Fictionaut Blog

What Would Keith Richards Do? by Jessica West is released this week, featuring “daily affirmations from a Rock and Roll Survivor.”

Ben Greenman’s Please Step Back, the story of a funk-rock star in the sixties and seventies, comes out next week. Adrienne Day profiles Ben for Time Out New York, and Largehearted Boy presents an original Swamp Dogg song inspired by the book. Ben will be reading at Book Soup in Los Angeles on April 29.

Frigg’s microfiction issue is packed with Fictionauts, with work by Randall Brown, Kim Chinquee, Lydia Copeland, Kathy Fish, Scott Garson, Barry Graham, Tiff Holland, Mary Miller, Jennifer Pieroni, Meg Pokrass, and Joseph Young.

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James Robison’s stories have appeared in the New Yorker and the Mississippi Review, and his first collection was awarded a Whiting Grant. His novel, The Illustrator, won a Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His story “Mars” is on Fictionaut.

When I say I teach writing, I’m still and often challenged by even the nicest civilians, and asked if such is possible. The question sharking under the surface here is, “Can anyone make anyone into a major artist?” with the attached sub-query, “And if not, why are colleges wasting time with this?”

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“Kafka wrote that a book must be the axe to the frozen sea inside us. Ginnah Howard’s astonishing debut novel, Night Navigation, is just such an axe: sharp and fierce, enlivening and enlightening. Howard’s gripping tale of a mother who can’t stop saving the very son who can’t be saved lays bare the marrow of familial love–its messy desperation and its stubborn, enduring beauty.” So says Maud Casey, author of Genealogy and The Shape of Things To Come.

According to Kirkus, Night Navigation “takes us into the deranged, darkly humorous world of the addict—from break-your-arm-dealers, to boot-camp rehabs, to Rumi-spouting NA sponsors.” Ginnah posted the opening chapter to Fictionaut. Her official website is GinnahHoward.com.

Previously:

• Fictionauts at Large, 4/15
• Interview with Frederick Barthelme
• Fictionaut Five: Jedediah Berry

The Collectors, the new chapbook by Matt Bell, is now available for preorder from Caketrain. Deb Olin Unferth says: “Matt Bell’s lifesick pair, Langley and Homer, shell-shocked under a pile of newspapers, are disquieting, hilarious, and—in that strange way that makes Beckett’s and Kafka’s characters so urgent—entirely recognizable. Bell has written a beauty.” An excerpt called “How They Were Found and Who They Were That Found Them” is up on Fictionaut.

Terese Svoboda blogs about love, war, and Southern Sudanese song at The Millions.

Novellas! At John Madera’s blog, scores of writers list their favorites, including Nick Antosca, Ken Baumann, Blake Butler, Brandon Scott Gorrell, Jim Hanas, Shane Jones, Sean Lovelace, Josh Maday, Cooper Renner, Matthew Simmons, Matt Bell, Timothy Gager, Molly Gaudry, Michael Kimball, Michael Martone, and David Shields.

Previously:

• Interview with Frederick Barthelme
• Fictionaut Five: Jedediah Berry
• Fictionauts at Large, 4/4

Waveland, set on the Katrina-ravaged Mississippi Coast, is Frederick Barthelme’s first novel since Elroy Nights, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and a New York Times Notable Book. Booklist says: “In this powerfully atmospheric story of loneliness and risk, Barthelme slyly conceals emotional and philosophical intensity beneath the peculiarity of circumstance, the dazzle of hilarious repartee, and the luster of gorgeous prose.” Read more….

Previously:

• Fictionaut Five: Jedediah Berry
• Fictionauts at Large, 4/4
• David Shields: Reality Hunger

Jedediah Berry’s “distinctively surreal whodunit” (SF Chronicle) The Manual of Detection has earned him comparisons with Franz Kafka, Ray Bradbury, Jorge Louis Borges, and Terry Gilliam. Kirkus called it “a boldly inventive deconstruction of Cartesian metaphysics, the criminal-justice system and the well-oiled detective story,” and Sarah Weinman wrote “I succumbed to the whimsy and wonder of what was inside…. Fall down the rabbit holes. Search for the missing alarm clocks. And prepare to expand your mind even a smidgen.” Read more…

Recently: Fictionauts at Large, David Shields: Reality Hunger

Victoria Lancelotta’s story “The Anniversary Trip,” which originally appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of the Gettysburg Review, will be included in Best American Short Stories 2009, edited by Alice Sebold.

Steve Silberman in the Shambhala Sun: “Keith and I weren’t planning on starting a gay marriage revolution, outraging the religious right, or even committing a noble act of civil disobedience. We just loved each other a lot.”

“Daring and often exquisitely tender:” Robin Romm in the New York Times Book Review on Kevin Wilson’s debut story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, now available from HarperPerennial.

Interview talks to Richard Nash about leaving Soft Skull Books: “I felt like I could more usefully participate in the future of publishing outside than inside.”

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David Shields is the author of ten books, including New York Times bestseller The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead, the PEN/Revson Award winner Remote, and the forthcoming Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. David sent the following essay for the Fictionaut blog.

The police in Milpitas, CA, are going to make arrests in this case because someone video-phoned the fight and then uploaded it on YouTube. At the 2:42 mark, the video moves inside the Vietnamese restaurant. You can see how quickly things get out of control.

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