A Geography of Reading

"It is by reading novels, stories, and myths that we come to understand the world in which we live." -Orhan Pamuk

The Rich Landscape of Writing in Outerborough Blues

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What happens when an MFA writes genre fiction? With all the flack writing programs get for producing uniform voices, you might think the two are antithetical. But when Andrew Cotto used his MFA from The New School to write Outerborough Blues he brought the skills of a trained writer to the conventions of a mystery novel.

Because this literary/genre divide is sometimes fightin’ territory for writers from both camps, let’s get a couple of things out of the way first so you know where I’m coming from.

Do you need an MFA to write well?

Of course not. Everyone’s definition of good writing is different, but I believe to write well you need careful attention to the words that are your tools. Studying for an MFA gives you time to consider those tools and the effect to which you use them, but there are loads of great non-MFA writers and some of them (Jonathan Lethem is a favorite) could be considered genre writers.

What is genre fiction anyway?

The distinction between genre fiction and literary fiction usually breaks down to plot driven versus character driven. There are all kinds of genres (mystery, fantasy, science fiction) and I really don’t like to draw too many lines, but sometimes putting a name to something lends easy description.

The richness of Outerborough Blues

I can see Cotto’s MFA in this book in some very positive ways. These are a few things I do not expect to see (but am always grateful for) in a mystery novel.

Strong characters

If I told you the catalyst of the story is the moment a beautiful woman walks into the bar where Caesar Stiles works, I would not be doing this story justice. Stiles is no Bud White (especially not the film version) and he’s got a lot more on his mind than helping this moll. His relationships with his family and the other characters in the story are multifaceted and this gives the novel depth.

Strong sense of theme

The title “Outerborough Blues” has a subtle musical element that could be fleshed out or it could be left unexplored. Cotto develops the musical theme with “Slow, flowing progressions in a melancholy key” in two notable ways. One is the way the narrator overlays the sounds of the neighborhood with the music on his stereo. The second is the way the stories about his past relationships build like verses of a song.

Evocative sentences

A writer with control over his or her tools has the ability to set a scene with a very few words. Here are some of Cotto’s sentences that do just that:

  • “The lady in the liquor store sold me a fifth of whiskey and the landlord’s name without taking her eyes off the book she was reading.”
  • “My boot pulverized broken vials on the cracked sidewalk.”
  • One character describes the evolution of the neighborhood as “Milk and honey turned to malt liquor.”

Layered stories

Outerborough Blues tell several stories at once. This could be cacophonous, but Cotto gently layers the tales of family relationships, gentrification, and the mystery at hand that they become as inextricably linked as any real life. As the aspects of the story unfold over the reader, you are exposed to more and more aspects of the story and the community it takes place in. All in 200 pages.

Is there really a difference between genre and literary fiction?

Cotto reinforced for me something I learned while studying for my MFA at Goddard College (one of the MFA programs which prides itself on welcoming genre writers): good writing is not at all limited by genre. Some people want really well described characters. Some want fast, tight plots in rich worlds. Good writing happens in both camps and great writing blurs the lines between them. Cotto has done just that.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Outerborough Blues from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Sex and Death in the American Novel

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sex and death in the american novel - sarah martinez

I’ve been thinking a lot about bravery this week and about commitment to one’s art. It all started at the book launch party for Sex and Death in the American Novel. The book’s author, Sarah Martinez, had invited Maureen O’Donnell to perform a belly dance to the music of Marilyn Manson that had inspired Martinez while writing her novel. I thought it was going to be ridiculous. But then I watched O’Donnell dance. By committing fully to the dance and her character, she transformed from a tiny Goth girl with plastic horns into an arachnoid creature who kept the audience rapt.

The Artist’s Way

Sex and Death in the American Novel speaks to the myriad ways we come to and commit to our art and ultimately ourselves. Jasper is the wunderkind who was swept into the accepting arms of the writing world and never stopped for a moment to reflect. Tristan is the writer who could never get past his struggles. And Vivi did everything she could to avoid becoming a “Writer” only to find she had done just that. In Vivi’s case, all that she lacked was the acceptance of herself and of her gift.

Every artist I know is on a different path to the greatness within. None of them will achieve lasting fulfillment without that self-acceptance.

Martinez’s greatest success is disentangling the complex fabric of emotions each character is feeling. She understands the push-pull of shame and desire in art and love, and her characters strive to create the relationships that are right for them regardless of societal norms. And of course those norms are also what artists have to question and redefine on their way to personal greatness.

Explicit Content Ahead

The book follows Vivi’s struggle to be as strong and fulfilled as she can, and at times she seeks that fulfillment in sex. Martinez is not shy about describing those sexual encounters and she explores a wider range of erotic possibilities than many people will encounter in life.

One of the things I admired about this book is how Martinez conveyed both the physical and emotional complexities of a ménage à trois. She enticingly wrote the encounters between her characters so that the reader is able to experience—in vivid detail—even the most unfamiliar acts right along with Vivi. The play-by-play narration which can be too much in scenes of daily life lends itself perfectly to introducing the reader to a new world of possibilities.

