this year I've read a remarkable five books in the field, more than double last year's total.

Okay, let's take a thumbnail look at the shortlist: Books with stars (*) are ones I've read.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn *
A brilliant thriller, well written but a bit shaggy, with an end I found to be a bit tidy and disappointing.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green *
Two precocious cancer teens team up to fight the injustice and horror show that is Cancer.

Arcadia by Lauren Groff *
A minor disappointment. Hippies who grow up and try to stay hippies during the end of the civilized world.

HHhH by Laurent Binet 
Something to do with Nazis, World War II, and an assassination attempt.

The Round House by Louise Erdrich 
None of my attempts to read Erdrich have ended well.

How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti 
"... is a novel of many identities: an autobiography of the mind, a postmodern self-help book, and a fictionalized portrait of the..." zzzzzzz ... zzzzzz .... zzzz 

May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes 
A.M. Homes is creepy and disturbing, but not in a way that makes me want to read her books.

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson 
This novel is set in Korea, where I've lived for two years, and I've only just now heard of it. My shame can only be excused by my illogical disdain for titles that use the template of "The X's [family member]." I will promptly shortlist this novel.

Ivyland by Miles Klee
Dark satiric sci-fi in a near-future dystopia? Sign me up!

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel 
Part 2 of an epic medieval saga. On my longer list of "Books I should want to read."

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Iliad fan-fic from Patroclus's point of view. He and Achilles were lovers. Tragedy ensues. *Sigh*

Dear Life by Alice Munro 
Like seeing your elementary school teacher in the grocery store, it's always a surprise to find out Alice Munro exists outside The New Yorker and Best American Short Stories. Like, for instance, she has her own books! Amazing.

Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
The Family Road Trip goes to Antarctica. Why not?

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter *
My pre-tournament favorite. Perhaps the best book I read last year.

Building Stories by Chris Ware
Graphic Novel by a media darling. I'm nodding knowingly.

The sixteenth spot will be filled by the surviovor of a Pre-Tournament Playoff Round. All of these books are about America's citizen soldiers fighting the Afghan/Iraq adventure. A shame they have to come home and face more bloodshed in the Tournament of Books, but as they say, the Rooster demands blood. They are:

Fobbit by David Abrams
War as seen from the command center well behind the fighting.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain *
War as seen from soldiers home on leave, as heroes, at Dallas Cowboy Stadium, Thanksgiving Day. A frickin' riot. I loved this book.

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
War as seen on the ground, by soldiers living and dying in combat.

Well, stay tuned for more! The tournament itself starts in March, but happy reading to those of you who enjoy it as much as I do.

Book Review: The Fault in our Stars, by John Green

The Fault in our Stars, by John Green: 

Moody, precocious Cancer Teens team up to fight hypocrisy, search out the meaning of the universe, converse with an utterly fallible God stand-in, and fall in love. Tragedy inevitably strikes. 

Much of this novel's success lies in its adherence to an emerging sub-cliche of cancer struggle, which is that the uber-cliche of cancer victims as stoic hero-fighters is itself an unrealistic bullshit tripe intended to solace those who don't have cancer. The feedback loop of heroic anti-heroes works pretty well, however, mainly due to the earnestness of Green's overall plot and prose, and only if your bullshit meter is properly calibrated for "Teen Fiction." 

Sure, The Fault in Our Stars is often overly clever. Sure, it's cloyingly romantic, and it's often manipulative in a way that its own heroes would cynically disdain. But none of that kept a certain middle-aged curmudgeon from tearing up a couple of times. You've been warned.

The new Man of Steel Trailer breakdown

A close reading of the new Man of Steel (Or, as I call it, Superman) Trailer.

Intro: Serious, somber music. Those of you hoping for a fun superhero movie, keep waiting.

:18 seconds
Some guy is floating kind of like Jesus, or Tom Hanks in Castaway.

:22
Whiny kid with agorophobia cries to mom for help. Mom enables his fear.

:25
Pencil bouquet. A blackboard. I'm getting flashbacks to college calculus. Will this movie assign me homework?

:40
Waves on rocks. Nothing says Superman more than waves on rocks.

:45
Guy looks guilty for saving a school bus from a lake. Wait, what?

More ominous black-screen transitions.

:50
Dad gives Clark a hard time for saving a school bus full of kids. Dad is not an enabler.

:59
Bearded guy with a faraway look in his eyes. Sort of a macho Bon Iver.

1:12
S stamp available at fine stamp stores everywhere.

1:19
A cape sighting on an ice flow. Music continues to be somber and joyless. I remember when superhero movies used to be fun. Like last summer.

Superman punches a mountain, flies really fast.

Dad is still preachy. Mom's advice to "Make things small" apparently meant nothing, as Superman is now in space.

1:50
Montage! Generic flames, a villain-like person. Maybe it's dad, come to teach Clark a lesson for saving that school bus full of kids. People running from explosions like every movie ever made.

Superman in handcuffs. Stop me before I save more lives!

Macho Bon Iver lifts something heavy.

2:00
Christopher Nolan's name solemnly invoked. So that's where the fun went...

2:30
Overstylized S, as if it were simple people would wonder where all the money went.

Fade to black.

No, seriously, this could be a good movie. Really, it could. It just looks a little serious. If I want serious, I'll go see Lincoln. So, I'm waiting with fingers crossed.

I found it while Deskwarming: Kimbra

I’m just this guy in Korea, I teach English for 20 hours a week but after that it’s a lot of sitting at a desk. I read, I work on my novels, I drift around the internet. They call it deskwarming, and it leads me to stuff I wouldn’t normally get into, like New Zealand pop.

So that’s why I’m really grooving to Kimbra right now. Kimbra’s from New Zealand, and is most well known for being the woman in that song by Gotye, Someone that I Used to Know. I think that’s how I found her, actually. Somehow, I thought she was a New Zealand Katy Perry, but that’s really not accurate. Sure she’s into costumes and dramatic videos, but her vocal range is more extensive, and her songwriting more sophisticated. She’s more of a soul singer, but with a huge techno edge, and she likes to toy with loops and repeats a lot. kind of a KT Tunstall meets Adele meets, um, nobody.

My favorite song has been Cameo Lover, an upbeat tune that sounds like love song, until you read the lyrics. Then you see it’s about a girl singing to an emotionally stunted if not crippled man. “You stay inside that bubble / With all of your trouble / In your black hole / You turn from the skies / You dance with your demise / I'll be here when you come home.” Admittedly it’s not terribly poetic, but it’s a far cry from Katy Perry building a fort in a hotel room with her teenage dream. 

The video is catchy, a girl on a white background singing to a blindfolded guy, and as a metaphor for the darkness just under the techno-styled tween-throb production values, bitingly accurate. As the video progresses each of them is joined by more - Kimbra by women dancers who get tamborines and trombones, the man by other men at other desks in colorful suits, also blindfolded. At a certain point the calm beginning gives way to wild chaos of confetti and balloons. The men tap their neon fingernails and then, at the end of the song the man takes of his blindfold.

Maybe I’m just a sucker for some brands of fluffy pop, or maybe the older I get the louder my inner 12-year old girl can shout, but I wanted to stand and cheer. You get that man, Kimbra! You unleash that girl-power mojo and save his testosterone-crippled soul!

But the song itself - you think it’s just a pop thing, until you hear her do an acoustic cover. 

Just her and a guitar on a rooftop, and you get a sense of the songwriting chops and guitar skills of Kimbra Lee Johnson. These aren’t just chords - they’re jazz chords, with raised ninths and shit, and you watch as she power claws her way all over the neck of that poor Taylor guitar, as her lungs, strong as a blacksmith’s bellows, get a pilates-style workout, and you watch her giant crimson lips tossing huge chunks of sound across the city in the background. You listen along and pretty much see confetti and balloons by the end, then you realize it’s just her guitar and that voice - huge but intimate, a perfect instrument containing multitudes of moods and expression.

So yeah. That’s Kimbra. I think she’s pretty good. Other songs of hers worth a few minutes of your time would be Settle Down (Raise a child with me, raise a child with me), Good Intent, or Two Way Street.