Anyone who reads Fifty Shades of Grey and finds it misogynistic might enjoy the sex positive attitude in Sex and Death in the American Novel instead.

On Writing About (and Becoming) a Fulfilled Woman

I’ve been reading a lot about women and sexuality as I work on my next novel. A.S. Byatt taught me to love my body. Dorothy Allison helped me question my relationship with Feminism. And Slavenka Drakulić revealed for me new depths in the relationship between mother and daughter. In Sex and Death in the American Novel, Sarah Martinez showed me how to write fearlessly about subjects that terrify me. Each of these authors is giving me strength as I commit to writing the next book as bravely as I can.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Sex and Death in the American Novel from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Drakulić Decrypts the Language of Mothers and Daughters in Marble Skin

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Is there a relationship more complex than that between a mother and a daughter? Love and admiration mix ineffably with jealousy and resentment. Through the seemingly simple (but deeply layered) language of Marble Skin, Slavenka Drakulić unweaves the conflicts and emotions that estrange and entangle women.

A girl admires her mother’s body and yearns for the day when her own will blossom. If she becomes impatient with the slowness of her growth, jealousy of her mother’s womanliness can take root. The mother in turn becomes jealous of her daughter’s youth.

Drakulić’s narrator deftly slips through time as she expresses this love, admiration, and resentment for her mother. She outlines with equal complexity the feelings of a burgeoning adolescent for her stepfather and how his presence catalyzes the relationship between mother and daughter.

”We don’t have a body, we are a body” – Slavenka Drakulić

At the beginning of the book, the narrator is reflecting on an art show and a comment by a friend that her “sculptures of the female body seemed eaten away from the inside.” She begins sculpting her mother’s body. As she shapes breasts and thighs, she begins thinking of her mother’s body and of a scene she witnessed as a child.

The Primal Scene

Psychoanalysts talk about the primal scene when a child witnesses a sex act and it affects her view of sexuality for life. The narrator views a watches her stepfather in a sexual act with her mother in their marriage bed. It is an act this man will later reenact with the girl.

The way Drakulić crafts the scene, with a gentle allusion to Alice in Wonderland, the reader simultaneously experiences the dread of entering the room as an adult and the memory of the mother’s body splayed on the bed. Without revealing the later molestation, the reader is still left with the sense of a lurking secret. The sense of the small child within all of us.

What was most haunting about the book for me was that these are normal human emotions that I have experienced but never knew how to express. Drakulić split open her characters and subjected them to horrible things and their responses always returned to the common human reactions. Witnessing the girl’s devastation of sexuality helped me understand my own relationship with sexuality.

The Craft of Writing

It may be evident by the somewhat articulate nature of this post so far, but this book invaded my psyche in a way I can’t yet understand. The simple sentences expressed emotions I had been trying to unlock and explain for decades. The metaphors were gentle and expansive. The literary allusions were subtle and perfect.

”With this one sentence I emptied her out, like squeezing a tube of oil paint.” – Slavenka Drakulić

Drakulić emptied me out too. Her writing ate away at me from the inside. I’m putting the book aside until I can read it again. I think I can read and reread this book for decades and it will still have things to teach me about writing and about being a woman. That is the most beautiful feeling in the world.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Marble Skin from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

A Geography of Greece with Fuschia Phlox’s Return to the Aegean

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There are a myriad of things that make me fall in love with a story, but a strong setting has to be at the top of the list. A literary geography is comprised not just of the landscape where the story takes place but also of people their relationships with the location. Though Fuschia Phlox’s Return to the Aegean is well plotted, the rich characters and gorgeous setting are what captured my heart.

“There is such pleasure in taking from nature what wants to be taken.” – Fuschia Phlox

PHlox reaps the natural beauty of the Greek islands and sows it into the descriptions in this novel. From olive orchards to rocky shores, I wanted to move in with Thalia as she returns to the place she once called home. While Thalia explores the mysteries of her family’s past, the reader is treated to loving descriptions of Greek rituals of life and death.

I’m not always the most careful reader, but something about Phlox’s character descriptions makes it easy to differentiate between the large number of characters in the novel. The characters are believable and I found myself wanting to befriend Irini and Petros. I felt for Mina and I loved Sophia. Each new character seemed to have his or her place in the natural order of the island.

I appreciated that as wide as the focus of characters is, the narrative always returns to swimming and the sea. In fact, the gently insistent way Phlox consistently brings the book back to the theme reminds me of Anne Michaels.

Phlox has a knack for pacing. Each chapter leaves off with a gentle prod forward that kept me reading well past my bedtime. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything if I say the end unfolds like the denouement of a 19th century novel.

“You don’t listen until you are truly ready.” – Fuschia Phlox

This was my first experience reviewing a book from a PDF and the format affected the way I read the book. Because I am used to editing my own work onscreen, I found I had difficulty getting distance from this novel. As a result, I paid more attention to nitpicky things than I normally would when reading for pleasure. For example, the (albeit few) sentences that were overwritten really stuck with me. I also got hung up on the footnotes that defined the Greek words and kept thinking about editing context clues into the text instead. It seems I’m still a few years off from being ready to go the e-reader route.