Yeah so thanks for reading. Hit contact, throw me a note or something. Who's your favorite under-known she-pop star?

TwitterFiction: Further thoughts

Twitter – or at least my corner of it – has been abuzz with the hashtag #twitterfiction the past few days. I’ve seen this happen before. Every few months someone decides Twitter is a great place for fiction. It’s an idea that refuses to die but has never quite caught on, and I think is just about to get interesting.

*** Note this is an expansion of a previous post***

First, Let’s go through my list of knee-jerk rejections against Twitter fiction:

A) Who wants to try to sort out where the story is within the constant stream of other crap in your feed? This can be fixed by just monitoring the user's stream of course. But it’s worse, when the author tweets in multiple usernames, you have to follow by hashtag, which means any marketer or hopper-in can join the stream with their own 2 cents. But also then there's

B) you have to watch it in real time for the impact to work because

C) If you go to the story mid-broadcast you have to scroll all the way to the bottom to start reading, and who wants to read a story from the bottom up? Which means

E) What happens when it's two months from now and you want to re-read the story? Do you dig through your twitter feed? Go back to your favorites? And

F) How do you re-print it and retain any of the immediacy of the original broadcast? It would be like reading the script from a radio show. So, overall,

G) This puts way to much burden on the reader to figure out how to read the story on their own terms. It’s either catch-it or burn calories figuring how to catch up. We want stories, not Joycean puzzle-boxes to be tracked down and de-crypted for meaning.

Take “Around the world in 80 Hours” (#80hrs) With it, you get tweets like this: “Join us for the next chapter of Around the World in 80 Hours at 8.15pm AEDT (AU) / 9.15am GMT / 4am NYC #80hrs #twitterfiction” that make you go out to a time zone converter to figure out when you’re supposed to even tune in. And their website, that re-tells the story? A blog, with the start of the story at the bottom. So you go, read part one, scroll up to find part two, then up again to find part 3 – extremely counter-intuitive.

I guess all of this boils down to the simple fact that Twitter isn’t a book, or a magazine, or someplace where the linearity of the story at all approximates a book or magazine. It’s a new-stuff-at-the-top medium, and a reads-from the bottom medium, which is the exact opposite of traditional printed material, which starts at the top and reads down. Which is, like, duh on my part, but it’s a big hurdle for readers.

On the other end from the spectrum, heading into the realm of stuff that works, you have @FathomButterfly, the fake biography of a  “Notorious Beauty Queen, Showgirl, Hammer Horror Actress, Porn Star, Felon and Feminist Filmmaker,” who has begun tweeting her memoirs. It works, kind of, because memoirs are flashy and full of quips by design, and if you miss a few you can still enjoy it as a series of on-off entertainments.

But FB is also the sort of project designed to go beyond Twitter – FB’s creator, Josh Gosfield, has created posters and memorabilia for an entire  false career, and her presence threatens to spread across so many platforms – Wikipedia, twitter, facebook, that the creative impulse is less about narrative arc than about cross-platform culture jamming. To call her story “fiction” is to reduce it to just one element that makes it good. It’s as if Gosfield gets something about fiction on the internet that ohters don’t – the Internet is not about containing narratives to one website or medium anymore, it’s about spreading it into ubiquity.

None of which is to say TwitterFiction can’t catch on and be interesting. But for now it’s
kind of niche-y, and weird. And I’m kind of happy adapting to the new medium, I just don’t see myself glued to a monitor waiting for the next 140 bits of a story every minute or whatever. I’m busy during the day, and when I want to read I read books.

So, here’s how I see it working: Like I said before, if I leave it open on a hashtag, then I have to deal with all the tag-jammers who want to get their two cents in and try to sell me something. So we’re left with Twitter putting up a sandbox for the hashtag so only the author’s tweets get out to the reading stream, and nothing else.

And, if you want to read it later, we need a way for Twitter to re-tweet it on demand. Something with a pause and a bookmark, where you can set the tweet-speed. Something that maybe puts the new Tweets on the bottom so people can join at their leisure and read from the top. All these changes are a start. But then, of course, we’re not even talking about Twitter any more, are we?

I told you this was going to get interesting…