Overall, I’d say that Return to the Aegean is the perfect mixture of a vacation book and a serious novel. You may think you are wholly engrossed with the mystery, but part of you will be checking flight times on the next plane to Greece.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Return to the Aegean from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Wideman Investigates West Philadelphia from the Outside

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Philadelphia Fire John Edgar WidemanIn the novel Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman, Cudjoe, has returned to Philadelphia to find answers about a horrific event that happened on Osage Avenue in 1985. By withholding the bare facts of the case, Wideman puts the reader alongside Cudjoe as he searches for information and insight in an insular neighborhood.

Interestingly, in the first half of the novel the narrator has significantly more information than he is coherently conveying to the reader. As does Cudjoe. The novel begins in a dense style where the reader is trying to gain some bearing of what’s going on. The language is richly descriptive, but there are few facts to ground the narrative so the reader floats through a phantasmagoria. The flap copy and title clearly refer to a fire, but the first sentence is, “On a day like this the big toe of Zivanias had failed him.” The action is taking place in Mykonos and the fire isn’t even mentioned until page 7 with the cryptic nursery rhyme, “Ladybug, Ladybug. Fly away home. Your house is on fire. Your children are burning.”  I wonder if the first few pages would have held my attention if I hadn’t known already about the fire.

Lost in the Smoke

The effect is dizzying. The reader is trying to gain ground and understand this horrible event. When Cudjoe reaches Philadelphia, fire-related details begin to seep into the narrative: “[h]er other names are smoke curling from smashed windowpanes of the house on Osage.” But the language is metaphoric and little concrete information is offered about the causes of the fire and why the police shot those escaping (the bare facts of this information are obtainable only from the second half of the book or the book’s jacket).

Stonewalling the Outsider

Cudjoe asks people all over West Philadelphia for their take on the fire and for information on the whereabouts of the boy who escaped. However, the people in the neighborhood know he has come back from outside and don’t want to rehash the story with him or with the reader peering in from outside (a reader is more than an abstract concept here; Cudjoe tells them he is writing a book).

When Cudjoe tries to insert himself into this world that he’d been away from, the inhabitants like Margaret Jones resist him: “[s]he knew he’d been away…and that distance bothered her.” She will give him vague anecdotes about the leader of MOVE but even less information on the boy, Simba. The reader feels the role of the outsider as well, Margaret Jones says, “[w]asn’t any trouble till people started coming at us” and Cudjoe and the reader are more people coming at them, disturbing the status quo, “[w]e’re not looking for help from you or nobody else…Somebody called himself helping is the one lit the fire.”

The Facts Seep In

Information is offered about the aftermath of the fire itself: “the boy was last seen naked skin melting…A sharpshooter on a roof…The last sighting reports the boy alone.” It is clear at this point in the narrative to Cudjoe but not the reader that there was a fire on Osage Avenue started to get rid of the group MOVE. Cudjoe and the reader know that the police shot at those escaping and that a boy was seen alive, but neither Cudjoe nor the reader know what happened to Simba. The reader is immersed in his quest, and every time Cudjoe approaches someone new the reader is as thirsty for information as Cudjoe is.

The Narrator as Outsider

It is an interesting premise to set a book inside a closed society. Usually, though, I would expect such a book to be narrated by someone who is inside the society and to gain a glimpse of the inside I would otherwise not see. Because this book is from the point of view of someone who is no longer in the fold, what I learned about West Philadelphia instead was how closed it is. It was much like seeing how tall the wall is rather than catching any clear glimpse of life beyond it.

The language was striking, but without facts to ground it, the words, e.g.: “it’s Technicolor high noon” became bricks in the wall separating me from this culture. I could see it and appreciate it but not truly understand what was going on inside. Wideman seems to be making the point that the actions of the police on that day are inexplicable but not unexpected to the inhabitants of West Philadelphia. As an outsider, I am left with an understanding of how different their world is from mine and reminded that there are never satisfactory answers in a case like the fire on Osage Avenue.

The Reader’s Expectations

What I learned from this novel is how easy it is to raise expectations for the reader. Humans (especially readers) are curious creatures and we are easily tantalized. In fact, I was so drawn in by the premise of this book that I allowed Wideman to illustrate for me the character of a neighborhood I wouldn’t have read about otherwise.

However, I felt unfulfilled at the end of the novel. I was hoping for some sort of redemption. I can accept the larger message that there is no redemption and no true comprehension of a case like this, but I still feel something missing. I don’t want to write too much with the expectations of a reader in mind, but I will keep it in the back of my mind as something to consider when I am revising.

My experience with this book was somewhat of a generational one. I’m told that the news events this book is based on made national news. I wonder if Wideman considered his audience’s familiarity with those events as he wrote the story.

Have you read this book? How did your knowledge (or lack of knowledge) about the fire affect your experience of it?

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Philadelphia Fire from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.